Casa Del Mar Wedding | Santa Monica | Sonia & Allan

Sonia and Allan’s Casa Del Mar Wedding was incredible! We were so excited when they told us they would have a Vietnamese tea ceremony with Sonia’s family. Capturing a tea ceremony provides us a peek into part of the culture that will make up this new family. We love their love story and think they should fill us all in on the details:

“Allan and I met through mutual friends 5 years ago. I had just moved to SF to start law school, and he had just moved to SF from Berkeley after graduating from business school. I met up with a couple friends (Robbie and Neena) for drinks, and Robbie brought out 3 friends from business school. Allan did not want to go out that night but was coerced into going out, so he was in a terrible mood. I was trying to catch up with Robbie and Neena, so I wasn’t paying attention to him. He managed to piss off all of my friends that night with his snarky, sarcastic (some might say controversial) humor, but I found his cat jokes to be oddly amusing. We kept bumping into each other in SF before he finally messaged me on Facebook to ask for my number. On our first date, he accidentally took me to a lesbian bar, and it’s been true love ever since.”

Fast forward to 2016 and we find Sonia and Allan at the Getty Museum. “We were in LA for the holidays, and Allan’s mom had just flown to LA to meet my family for the first time. We wanted to take her to the Getty, and both my mom and younger brother told me they wanted to come with us. I didn’t suspect anything because I thought that Allan and I would be alone when he would propose. When we got to the Getty, I was too absorbed with looking at the art exhibits to realize that all 3 of them were trying to find the right spot for Allan to propose. He originally wanted to propose in the rose garden, but it was closed so they had to improvise. We were looking for an exhibit in another building when we found this beautiful balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the mountains. Allan tried to propose at this spot, but I was preoccupied with finding this art exhibit so every time he tried to get my attention, I basically ran away. We kept looking at art when at the end of the day, he told me he wanted to go back to the balcony to take some pictures. I knew something was up at this point because Allan hates taking photos and he seemed a bit anxious. We went up there, and he started kissing me and telling me that he loved me. Feeling extremely self-conscious that our moms and my brother were 5 feet away, I asked him if our moms were watching us kiss. After saying yes, they were, he got down on 1 knee and proposed!”

We loved this wedding with all of our hearts and cannot wait for you to see the incredible details Sonia and Allan put into this day! We want to extend a huge thank you to this sweet newlywed couple for asking Figlewicz Photo to capture their big day.