A Woodside Wedding: Lookin’ Good at Our First Look

When the limo pulled up to Sharon Park where we were doing our first look, I could see our primary photographer getting Mr. Cola into place over next to the pond. The limo driver came around and started to open the door for me, but I yelled “NO!” so he quickly slammed the door shut. Mr. C seeing me for the first time hauling myself ungracefully out of the limo in a big dress was not what I had in mind for our first look!

The photographer who had ridden over with me in the limo got out, made sure everyone and everything was in place, and then we finally let the limo driver open the door and help me out. I adjusted my dress, walked over to the pond, and got into place on a bench behind Mr. Cola. What follows are some of my favorite pictures of the day!

I had bustled my dress for our first look, in an attempt to keep it clean until our ceremony. But we all know that didn't work!
Time to sneak up on Mr. Cola!

My "trying not to giggle" face.

Guess who?

(Hey look, my DIY french manicure the night before turned out pretty good!)

Now, time to check each other out!

And go in for a hug! It felt so great to finally get to connect with him that day, knowing that very soon we'd be saying our vows and finally be husband and wife!

But wait, Mr. Cola hadn't seen all of my dress yet. A twirl was in order!

Apparently this is my "how do you like the rear view?" face!

Like so many have said before, I absolutely love that we did a first look, and was so glad we did it. Originally I'd wanted to go the more traditional route and wait until walking down the aisle to see each other for the first time, but that wasn't important to Mr. Cola, and it really worked out for the best. We had a whole hour after our first look for pictures in the park, which I'll share next, and were able to concentrate on the bridal party and family portraits after our ceremony. Those took almost our whole cocktail hour, so it's definitely good that we got this time in before the ceremony, or we would have had hardly any time for photos of just the two of us otherwise!

Overall, I highly recommend doing a first look if you can. It didn't take away from walking down the aisle at all, and it was so enjoyable to be able to take our time, hug and kiss, and spend some (mostly) alone time on our wedding day!

Now it's your turn to share, will you be doing a first look? Why or why not?

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time
- Our families met for the first time at our rehearsal dinner under the trees
- What went wrong on our wedding day, and my tips for future brides
- My bridesmaids and I got our hair and makeup done in the hotel suite
- I put on my wedding dress and became a bride
- The guys watched the World Cup, then got ready in 10 minutes
- Traffic delayed our decorations getting to the venue, and I almost ruined our first look

(All photos in this post were taken by the very talented photographers of Shoot Me Now Photography)

Stop (First) Looking At Me, Swan!

For some reason every time I hear the term "First Look" I always hear Adam Sandler saying "Stop looking at me, Swan!" in Billy Madison.

Anywho....

After much internal debate (and I say internal, because Mr. Cola didn't care), I/we decided that we would do the "first look," where we'd see each other all dressed up before the wedding ceremony, but stage it so it's still special. I had always really wanted to wait until I walked down the aisle for Mr. Cola to see me for the first time, but the benefits of doing it before the ceremony outweighed tradition. And also, Mr. Cola's teasing with, "Oh no, I looked at you!" and "Gee, I don't know if I want to look at you there...." kinda ruined the specialness and tradition of not seeing each other until the ceremony for me. It's apparently all silliness to him.


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So after making the decision to do bride and groom pictures before the ceremony, we had to find a suitable location. I didn't want to just do it in the hotel, I wanted someplace with a nice view/backdrop, and didn't want to do it at our ceremony location, so we'd have pictures at more than one location (especially important because we're not doing engagement pictures). Unfortunately my first choice, the Pulgas Water Temple was already reserved on our day. It is right on the way to the ceremony, reservable for 2 hours at a time for $150, and is just beautiful:

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So after a lot more searching, we narrowed it down to either San Mateo Central Park (near the hotel where we'll be getting ready) or Sharon Park (on the way to the ceremony location). We then set out to visit both locations (all pictures taken by me).

This is at the Tea Garden at San Mateo Central Park:


However, there were way too many people at the Tea Garden for us to feel comfortable taking pictures with.


Next we looked at the rose garden and gazebo in San Mateo Central Park. There were less people here than at the Tea Garden, but still quite a few around.


And the office building in the background wasn't very pretty either.


After checking out these two locations at San Mateo Central Park, we went and looked at the reservable picnic spots at the park for our rehearsal dinner, which turned out to be a huge disappointment (more on that in the next post). So we drove down to Menlo Park to look at First Look option two, Sharon Park, a small park in a quiet residential neighborhood.


We only saw about 6 people the entire time we were at this park, which was a huge plus. Neither of us are too excited about posing for photos with a bunch of strangers gawking at us! The park features a pretty little lake with a paved path around it (great for me to walk on with my high heels).


This vine covered gazebo would be a perfect location for our "first look".


And after doing the "first look" pictures, we can walk around the lake, taking different bridal photos along the way.



And maybe get some more fun shots of wildlife (sorry, just had to share this pic of the awesome dragonfly in front of the fountain!)




So there you have it, our first look location! I can't wait to see the pretty pictures we'll have around the little lake, followed by pictures in front of the redwoods and bay view up at our venue. This will be a great way to maximize our time after the ceremony for family pictures, and then we can get on to the cocktail hour!

I'm still working out the details of how we'll actually execute the first look, but I'm thinking Mr. Cola and one of our photogs will take a cab to the park, and then I'll follow in the limo with our second photog about 10 minutes later, and let the photographers do the coordinating of exactly where they want us to be. We can then do the rest of the pictures around the lake, and all take the limo up to the ceremony location together.

Will you be doing a "first look" or do you prefer the more traditional option of waiting until you walk down the aisle?