CALIFORNIA – Coral here, and as a blogger of nearly 20 years I am so excited to be blogging about the wedding of my dreams. My first blogs were started in middle school as a way to work through angst and loneliness, and here I am at 31 writing about a day absolutely surrounded in love. You know what that is? Growth. Finding a partner like Mio who embraced me with unconditional love made it easy to say yes to his proposal in October 2018, and as we set out to plan our wedding day it started to become obvious there was an accidental theme. Once our wedding pictures went viral, it was more than obvious it was staring right back at us, we had accidentally planned a very weedy wedding!
But yes, the theme was accidental! Throughout the wedding planning process Mio and I would joke that the only theme of our wedding was… “wedding,” we found were both most attracted to traditional concepts and colors for the decor. We didn’t want a completely over the top cannabis themed wedding, though we knew we’d definitely be smoking all day regardless. We wanted something romantic. We agreed on blushes and cream shades for the flowers, a classic three tiered cake for cutting, and an overall flow for our timeline that felt very “traditional.” Then came the details, and things became very untraditional.
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
If you haven’t heard about save the dates yet, they’re basically your chance to buy, and send, invitations twice, but the first set will only have half the information! Exciting, I know, but with so many of our friends and family coming from across the country we figured as much advance notice, and reminding, as we could do would hopefully help get them out here and we opted to do save the dates about 8 months before the wedding.
Mio designed our save the dates and invitations and we made the easy decision to have them printed on hemp. Hemp, because it’s much more sustainable for our planet, and also because I just love the feel of it, and it was an easy choice because while hemp is typically a premium, more expensive option as a textile or paper, in the wedding industry everything is overcharged, so our hemp invitations actually landed on the more budget friendly side of invitation choices. Score!
Mio and I didn’t explicitly “warn” any of our guests about cannabis being present at our wedding, but some might have seen the “printed on hemp” invitations and save the dates as a nod to our general passions for both cannabis and hemp, and known more would be in store on the big day. We did mention there would be some adults only treats present, so a babysitter might be suggested, but still welcomed kids if the parents wanted to bring them and planned in advance to have any cannabis, or alcohol, kept far away from young ones. I’m so glad we welcomed children, I got to meet a nearly newborn new cousin of mine and dance with Mio’s little brother!
The wedding day started, and continued, with a few wake and bake dabs like a usual day for me, but extra dressed up for the occasion.
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
I had spent months searching for the perfect get ready robe. One that wouldn’t be too thin, but also that wasn’t a literal bathrobe, full of fuzziness collecting pet hair… No, I wanted something glamorous and still comfortable. I wasn’t looking for anything with a cannabis print, not having the theme in mind at all, but the plain white sets didn’t appeal to me either. Finally I gave up on the idea that as a bride I needed a shiny new “get ready outfit” and started to consider what I already owned, probably like I should have from the start. Enter the perfect set, gifted to me years ago when I was a cannabis blogger, by Poprageous. Shorts and a flowy short sleeved robe with botanical prints of the cannabis plant on a gorgeous white. How did I not think of this from the start?!
Makeup by @BeautyOnReserve
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
Mio’s wedding day outfit was decidedly cannabis centric from early on, I had mistakenly thought his pieces would be the most obvious influence of cannabis on our wedding day but it was truly only the beginning!
Mio wore a botanical cannabis printed tie custom made by Cyberoptix, and freshly cut cannabis buds in his boutonnière arranged by Bullseye Blooms. Like most of our wedding vendors, Bullseye Blooms didn’t come from the cannabis industry, she’s a local florist I fell in love with on Instagram and we got so lucky she said yes she would be comfortable working with our favorite flower for our wedding day! We were gifted fresh cut Creme De Canna stems of Kush Cake and Grape Ape for her to work with for his boutonnière about two days before the wedding, and with the unused pieces Bullseye Blooms took my breath away and created a gorgeous cannabis infused bouquet! She had heard Mio and I go back and forth on the idea of cannabis in my bouquet during the planning process but somewhere along the way she heard yes when I thought I settled on no, and this ended up being the second best surprise of the wedding!
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
The absolute best wedding surprise? Well, Mio had spoiled it a bit just a few weeks before the big day, because there was no hiding the two giant boxes being delivered to the house. He had ordered us custom ROOR glass bongs, a white rainbow, wide bottomed piece with Mrs. across the front and his black and white Mr. straight tube to match. We saved them to smoke from for the first time on our wedding day, and decided to work the moment into our first look, or first toke, moment before the ceremony.
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
Those were the photos that went viral, but like I said, that was all before the ceremony even began! The ceremony itself at first glance was fairly standard, though we skipped having a bridal party all together. We asked the hilarious and very cannabis friendly Ngaio Bealum if he would consider getting ordained to marry us, I had known him for years through the cannabis industry but Mio also met him a lifetime ago because Ngaio would perform stand up where Mio’s dad worked security!
📸: Trike A Pose Photobooth
It felt serendipitous that he could marry us, and we knew our guests would be cracking up with Ngaio leading the ceremony. He wore an elegant green velvet suit and married us two hours before 4:20 on October 19th, 2019. I walked down the aisle to an acoustic instrumental version of the very cannabis centric song by The Expendables, Bowl for Two. Then we all got to smoking, I mean celebrating!
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
Mio and I knew a few of our guests would want to consume cannabis to celebrate with us, and we decided to have an RV parked on site as a private and kid-free area to safely consume cannabis. The ganja caravan, one guest called it, welcomed any of our 21 or older guests and had a professional budtender onboard to answer any questions they might have too. We stocked it with jars of Kush Cake and Grape Ape alongside a sign custom made to say “to have and to toke.” We filled the jars with a total of about 2 and a half ounces of cannabis, put stickers Mio designed on top, and they were definitely gone by the end of the day! It was one of my favorite DIY projects to put together all the little jars with the stickers and buds, our guests were sharing these favors on social media for days afterward!
The ganja caravan ended up being so much more popular than we could have expected, had we known I think we could have rented the bigger size RV! Our friends and family, climbed in and out to smoke and socialize, some even taking their first dabs at our wedding! What an honor! We had a full assortment of methods to consume aboard, except edibles, they just seemed too easily mistaken by children and we didn’t want to run that risk. Bongs, papers, pipes, an enail to dab, any which way you wanted to smoke up we had it covered, and the ganja caravan decor was complete with our sequin blush pink tablecloths and pot leaf papel picado.
We saw grandparents and new parents on board, I even fought my way back onto the RV during the reception a few more times for times bong hits, but making room for my giant dress wasn’t easy.
The pizza and donuts could be considered a classic millennial combination even to have at a completely sober wedding, but to have them at a stoner wedding just sealed the deal on what started as an accidental theme and ended up being the thread that tied our whole day together. Who doesn’t love pizza and donuts when they’re stoned?!
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
Sleight of Hand brought their oven on site and did pizza dough spinning demos, cool enough on any day but after a few bong hits it was just perfection.
📸: Rachel Artime Photography
And that’s how we ended up throwing an accidentally very weedy wedding! We are so thankful for the love of the friends and family that came to celebrate with us, and the well wishes we’ve gotten from around the world since!
I started a facebook group for other couples planning their weedy weddings, so that we can share and connect, find and join it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/554130708490963/
If you just can’t get enough #coralandmio, check out our wedding video too!
Coral & Mio 