Zenobia + Nick by Erin Marton Photography - Together Journal

We knew that we wanted our wedding to be a wedding weekend rather than just one single day.

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
Nick: “I’m originally from Michigan – the middle of the mitten. I come from a hard-working, blue-collar family. I attended Michigan State University, and I’ll readily admit that in season, I still allow their athletic success to dictate too much of my mood – Go Green! I’ve called Los Angeles my home for the past 12 years where I make a living as an actor, maître d’ and photographer. I love what I do and where I get to do it. I love my wife. I love our dogs. And I love our future child – we’ve got a little one on the way now, and I’m so excited to be a father.”

Zenobia: “I’m from Northern California. Specifically, the East Bay. I grew up loving fashion and swimming, both of which brought me to Savannah College of Art and Design after high school. Not too long after graduation, I moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the fashion industry as a designer. I now work as an apparel stylist for an LA based intimates brand. I love our dogs: Smokey (a 3 year old lab/border collie) and Bandit (a 13 year old toy poodle). I love travelling the world with my husband and we’ve gotten to see so many wonderful places together. I’d say we’re both fairly competitive and so I really like playing (and winning at) board games. And I’m also so excited about expanding our family and becoming parents for the first time!”

” Zenobia’s Mother, Rhonda wearing the original wedding gown”

How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?

Nick: “I met Zenobia about 15 years ago at my childhood home, actually! It was Thanksgiving. We were both sophomores at the time. My cousin happened to swim with her in college and this particular winter break she, along with a few other teammates, spent the holiday with my family in Michigan. I remember we sat across the table from each other, and I was smitten. So smitten that I had no idea what to say to her, so I didn’t say anything. I think she thought I was playing it cool or something, but I was just really nervous. I thought she was the most gorgeous and interesting woman I’d ever seen. Still do.”

Zenobia: Exactly, I remember seeing him over the table and thinking that he was so cute and had a great smile and laugh but knowing that he probably was not interested in me. Plus, he was my friend/ teammates cousin, so there was no way that was going to work out. Little did I know he would be my husband a decade and half later.

When did you first realize that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?

Nick: “Right away. But in a naive, daydreamy kind of way. But you know, when you don’t act on it, it just stays a daydream. I had a lot of growing up to do too. Years later after our original meeting, Zenobia moved to Los Angeles where I had already been living, and we became really close good friends over the following decade. It wasn’t so much that ‘that ship had sailed’, instead it was this blessing of knowing I had gained a close friend in real life, and I truly was content with that. Then, in 2021 we did a couple of day trips up to Big Bear Mountain to go snowboarding, and then we accidentally spent Valentine’s Day together – and from that point on, it was reality.”

Zenobia: I would agree. We spent so much time growing in our friendship that when we finally spend that valentines together and realized that there were still real feelings there, we already had such a strong base to build from. We had been hanging out and building memories together as friends for years.

Tell us about the vision you had for the mood and style of your wedding. (theme, key styling elements, florals, colour palettes etc.).

Zenobia: We knew right off the bat that we wanted to host our wedding in Palm Springs, CA. It was where we took our first vacation together back in 2021, and since then we have made a yearly pilgrimage out to the desert to relax for a long weekend or two in spring. Since our first trip Palm Springs, it has since held a special place in our hearts, and we wanted to share it with our all our friends and loved ones to celebrate our love. Palm Springs is a great mix of eccentric fun and awe-inspiring desert beauty, and we wanted our wedding aesthetic to mirror that duality. We settled on our venue first, which was Cree Estate. The hacienda-style home sits on two and half beautifully landscaped acres and lush plants fill the grounds of Historic Cree Estate with a of a variety of cacti, bougainvillea and orange trees. It has a relaxed, private atmosphere and the towering palm trees make it feel like the true oasis that it is, especially when you’re sitting beside one of the two pristine blue pools. We knew that we wanted our wedding to be a wedding weekend rather than just one single day; and the fact that we could stay Cree with our dogs + host our welcome party the day before, the reception on our wedding day, and our farewell brunch after the big day was perfect for us! The colors and textures of the estate, grounds and the beautiful San Jacinto mountains towering in the distance informed our color pallet which ended up bring a range of warm peach and sandy tones all grounded in deep dusty sage. For the flowers we were very inspired by Ikebana which is the Japanese art of flower arranging. It emphasizes creating a harmonious balance between nature and humanity using lines, form and color. To tie it all together we wanted the whole weekend to feel like we were hosting a big backyard wedding at our stunning estate with elements of nostalgia and sentimentality from both of our families. In true Earth, Wind & Fire fashion, Our wedding date was the be the 21^st of September! As a stylist, weaving all the different elements of our wedding came very naturally to me. I treated it like I would a work project, diving into Pinterest for inspiration images that reflected the ideas in my head; and creating what ended up being a 100 page+ google document full of mood boards for each element and I used to convey the vision to our wedding planner and all our wedding vendors. This document became the north star during the yearlong planning process and helped keep me, a well as everyone else involved aligned on the vision.

What styling and visual elements worked best for you? (could be things, the florals, particular hire products or your marquee etc., something the stylist created or simply just the scenic beauty of your location or the existing design of your venue).

Zenobia: To further bring in the elements of nostalgia and sentimentality, I knew that I wanted to feature a vintage silver tea service that was passed down to my mother from my grandmother, as well as set of bone China serving pieces that had been in my family for generations in the reception design. Additionally, we wanted to incorporate the cake toper from Nick’s grandparents wedding cake that had subsequently been used at many more weddings in his family, and the cake server and knife from Nick’s parents’ wedding. Lastly, we had a table of wedding photos from both of our parents’ weddings, as well as our grandparents, and in some cases, our great grandparents displayed in vintage frames to celebrate all of the generations of love that came before us. These family heirlooms and precious photographs helped bring an aspect of nostalgia and sentimentality to our celebration as well as including beloved family members into our special day that were no longer with us.

What did you enjoy most about the planning process and do you have any tips for couples starting their wedding planning journey?

Zenobia: I enjoyed so much about planning our wedding. From the beginning I knew that I wanted to take the lead on most of the design and styling of our wedding weekend and it was very important to me that I have all the creative freedom to get create the overall vision. However, I also knew I did not want to oversee executing all the logistical details involved with sourcing, set up and tear down of our event. In essence, I wanted to be the creative director, so I knew I needed a wedding planner to be my producer. We choose to work with Vision Events because they were well established in Palm Springs, had done events at our venue before, and could help connect us with vendors that would be the best fit for our event. There was an initial period where we all had to learn how to work together, but once we go through that, we were off to the races. The collaboration between Vision Events and us as a couple was so important and there had to be a lot of trust between us all. However, in the end, our wedding weekend would not have been what it was had it not been for the expertise and knowhow of Vision events. My advice to couples planning their wedding would be to pace yourself in the planning process, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Make sure that you and your fiancé are super aligned on all your wants and needs when working with a planner ahead of time as much as possible. Try not to sweat every tiny detail & have fun!! -It’s your wedding after all. Though the planning of it can be stressful and overwhelming at times, it truly goes by so fast and with any luck it will be the most beautiful and special day of your lives – I know it was for us.

Tell us about your main outfits, what was unique, is there a story?

Zenobia: About halfway through our 15-month engagement and wedding planning process, I realized I wanted to wear my mother’s wedding gown for our wedding ceremony. She had offered it to me very early on to do with it as I liked, and originally, I thought I might make it into a mini dress and wear it as a second look for our reception. However, as I tried on gown after gown at a variety of bridal boutiques across Southern California and failed to feel the magic of “the one”, it dawned on me that what I was looking for was already in my possession. My mother’s dress has always held a special place in my heart. I remember seeing my parents wedding pictures as a kid and thinking that my mother was the most beautiful woman on earth. That dress helped shape my understanding of beauty and sparked a passion for design and styling that is still with me today as a former designer and now apparel stylist. The night I tried on the gown that had been meticulously stored in in airtight box for 30+ years, something clicked in my brain, just like my mother before me, I knew it was the one for me. However, it needed some small tweaks to bring it from January 1988 to September 2025, and there was only one person I trusted help me with this undertaking. I took some mirror selfies and reached out to my good friend and former teammate from College – Megan Lawless, Founder and extremely talented Lead Designer of The Law Bridal. Thus began a 9-month design collaboration with my dear friend to create the wedding wardrobe of my dreams. My mother and I traveled with the gown to The Law’s design studio in the heart of Philadelphia where we proceeded to reimagine it for my wedding. We started by removing the sleeves to give me more arm mobility, completely reconstructed the bodice’ supporting structure and the skirts pleats to make it a bit more modern, changing the placement of silk flowers, adding some volume in the hips, and most importantly adding in a thigh high slip to save me from overheating in the desert heat. Over the next several months I made 2 more trips back to PA for fittings and consultations as we worked through the redesign of the gown. We also worked together to create 2 completely custom bridal looks, one for the rehearsal dinner, as well as a second look for the reception. Additionally, Megan also designed two looks for my mother, a rehearsal dinner look, and an absolutely stunning dress with 2 bodice different inserts to take her from ceremony to reception on my wedding day. As a stylist, I am no stranger to collaborating with other creatives but getting to work so closely with a friend on the wardrobe for my wedding day was truly a special experience. Megan brought so much love and care to the partnership not to mention a never-ending amount of expertise and knowhow, it was truly a match made in heaven. She even surprised me on my wedding day by working with my mom to secret to incorporate lace from my grandmothers wedding dress, which my mother had in storage, into the bodice of my dress so she was truly with my on my special day. It was such a special touch and it meant the world to my mother and I.

What was one, or two elements that were most important to you both that you were happy to spend a little more on? (food, photography, florals, the venue, your outfits?).

For us we knew early on that the photography was very important to us. At the end of the day, one of the only things you get to take away from your wedding, other than the marriage our course, are all the photos. That being the case we knew we needed to find someone who could capture our day and all of the emotions of it seamlessly so we could look back on them for years to come. We found Erin Marton relatively early in the wedding planning process after perusing what seemed like hundreds of wedding photographers’ albums and submitting dozens of inquiries. We clicked with her instantly when we did an interview over Zoom her wedding photo albums were full of life and the perfect amount candid, as we were looking for documentary style wedding photos. After we did an engagement session with her and LOVED all the phots that came back week later, we knew we were in the right hands for our wedding day. To this day our wedding phots are prized possessions and when we look at our photos we are transported right back to the magic and the beauty of that day. Additionally, the food served at the reception was very important to us. As food lovers ourselves, we wanted to treat our guest to a meal that was truly worthy of Palm Springs, a place that offers a variety a delectable dining option. We spent a lot of time working with our planner to figure out which vendor would be the best fit for our wedding. We knew we wanted to do a plated meal, yet our 200-person guest list and the intricacies of alfresco dining atop a rolling grass lawn in the Palm Springs heat presented a challenge. Our Planner suggested Monteferrante catering and events and after working on a Mexican inspired menu together (one of our favorite cuisines) and a subsequent tasting at their even space in Palm Springs, we knew we had found the right fit. The food served at our wedding is something that our guests still talk about today!