Family wedding at Headlands Center for the Arts | Bay Area wedding

Headlands Center for the Arts indie wedding in Marin

Ashley + Justin’s wedding doesn’t follow a specific formula and that’s exactly what we love about it. The venue, the Headlands Center for the Arts in the Bay Area, is so incredibly unique, their style is wild and untamed, and their guests were all involved in the celebration. Basically, they were 100% right in dubbing it a ‘ festival of love’. Hear their story, with Alison Yin Photography behind the lens and Be Hitched as their planner, below:

Ashley says, Right in our backyard we have the most magical playground. It’s filled with delicious, earthy scents, playful textures, colors and all of our favorite activities from lawn games to hiking and surfing. The Marin Headlands represent our life together and we wanted all of our loved ones to experience it with us, to feel what we feel, surrounded by this incredible natural beauty.

Their floral designer friend, Evermore Flowers, captured their spirit in the wild designs throughout. The bouquet recipe: creamy, aromatic peonies, billowy poofs of burgundy smokebush, playful but elegant ‘Hinomaru’ cosmos, moody, caramel toned ‘Koko Loko’ roses, white spires of veronica, both Queen Anne’s Lace and artemisia californica, which you can find dotting the hillsides surrounding the venue, spiral eucalyptus, grevillea, nigella pods, poppy pods, and white pincushion flower.

We pushed hard to make this an unconventional wedding. To have it be ours and not a product of tradition, overly formal or stuffy. But we also wanted to make sure that the ceremony conveyed the significance of the journey we were about to embark on. Our officiant, my very best friend and a dear part of the family, knows us so well that she accomplished the most personal, meaningful and spiritual ceremony we could have imagined. Always able to command the room with grace, she captured our histories, hopes and dreams with the perfect mix of laughter, tears and appreciation from the guests.

Ashley and Justin met at an SF startup, talked all the time, and then parted ways. Years later, they reconnected on their surf boards in Ocean Beach and the stars aligned. They definitely wanted to incorporate a bit of that magic into their dreamy field ceremony.

Did we mention the surprise brass band, Brass Monkey Brass Band, that led the guests into the ceremony and then surprised them again with Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing as they played along with their tambourines during the exit? So fun, and one of the many festive elements that made their 120 friends and fam feel part of the celebration.

They love that the Marin Headlands is where the mountains meet the sea, so they tried to convey that in their design too.

Family style meals will always be our fave.

You’d never know it but the venue’s construction was actually delayed and not finished in time for the big day. Justin and Ashley’s dad ended up covering up the construction fencing with canvas and décor. The crew was also about to mow the lawn when our groom came to the rescue and asked them to leave it untouched…