AUSTIN LESBIAN WEDDING by Steph Grant Photography.

20 April, 2017 TARYN + JENNA // AUSTIN LESBIAN WEDDING

Posted at 6:44pm in Bridal Portraits, LGBT, Love, Weddings by stephgrantdev 0 Comments

Two of my “long lost BFFs” got married. IN THE POURING RAIN. I got to capture the memories…while not wearing an umbrella hat or rain boots. It was straight out of a movie! Safe to say that Taryn & Jenna know how to have a good time…whether that be at a hockey game where they’re decked out in Bruins gear, watching the Mighty Ducks movie while getting hair and makeup done, sitting in a bar playing Uno having the best Bloody Mary (with extra okra) and chatting it up with the bartender or simply throwing a top notch day after backyard wedding brunch. They always do it right. They dance like maniacs. They travel to the Blue Lagoon and to see the Northern Lights. They are loved and they love right back. I am just so lucky to know them! Now, do yourself a favor. Grab a cup of coffee and get to know a little more about these happy girls…

1. Tell us a little bit about your life!

We live in Austin, aka the best city in Texas. When are you moving here, Steph??? We’ve been together 5 years (our wedding was actually the day before our 5 year anniversary.) We spend our time trying to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. We love to explore our city, especially by scooter with our best friend, Jen. There’s always something to do here, and we try to take full advantage of what Austin has to offer.

We have a mild obsession with our dog Brady and cat Tuukka (who thinks he’s a dog)…shameless plug for the @bradyandtuukka Instagram account – they’re real cute.

We watch a LOT of sports — our favorite place to go is the New England Patriots bar in Austin, BD Riley’s. We got there 7 hours early for the Super Bowl this year, which was totally worth it! (J: remember when the New England Patriots came back from 25 points down to win the Super Bowl?) We also have season tickets to the Houston Dash women’s soccer team and road trip to Houston all the time for games — don’t judge, but we always stop at Bucee’s…both ways. We also watch a lot of Jeopardy and binge watch old shows on Netflix (Lost, West Wing, ER).

We LOVE food and are always trying new restaurants, but we always go back to our favorite (Uchiko) for both of our birthdays every year. Jenna is a phenomenal cook and loves cookbooks / trying out new recipes, so we also frequently hold dinner parties for friends. And, of course we eat a lot of tacos…mostly from Tacodeli.

We also make a kick ass beer pong team and regularly hone our skills against Jen (sorry, Jen).

2. What is the first thing you remember about the other when you first met?

J: I thought she was weird because she wore a skirt to the movies. She was also late, which she will say isn’t true, but it is. Taryn is frequently late to things. I remember it was just incredibly easy to talk to her, we just clicked right away.

T: I didn’t think I was going to get along with her because she played on my rival lacrosse team. We actually played against each other once when I was a senior and she was a freshman. (J: She likes to talk about how she beat us that game which I always laugh off because each year after that we wiped the floor with UCLA so.)

T: We “officially” met through a mutual friend when we all went to the movies together. Jenna had just moved to Austin from California about a week before and didn’t know anyone. Our friend thought we would get along because we both played lacrosse and we both LOVE Taylor Swift. Within minutes of meeting, we were comparing photos of Taylor Swift concerts we had been to. Only a week later, we were at her Speak Now Tour in Austin together and fast friends. But, neither of us had ever dated another girl before, so we didn’t really realize that we were actually falling in love. Jenna’s roommate told us we were dating before we even admitted it to ourselves.

T: I realized I liked her when she got drunk and held my hand at her office holiday party. I planned to wait until New Year’s Eve to try and kiss her, just like Joey on that episode of Friends, because if she wasn’t into it I could always blame New Year’s! Lucky for me, she was totally into it.

3. How did the proposal go down?

T: We were in Jenna’s jeep with our dog Brady, just on our way home from Jenna’s beach volleyball game. We decided to get some food at Fresa’s, this awesome drive thru chicken place, and we were in the drive thru waiting for our food and were just talking casually about marriage, engagements, etc. I asked Jenna if she thought she would wear an engagement ring. J: I said no. T: So I asked, “Does that mean I have to wait for you to propose to me? What if I wanted to ask you to marry me?” J: And I said “If you want to ask, you can just ask.” T: So I did. Completely spontaneously and (obviously) with no ring, I just said “Will you marry me?” as if I was asking her if she wanted ketchup with her fries or something. J: I said yes. T: But I seriously wasn’t sure if she was serious or not! We drove home, ate our chicken, watched some TV and just did our normal thing. We were getting ready to go to sleep, and I had to ask “Soooooo, are we engaged?” J: “Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” And that was it. Nothing says “I love you” like roast chicken…

4. What is one piece of advice that you would give to other couples planning their wedding?

J: Marry a professional wedding planner. Seriously. But really, my advice is to keep it simple, keep it personal, and have a day-of coordinator so you’re not stressing at all about logistics or anything when you should be enjoying every moment.

T: Don’t worry about making everything perfect, otherwise you won’t get to enjoy the overwhelming awesomeness of it all. I am around weddings pretty much 24/7, and nothing could have prepared me for being so surrounded by love. Also, take a honeymoon right away. Even if it’s just a day / weekend / long weekend, getting to spend our first time as a married couple with just each other was really special and made it feel so real.

5. If you could change one thing about your wedding what would it be?

J: I would have gotten seconds from the ice cream truck. T: Same.

6. Why’d you choose Steph to document your wedding day?

We were first introduced to a Steph’s work by a friend, years before we got engaged. From the moment we first saw her photos we knew there wasn’t anyone else we would want to tell our story. Even though we weren’t engaged at the time, we followed her on social media and kept her in the back of our minds, just in case. Not only is her work STUNNING (hello have you seen the amazingness), she is also an inspirational equality advocate and all around wonderful human being. It was also so important to us to have someone we connected with, and after following (T: okay, maybe low key stalking) her on social media for a couple years, we felt like she was meant to be in our lives. We booked Steph ridiculously far in advance (before we chose anything about our wedding) and didn’t even actually meet her in person – pretty sure Snap Chat convos don’t count – until she came to Austin for our engagement photos, over a year later! If it seems like she doesn’t know a stranger, that’s 100% true, and we feel so lucky to have shared such an important and exciting time in our lives with her. And hopefully she takes our not at all subtle hints and moves to Austin, so she can have a full time dog sitter for Chewy and eat Tacodeli with us all the time.

7. Why did you choose the wedding venue you did?

We absolutely love our quirky little neighborhood, East Austin, and we wanted to try to stay at least somewhat close. And, we really wanted it to be outdoors. We looked at a couple of places, but when we walked through the nursery and succulent house that lead up to Tillery Place, we knew immediately it was the right place for us.

8. Did you run into any issues with vendors who were not gay friendly?

Not at all! The level of support was actually a bit overwhelming, in the best possible way. T: I cry pretty much any time I think about how wonderful all our vendors were. I’m a wedding and event planner, and everyone that we worked with knew us as a couple, or at least knew me. They were all so supportive, excited and honored to be involved, and it was so touching to see how much everyone went above and beyond to make our wedding special. We started the process with them as mainly just colleagues, but we really felt like they were all friends by the end. (Full vendor list below photos).

9. Was there a memory from your wedding that sticks out more than others?

Well, it rained for the ENTIRE DAY on our wedding day, so it was pretty memorable all around. T: I remember Steph driving me to our first look on Congress Bridge. I was SO excited to see Jenna, but Steph made me wait in the car so I stayed dry while she got all set up. Jenna was already there, and I could hear her yelling “I wanna see my wife!!”

J: Actually I was shouting “TELL HER LET’S GOOOO” because I had been standing there for awhile. What sticks out most for me was after we were married and we had a celebratory shot and a drink in hand, we took a few photos just by ourselves away from the tent and our guests and Steph wanted some bridal shots of just Taryn. And at that moment she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop telling her. My funniest memory was seeing her dress with a giant red pizza sauce stain and my shirt with a chocolate smudge across hung up together in our hotel the next morning. I especially am notorious for spilling food on myself, and the chocolate incident happened IMMEDIATELY when I got dessert that night, and it’ll probably show up in ALL the reception pictures. Classy as always.

T: I’ll also never forget how PACKED the dance floor was when “Love Story” played. Everyone we love was gathered close around us screaming every word and jumping up and down in excessive celebration. It pretty much summed up the night perfectly.

Oh, and play the song below if you know what’s good for you;)