Their Wedding Day: Sea Bright, NJ

Ahh, this boho beachy micro wedding was truly one for the books! It was the perfect celebration of Lauren and Brian’s unique and romantic love story and such a great way to close out the summer! I always love working alongside the Copper and Chloe x Magnolia Events dream team! They created the most magical boho arrangements between florals and decor for their intimate micro wedding! Lauren and Brian were such a blast from minute one of their wedding day – I loved how relaxed they both were and how ready they were to let the celebrations begin! They had a whole weekend of festivities planned with different groups of loved ones – this celebration with their close family was the first of 4 they had ahead of them! I loved that Brian thoughtfully put together a table display of gifts for Lauren – one for each day of their weekend! He captured all of her favorites in the array of gifts from Harry Potter to Tequila and lots of Tiffany’s boxes!

What I loved about their day was how paired down it was to just the necessities! It was their closest loved ones, their love, and plenty of food and drinks to go around. Their ceremony was quick yet so romantic, their first dance felt like they were the only two people in the room, and their portraits were wildly fun as we chased the sunset on the rooftop! It was such a stunning day from details to cake cutting, and I loved every minute getting to celebrate their marriage with them!

Their Love Story

Lauren told me all about their love story! She said, “I’m pretty sure Brian and I belong in a teen movie or romantic comedy somewhere. Our story is unusual but I love it. We met back in college about 10 years ago. We immediately clicked and became attached at the hip. However, since I’m a year older and was graduating in a few months, we decided not to make anything official of it. Over the last 10 years, he has become my closest friend and my other half. Only one little issue, we still never dated… At the start of this year, we both decided to finally cut through the BS and make this thing official. Within the same week, I became his girlfriend and moved in (along with our two dogs and cat). And then comes COVID…we essentially went from being best friends to being forced to spend every waking moment together for the last 5 months. After the first month, I think we both knew this was it, heck I think I knew this was it back in college. But after 5 months of dating and 9 years of being his best friend, he made it official and asked me to be his wife. Our relationship is untraditional so naturally, our wedding will be too!” Chills anyone?! I love that their relationship is built so deeply on friendship first! <3

When it came to their proposal story, nontraditional was still at the forefront! At the time when Lauren told me all about it, they actually weren’t technically engaged! Here’s what she said, “Since you now know how nontraditional we already are, it should be no shock that our engagement is a little non-traditional as well. Soooo we are not technically engaged yet. Because of COVID, Brian is having my ring custom made (still no idea what it looks like) and waiting for it to come in. Basically, he has me on high alert every day for the last few weeks never knowing when the actual proposal is going to come. He actually tried to plan the whole small wedding on his own and was going to surprise me with the plan (he knows I’m the most indecisive person in the world and hate making decisions so having someone plan everything out for me is my dream). He realized he was going to have to get me involved so I can line up family, a dress, flowers etc. But the thought of him going through the effort of trying to plan everything for me made me melt. So now we are basically on full-on wedding planning mode, just waiting for the technical engagement.” A few weeks later, I saw on Instagram that Brian got the ring and proposed!! 🙂

They love going to one of the local restaurants on the water and after dinner and some drinks, they will usually take the rest of their wine and walk over the bridge to the beach. She told me, “Somehow, without fail it has become almost a tradition that no matter how dressed up we may be, we jump in the ocean at the end of the night. I”m a huge baby when it comes to getting wet/being cold but this is my one exception. Afterwards, there is usually always a mad dash of the two of us racing each other home to try to beat the other one into the shower to warm up. It’s become such a stupid tradition but it’s my favorite. I’ve already told him I have every intention of doing that on our wedding night as well :)” How cute are they?!

Lauren & Brian,

It’s so clear how comfortable you two are together – when you look at each other it’s like nobody else exists. It’s such a beautiful love to witness and capture! I’m so humbled and honored that you chose me to be your wedding photographer! Thank you for being so much fun and up for all of my crazy ideas! Your wedding day was a boho beachy dream! Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Kohler!