First dance at blue hour.
Ashley and Graham met in elementary school. There was a crush, there were diary entries about it, and years later there was a wedding at Zadún, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Los Cabos. We were lucky enough to photograph and film it.
Zadún, is one of the most private luxury wedding venues in Los Cabos. It sits in Puerto Los Cabos, just outside San José del Cabo, where the Baja desert meets the Sea of Cortez. With its modern architecture, desert landscape and ocean views everywhere you look, a Zadún wedding feels both relaxed and refined.
Childhood sweethearts, a Cabo destination wedding
You can tell when two people have known each other forever. Ashley and Graham have a shorthand. A look is enough, and one of them is always making the other laugh. In one of our favorite frames from the day, Ashley is hiding her face behind her hand on the back of a golf cart, and Graham is just watching her and smiling. That photo pretty much sums them up.
They wrote their own vows by hand. With a story that started on a playground, they had plenty of material.
A Jewish wedding ceremony at Zadún
The ceremony was on the lawn overlooking the Sea of Cortez. Martha Lomelí Florals built a chuppah covered in roses and bougainvillea in pinks, corals and orange. There were more flowers along the aisle and bentwood chairs facing the water.
The Cabo sun is strong in the afternoon, so guests were handed white paper parasols on their way in. It was practical, and it looked beautiful against all the bright dresses.
Ashley wore a strapless gown with a pleated bodice, a dropped waist and a full textured skirt, along with a long veil. Graham wore a light blue suit and suede tassel loafers. Her bouquet matched the chuppah: peach, pink, yellow and orange, with amaranthus hanging over the edge.
Mariachi, then the hora
Right after the ceremony, a mariachi band walked them out. Ashley was laughing so hard she could barely keep walking.
Dinner was set at long wooden tables on the lawn, with cane chairs, gauzy white runners, scalloped plates on woven chargers and pillar candles in glass. The menus were bright pink, in Spanish and personalized with each guest’s name, which was a nice nod to Mexico. Arianna Ocampo Events and the rental teams at Yaya Rentals and Cristina G Rentals clearly thought about every detail, and the tables looked their best as the sky turned pink at sunset.
They had their first dance at blue hour with the ocean behind them. Later that night came the hora: both of them up on chairs, holding a napkin between them while their friends lifted them as high as they could.
The Last Page (for Now)
Before the ceremony, we spent a little time on the beach with Ashley barefoot in a short lace dress, and they spent most of it laughing at each other. Olga Bustos did Ashley’s makeup, and Wedscene was there capturing it all
By the end of the night, after the vows, the mariachi and the hora, it was hard to picture these two as the kids from that elementary school classroom. Then again, it’s easy to picture it too. Somewhere there’s a diary with a crush written in it, and this wedding is the best possible ending to that story. Or really, the start of the next chapter.
