Oh my stars (literally!!!) This is what happens when you combine two souls destined for each other and all of their talented friends and family. I feel like I’m on cloud 9 just looking at this wedding! I also feel incredibly lucky to get to feature such an awesome celebration of love! Not only did one of my all time favorite photogs, Noa of Feather Love Photography, capture this “wedding of the cosmos” but there’s just so much love and music jam-packed (pun intended yuk yuk) into these 2 days. From the Flaming Lips sing-a-long to the rockin’ dance party, there’s nothing but smiles on the faces of the happy couple and their lucky guests.

Thank you Noa for sharing your thoughts and images with me…this is any photographer’s dream, and I’m glad everyone can live through your beautiful imagery! Hold onto your hats (or veils!) people because this is pure magic:

Day One

Firstly, the stunning bride is an actress, musician & event producer. She appears regularly in commercials, tv shows & films and will be starring in two feature films currently in production “Bonjour Nostradamus” & “The Golden Age”. Kestrin also plays cello & drums in indie rock band his Orchestra (great stuff!) & has toured locally & internationally with a number of bands. She produces the RVIP Lounge, an RV-based karaoke lounge that provides free late night drunken transportation at internet conferences & film festivals. Handsome groom Jonathan co-founded web startups Get Satisfaction and Rubyred Labs. He designed many of the core mobile applications for Yahoo and Vodafone, and probably worked on the phone that is in your pocket right now. He is currently the Principal Product Manager at Lookout Mobile Security, a startup working to keep mobile phones safe from viruses, hackers, and thieves. He co-create and drives the RVIP Lounge.

Kestrin with one of her best friends, the fabulous artist / actress / musician Sarah Carter. You may recognize her from TV shows such as Shark or Dirty Sexy Money, or a plethora of other work. But you MUST also listen to her very pretty music on her very pretty web site here.

Outside of the hotel waiting for our limo ride, the most amazing thing happened: Kestrin is a MAJOR star wars fan, in fact you can read all about how Kestrin & Jonathan met at Burning Man where she was wearing one of her “15 hand-made Jedi costumes and wielding a glowing Luke Skywalker replica light saber” in the NYT article, its awesome. So at this exact moment as we were getting into the limo- who should walk by but George Lucas himself! He was a guest at the hotel. Erin Schelcher (K & J’s friend, ceremony officiant, stylist & problem solver) said of this moment: “His silver hair and beard flew past like a flock of doves released in Kestrin’s honor. George was blessing the union, not with his words, but with his mere presence, and with it flowed the blessings of Han, Lea, Luke, and the entire Rebel Alliance.” Oh man, do I love these people. I was surrounded by intelligent, witty, cultured, creative & hilarious artists for 2 days straight!

Jonathan wore a black slim fitting Dolce & Gabbana suit, a white Burberry shirt, a not-too-shiny silver tie with ostrich-leather texture, and black oxford shoes by Prada. All are from Barney’s in Beverley Hills, CA.
This was Carmel River State Beach, the location for the family ceremony. Kestrin’s original wedding vision included 10 guests gathering in front of a particular rock on the beach near her Pebble Beach boarding school. When Jonathan pointed out that his immediate family included more than 20 people they agreed to expand to the parks-department-limit of 50.

The bouquet and corsages were constructed from Tillandsia air plants by Susie Nadler at Flora Grubb Gardens. Their dog Batgirl acted as ring bearer, wearing a Tillandsia and moss decorated harness. She was a real good sport in the limo rides as well.

There was a fresh cold wind that just added so much more intensity to the entire thing. Plus Paul Cartwright, friend & Kestrin’s band mate in his Orchestra played the most beautiful cover of “Do You Realize?” (Flaming Lips) and everyone sang along. The ceremony was repeated on day 2 for all their friends… more of that further down.

The bench where Jonathan proposed.
(I think this is my favorite series of photos, especially knowing that fact about the bench)

All the gorgeous centerpieces, bouquets, corsages, cake decor etc were created by Susie Nadler of Flora Grubb. (Susie also writes for Apartment Therapy)

I LOVE this precious little vintage green dress!! Made by Rebellion Dogs, Kestrin said: “It felt like I was wearing a ladybug tutu, an absolute dream.” She found it on a whim, just before the wedding, at Talun on Echo Park Blvd in LA.

Day Two

Day 2 started out at their hotel at the Palace Hotel, San Fransisco…beautiful.

So then we headed off to the Day 2 reception which was held at Flora Grubb Gardens in San Francisco, an exquisite plant and tree store run by Jonathan’s older sister. About 300 guests attended.

If you are a hardcore Big Love fan as I am (me too, Noa…me too!), then you’ll recognize Douglas Smith who was there with his lady friend. He plays in a band (his Orchestra) with Kestrin.

Each guest was given a yellow or saffron-colored flag that Kestrin hand-made in the weeks before the wedding. They created an aisle through the crowd, holding the flags aloft like a giant game of London Bridges.

Jonathan: “We expected it to feel like a processional of Tibetan monks in space, with gongs and gentle flag waving, but our guests had already had a few strong drinks by the time we started. They were, screaming, dancing, and waving the flags like they were inciting a revolution. It was way better than the monk thing.” Kestrin: “We had intended to make it mostly a party with a short set of toasts, but even our less intimate friends were asking for some ceremony. It was a little like my mom’s sentiment: I wasn’t going to have my friends drive all the way up from Los Angeles and give them some god damn boring speeches. We ended up making it a full second wedding.”

The couple stood on a “spinny-platform” that began turning slowly while they read their vows, and by the time they kissed they were spinning at a dizzying speed above a sea of waving flags.

Kestrin: “I strongly recommend any bride (or couple) with a clear vision to do exactly what they want to do and deviate from the plan as much as necessary in the 11th hour. All of my favorite interactive and simple elements came to me in my dreams (literally), just days before our wedding. If you have done your homework, are well organized (ie, the checks to vendors are already written), then you deserve to construct whatever last-minute fantasies you desire. If you want to spin in the air surrounded by your loved ones, it’s completely possible. Don’t let anyone tell you differently… but be very nice to them.”

My absolute favorite part of the entire ceremony was the readings. The couple is non-religious – he is a staunch atheist and she falls somewhere between agnostic and new age – so they looked to science and music to find inspiration and greater meaning for their ceremony. They read thoughts on the universe and love by Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Douglas Adams, Mark Twain, Buddha, and The Beatles, and combined the words and concepts into a few paragraphs that were read by friends and family at the ceremony and reception:

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. Our little planet floats like a mote of dust in the morning sky. All that you see, all that we can see, exploded out of a star billions of years ago, and the particles slowly arranged themselves into living things, including all of us. We are made of star stuff. We are the mechanism by which the universe can comprehend itself. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth. We should remain grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. The sum of all our evolution, our thinking and our accomplishments is love. A marriage makes two fractional lives a whole. It gives to two questioning natures a renewed reason for living. It brings a new gladness to the sunshine, and a new fragrance to the flowers, and new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life. Kestrin and Jonathan choose to enter this relationship before you, their community, and ask for your support and blessings.

Then they spun around as Paul Cartwright played a version of The Flaming Lips’ masterpiece “Do You Realize?” during the ceremony. Kestrin: “That song made me cry the first time I heard it, and the second time I had a vision of someone singing it at my wedding. ‘Do You Realize’ was part of the ceremony years before Jonathan and I had ever met.”

If you feel like listening to the original Flaming Lips version of this song whilst going through the photos, here’s a link to the audio on youtube. Just imagine EVERY SINGLE person singing this at the same time. It was so powerful & moving.

You can click this link to see a video clip online that one of the guests shot! It will give you a little idea of the magic in this moment!!! Kestrin & Jonathan’s ceremony video clip (video thanks to Mark Trammell)

And here’s the adorable Raviv Ullman, actor/musician/drummer for his Orchestra… he also DJ’d that night after the ceremony.

Jonathan: “We wanted to have so many things happening that nobody could possibly take everything in, and the legends would grow when guests later discussed the event.”

There were four bars. The main bar served standard mixed drinks and champagne. The venue has a full Ritual Coffee Roasters café where guests could simultaneously caffeinate and intoxicate with Ritual’s award winning coffee drinks spiked with top shelf liquor. A group of the couple’s Burning Man campmates ran a Parrot Bar (a variation on their legendary Pirate Bar) that served fresh squeezed grapefruit cocktails. The last bar was simply a jumbo size bottle of Patron and a line if shot glasses set on a vine-covered 1959 Edsel sedan that sits in a far corner of the store.

There was a make-your-own grilled cheese sandwich station, a photo booth, a pedal powered ferris wheel, a dada peepshow (where a whole cast of performers put on a show for two people at a time), a tiny tea party, a dance floor, and a karaoke lounge. As usual, the karaoke stage was the last thing standing at 4:00 am.

I know you’ve probably already seen this wedding around the world wide tiny web, but here’s an added bonus my sweet readers: the music!

Kestrin gave us a break down of how it jammed:

We had 4 sets:

1. cocktail hour, before the ceremony, we played swinging French 60’s pop songs (lots of Bardot & American songs covered in French in the 60’s- classic french covers of the stones, the who, etc.).

2. directly after the ceremony we played 60’s/70’s obscure funk & soul, which was incredible, as people continued to cocktail & slowly gear up for dancing. Some of the songs played:

“If This Aint Love” – Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators
“Oh Lord” – Mishal Moore
“Since You’ve Been Gone” – Aretha Franklin
“(Doin The) Boom Boom” – Eli “Paperboy” Reed & The True Loves
“This Land Is Your Land” – Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings
“Got To Have It” – Soul President

3. Our #1 party starter song was the remix of “combination pizza hut & taco bell”*, which led into some Dimitri from Paris-esque classics, Adam freeland’s “under control”, and a FEW select 80’s remixes & familiar dance hits from the 80’s, (but it certainly wasn’t an 80’s party).

4. Then we went into deep house/breaks and danced late

On My Mind (Bumper Mix) – Roland Klinkenberg
Funk Hit The Fan – Plump DJ’s
Pop Ya Cork Feat. Twista – Stanton Warriors
Test Tube Baby – Dismissed (Paul Rincon remix)
I Don’t Smoke – Deekline (Tim Healey Remix)
Glance – DJ Icey
Gangsta Luv – Snoop Dogg (Jaystro Remix)
Fresh Moves – Wi:Re
Yea – Mr. No Hands
Front 2 Back – Playgroup (Fatboy Slim remix)
Party Pushers feat. Mustafa Akbar – Fort Knox Five (Smalltown Romeo /Krafty Kuts redub)
Stitch – Twocker (Bass Kleph/Krafty Kuts redub)
Stick Up – Curtis B
I Am Sweet feat Pablo Decoder – Dylan Rhymes (Ctrl Z remix)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Slyde
Orgasm – Bayment Bross, idiotbox
Open the Jowls – Tipper

The DJ uploaded this playlist to soundcloud, so you can have a listen!

So yeah…simply put, love is fucking awesome!

*Holy crap you guys…I have been WAITING for the first wedding that would play some Das Racist! Not only is this the Ultimate Wedding of Awesomeness, but it pops the Das Racist cherry! Win/win and way to go Kestrin and Jonathan!

The Luckiest Photog in the World: Feather Love Photography