We have a rather romantic wedding story that took place at Auberge Du Soleil, Napa Valley’s most panoramic-view wedding destination. The wedding of Gloria and Nick was sent to us from IQ Photo, and Nick shares his love story with Gloria.
Tell us about your relationship:
She is the boss..especially when it comes to food Happy wife = Happy life
We enjoy going out and eat together. Gloria usually picks out the restaurants, as she is very particular about the food she eats. If it is salty and spicy or involves shellfish (preferably raw), then those usually are the winners. We love to travel, watch movies and TV, and will occasionally play golf and go for long runs together.
Funny/special/unique episodes?
Before the proposal, I ordered the ring online from Blue Nile and had it delivered to my work. However, I had it shipped under my first name that I normally don’t use and it caused confusion at work. Blue Nile sent me an e-mail saying that the ring was delivered to my work, but when I checked with the mail room, they were not able to locate it! I called Blue Nile again, and they said someone at my work had signed for it, but the mail room didn’t have anyone of that name.
After a couple of more hours of worrying and fear, and back and forth with the mail room and Blue Nile, I finally got the tracking number and the mail room found the box in the “Suspense” section. Since there were a couple of other guys at my work with the same name, they weren’t sure who it was supposed to go to! Luckily, I was able to get it in time, as one of the other guys would have thought it was their lucky day.
How did he propose?
I asked my son if he had any ideas on proposing to Gloria, and he said that I should put the ring on one of our Nintendo Wii controllers and then ask her to play Super Mario Brothers with us. When she gets the controller, she will then see the ring and then I can ask her then to marry me. I thought this was a really cute and creative idea, but we decided to do something slightly different.
Gloria wasn’t feeling well on Saturday, June 22, 2013. She had a headache and was lying in bed for the most of the morning hoping to sleep it off. I woke her up around 11am and asked if she wanted to go for a walk to try and clear her head. Prior to that, I had shaved, which I normally don’t do on the weekend. She thought it was odd that I shaved, but it was just a quick, passing thought because of her headache.
As we walked outside, the temperature was about 90F, without any breeze. It was an abnormally warm day for Redwood Shores, which is usually breezy and cooler since we are right near the water. As we walked along the bay trail with my son and kicking the soccer ball around, I wanted to propose to her at a lookout area about a half mile from our house. As we were getting close to the lookout area, a jogger decided that he was going to run to that same lookout area, so I knew we would have to wait for him to leave before we went over there.
The guy then decides that he wants to do standing pushups against the railing there for the next 15 minutes! I don’t know what kind of results you can get from those types of pushups, but he would be better off doing those at home against a well. Finally, after he was done, we walked over there and really appreciated the views on this gorgeous day. My son and I were kicking the ball around and I asked him if this was a good spot. He said yes, and then turned around so I could do my thing.
I got on my knee as Gloria was looking elsewhere, and when she saw what I was doing, she thought I was doing a Yoga Crescent Pose that I do sometimes at home ;). When I brought out the ring from my pocket, she kept saying “No”, and started to cry. I asked her if she would marry me, and all I kept hearing was “No”. Luckily, the “No” was for cries of disbelief and joy, and she agreed to marry me!!!
Tell us about your perfect wedding:
It was such a perfect day in every sense. In the prior weekend, the temperatures up in Rutherford were over 100F. For our wedding, it was a comfortable 80F with a slight breeze at the time of the ceremony and cooled to about 70F in the later evening.
When I first saw Gloria that afternoon, I was awestruck by how revealing, yet beautiful her dress was! I felt like the luckiest guy in the world, yet wanted to cover her up at the same time because there was a lot of skin showing. She looked amazing!
As we exchanged vows and then rings, Gloria had a hard time getting the ring onto my finger! I had sprained my fingers playing basketball in the prior week, and the ring finger in particular was bit swollen. Luckily, after greasing it up and struggling a bit, she was finally able to get it on! That ring certainly was not about to come off anytime soon.
For our first dance, Gloria wanted to do something different, as she thought a typical slow dance would be boring. Thus, we practiced doing “The Hustle” and surprised everyone with a few Hustle moves ;). The song started out slow, and then Gloria pushed me out into the middle of the dance floor for me to Hustle. She then copied my moves and we did them in sync a couple of times before bringing some of the guests onto the dance floor with us. Soon, there were Hustlers all over the dance floor! The dinner at the Auberge was incredible and everyone enjoyed their meals.
Later on after dinner, my family surprised us by doing some dance performances. First, my cousins did a dance routine to “Cool It Now”, one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite groups: New Edition. Then, to our surprise, my parents, aunts and uncle did a routine to another New Edition classic: If It Isn’t Love. They followed that up with some toe tapping to the Tavares song: Heaven. For their encore, they brought out my 9-year old son Tyler, who lead them through an energized and hilarious “Gangnam Style”! We couldn’t stop laughing, as the older folks were trying to keep up with the moves of this 9-year old who didn’t stop moving! It was such a treat for all of us to see these dances, and the video footage we have will be part of our family relics forever :.
We continued dancing into the night with our friends and family, and the evening for Gloria and I ended with rose petals in the shape of a heart outside of our room at the Auberge.
Anything you would like to add?
Joseph and Mark from IQ Photo were fantastic photographers to work with the whole night! They were cool, personable, made us feel at ease during the event evening, and took some very artistic shots!
- Suppliers:
- Venue: Auberge du Soleil, California
- Photographer: IQ Photo
- Entertainment: Eloquence Strings
- Flowers: Tesoro
- Cake: Pastrychik
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