Real Wedding: Ashley & Colby

Today’s real wedding at the Estancia La Jolla is filled with childhood memories, desert inspiration, and a very special Dog of Honor.

Ashley and Colby met when they were 9 years old; his mom and her dad went to high school together and their grandmothers even bowled together! Both families spent many a summer traveling together, and once Ashley and Colby began dating, he moved in with her parents in San Diego, she moved to New York for graduate school, and they maintained a long distance relationship through it all.

Since the pair had spent all those family vacations together, many in desert landscapes, Colby decided to use one of those former trips as inspiration for his proposal. “He drove me up on top of a sand dune at sunset and got on one knee as our families watched from below,” Ashley says. “I was so excited and nervous I forgot to say yes.”

They wanted to bring that same feel to their wedding, and so in addition to desert hues and sand and brick accents, they incorporated succulents, manzanitas, and other desert flowers arranged by Natalie of Native Poppy. Her family even brought back sand from the desert for the occasion! “We really wanted guests to show up and think, ‘This is really Colby and Ashley’ and feel like they were hanging out with us at the desert but in San Diego.”

Check out their desert-inspired day: