Park Winters Wedding
We often travel outside of the San Francisco Bay Area to work at unique venues. This time, we were invited to document Angie and Scott’s wedding at Park Winters, in Winters, California. Park Winters is located 40 minutes west of Sacramento in Yolo County. The private estate features a Victorian Inn, which we used for Angie and Scott’s getting-ready portion. The venue also has a lush gardens, a modern barn, and views of Blue Ridge Mountain Range. We particularly enjoy weddings that do outdoor dinning and then having dancing indoors. We started the day with a traditional Chinese tea ceremony complete with door games, prayer, tea, and food before heading to Park Winters for the Western ceremony and festivities.
Venue: Park Winters, Winters, California
Coordinator: With Grace and Love Events
Photography: Inspired By Studio
Videography: Inspired By Studio
Hair and Makeup: Lisa’s Hair and Makeup, Orchid Duong
DJ: DJ Evensteven
Chinese tea ceremonies before the western wedding ceremony usually takes place early in the morning. The groom and his groomsmen arrived at the bride’s parents’ home and then performed various tasks, like singing, to buy their way into the home.
Meanwhile, the father of the bride, cooks up meals for all the guests at the tea ceremony. This is to be enjoyed after the tea ceremony is over.
After the bridesmaids approved of the groom’s completion of the door games, the brides father presents her in a formal exchange.
The bride and groom prayed to their ancestors and asked them for their blessings. The food and tea are blessed so that those in the afterlife can enjoy them as well.
During the tea ceremony, it is common for the bride and groom to receive gifts from their elders. The closer relatives can give jewelry, often gold. You can see Angie is heavily covered in gold bracelets. I think she’ll be set on gold for the year.
The bride and groom’s wedding invitations were perfectly themed for the kind of wedding they were going to have at Park Winters.
We really enjoyed the look and feel of the Victorian Inn at Park Winters. The bride’s wedding dress hung beautifully in the middle of the circling stairs.
<3 Jimmy Choo shoes for weddings. Need we say more!?
Our hearts melted when we saw that the flower girl, the bride’s niece, decided to help her with putting on her Jimmy Choos.
The bride and her father walking down the ceremony aisle at Park Winters.
Although the bride is the center of attention during the ceremony procession, capturing the groom’s reaction really ties in together the overall emotions of this moment.
The sweetheart table at Park Winters and this rustic feel for the wedding guest tables were perfect for the outdoor reception at Park Winters.
The lush gardens at Park Winters went perfect with a warm backlit golden hour sun.
This road is found just in front of Park Winters. There was no traffic at all during the evening, so it allowed us for some cute long-walks-on-the-beach type of shots. It also gave the bride and groom some time to get away on their own for a bit. Weddings can get tiring!
Park Winters also had a swimming pool. This was the large white door leading to it, which gave us an idea of doing something like a modern “Alice in Wonderland” scene.
We ended the night with the bridal party helping illuminate the bride and groom with sparklers for a sweet portrait.
