Grand Gimeno, Orange CA
Photography | Daniel – Perpixel Photography
Planning & Design | Cloud 29 Events
Coordinator | Sky Meadow Place
Florals | Milieu Florals
Make-up | E2Beauty
Catering | Jay’s Catering
MC/DJ | Prokreation Production
Cake | Sweetlee Made
Live Art | Chasing Linen
Eunice and Michael held their beautiful wedding ceremony and reception at the Grand Gimeno located in Orange, CA.
How did you two meet?
“I have lived in Southern California my entire life. I had joked with my friends and family for the past few years that I thought my future husband was not in California and that I may need to move out of state/country to find my husband. Hahaha… Mike drove cross-country to move to California for the beautiful beaches and better weather… little did he know that his future wife was here! He arrived to California 3 days before the Covid lockdown. We found love on Coffee Meets Bagel! 🙂 I had reactivated my account in 01/2021. Mike signed up for an account in 03/2021 and paid for a 6 month subscription. I was Mike’s first bagel that he thought was part of an app tutorial… haha! After a couple weeks of chatting on the app, we went on our first date. Mike wanted to take me to dinner for the first date, but I said no and preferred coffee first. One of the first things Mike said to me when we met were “You look cute” and “Can I give you a hug?” And at the end of our date, he had asked for my phone number. And here we are many dates later… Now, I jokingly ask Mike what took him so long to move to California. “
What was totally “you” about your wedding?
“Mike and I both LOVE food! We wanted to do something different from the typical plated steak or chicken dinner that guests are accustomed to eating at weddings. The Grand Gimeno has a built-in grill in the courtyard, along with a pizza oven! We wanted to be able to utilize the outdoor grill for the cocktail hour and the reception, so we built our menu based on that. Both of us love tacos, so we thought that freshly cooked and served tacos would be a great fit for our wedding menu! Jay’s catering offers a taco station that worked perfectly for us. Our guests were able to feast on tacos with tortillas handmade on the spot, along with freshly grilled el churrasco steak, pollo asado, and al pastor. All of our guests raved about how delicious all the food was. I am big on cohesion, especially when it comes to events, so instead of serving wedding cake as dessert, we decided on having paletas and churros for our guests to enjoy. This was a great and yummy way for us to provide a complete dinner experience for our guests. We also spent quite a bit of time curating a custom playlist of music for every part of our wedding day – pre-ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, and party music. It was definitely a great feeling to receive a lot of positive feedback from our guests about all the songs that were played that day and being asked to share our playlists with them.”
What was the biggest challenge?
“Mike and I are very different when it comes to aesthetics and style. He wanted our wedding to be as low-key and simple as possible. Ironically, as an event planner, I had never envisioned what my dream wedding would be like, but there were a few must-haves that I had always hoped to have at my wedding. A live band (specifically AMFM from Downbeat Agency), watercolor portraits, and the prettiest florals possible. I generally tend to a have a very simple/clean and modern aethestic when it comes to a lot of design elements. However, when it came to the design elements for our wedding, it was important to me that Mike liked everything that we decided on, so his thoughts and opinions were taken into consideration for a lot of the details. The biggest challenge was always trying to find a good balance of what was important to each of us and deciding on details that both of us agreed on.”
Most worthwhile splurge?
“Florals! As an event planner, Milieu Florals was a vendor that I had been wanting to work with for a very long time. I was so happy that Hannah was available to do our wedding! All the florals were STUNNING! And every single centerpiece was taken home by a guest. We didn’t even get to take one home. 😉 Watercolor Portraits! I think unique and spend-worthy favors are hard to come by. A lot of times, guests take home favors that become just another knick knack that gets forgotten about or thrown away. We wanted to give guests a unique experience of getting watercolor portraits done and be able to take something home that they can keep for a long time.”
Advice for future couples planning their wedding?
“Hire a wedding planner! As a planner, I always thought that planning my own wedding would be an easy feat. However, there were so many moments when I felt like the worst and most indecisive bride ever and wished I had more help and time. I had joked to Mike several times throughout the wedding planning process that I wished I could hire a planner!”
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