Surprise Sunnyvale Wedding

Take a look at how Eddie and Amy’s guests thought they were coming to their engagement party but they were really coming to witness this lovely couple begin the rest of their lives together!

This fun WeddingMix video was filmed by this lovely pair’s wedding party. The guests had a blast and and captured it all using their own cameras along with the WeddingMix app and rental cameras.

“Since we didn’t have a lot of space, and in an effort to keep things as casual as possible we opted to select a couple of people who we knew would help us capture the most important moments just as well as any professional videographer.”

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Real advice from the Bride & Groom!

1. What part of your wedding planning are you most proud of?

I think that we are the most proud of the fact that we were able to maintain our surprise for friends and family since that was the most important part for us. Because this is a second wedding for both of us, we really wanted things to be done as simply and casually a possible and we felt that having a surprise wedding would keep the pressure off of everyone. It was also important to us to have all of our kids involved.

2. Where did you get married?

We got married at a small restaurant in downtown Sunnyvale, CA called iL Postale.

3. Why was using WeddingMix appealing for your big day?

Since we didn’t have a lot of space, and in an effort to keep things as casual as possible we opted to select a couple of people who we knew would help us capture the most important moments just as well as any professional videographer. It was also another way to keep our costs down.

4. What were the most important moments that WeddingMix was able to capture on your special day?

Since we were having a surprise wedding and all of our guests just thought that they were coming for our engagement party, we really wanted to be able to capture their reactions when they learned about our surprise.

5. What is your top wedding budget tip(s)?

We were actually kind of lucky because my best friend uses our venue quite a lot for many of her business catering so we were able to get a very reasonable rate for the food and no extra cost for the using the whole place. We splurged on the open bar since we only had about 75 guests and because we opted for an early afternoon event (12-4pm) we were able to keep our event private since if fell before their dinner service and they weren’t normally open. We had a very close friend perform the ceremony for us which added a extra personal touch for us. I didn’t do the traditional dress, I chose to purchase off the rack (actually a bride’s maid dress) from Macy’s which made that part super affordable and simple.

We used Pinterest a lot for ideas and we were actually able to buy our stemless wine glass favors for 20% through an idea pin we saw. Having our wedding at a restaurant made decorations really easy since we didn’t need much, if anything at all. We chose to re-use some gold vases we had from a baby shower and used a single (fake) flower for each. Luckily we went this route because the day we got married happened to be the hottest day in Bay Area history!!

The only other things we did was a remembrance table with a sign and a vase of flowers and of course the dessert table. For the dessert table I bought a sequence table cloth on Amazon and some colorless glass serving plates and cups (for stacking). We only booked our photographer for 3 hours instead of 4 since we didn’t need him to follow us around the entire time. I do believe that not calling our event a “wedding” but rather a “party” saved us a bunch because the minute you use the word “wedding” the price immediately goes up 30-40%.

6. What was your budget?

I think after all was said and done we were able to keep things under $12K for our 70 guest event including the buffet lunch and open bar. We decided what our priorities were and that helped us determine where we would devote what portion of our budget towards. Most importantly, we tried not get caught up on the little things because in the end everyone typically remembers what they felt more than every little detail you didn’t want to miss and ended up stressing over.