A Simple Wedding, Hold the Rainbows

When we ask newlyweds to think back on what they wanted most for their big day — and we’ve interviewed hundreds of them over the years — the most common response is “For it not to feel like a wedding!” Gathering with old friends and eating mini grilled cheeses in formalwear to celebrate love feels more special these days than ever, even downright miraculous. And the betrothed have never been less attached to the old wedding handbook — or the need to please their great-aunt. So in a flurry of pampas grass and perfectly mismatched-to-match bridesmaid dresses, how do you pull off a non-cookie-cutter affair? For the answers, we decided to interrogate the cool couples whose weddings we would actually want to steal, right down to the tiger-shaped cake toppers.

Here, we spoke with Long Beach, California–based Marissa and Natalie Montano Naso, who work as a procurement specialist for American Honda and in HR for a professional sports league, respectively. Over the course of their chat with the Cut, the couple used the words “nervous” and “nerve-racking” no fewer than 20 times; given their anxiety around presenting a “nontraditional-traditional gay wedding,” they opted to keep things (mostly) simple for their December 2022 nuptials in the city of Orange. Some unique details that snuck through include fresh-fired pizzas, a DIY cocktail bar, a vividly orange color scheme, and an all-LGBTQ+ mariachi band.

Natalie: Okay, this is a funny story. Obviously, there’s no gender roles in our relationship. We’re both women from very traditional Hispanic backgrounds.

Marissa: I am more reserved, a little bit on the shy side, so I told her, “Let’s do things on my terms. I will propose.”

Natalie: It was her birthday, so we went to Joshua Tree for the weekend. I bought a ring, but I was like, “She wouldn’t propose to me on her birthday weekend. I’m going to beat her to the punch.”

Marissa: We got to the Airbnb, settled in, and there was a firepit in the back. It was the perfect place to do it, because it was so dark and you could see the stars. But we weren’t able to turn it on!

Natalie: We’d been driving around Palm Springs through all these scenic places, and I’m like, I could do it here? I could do it here?

Marissa: So we went back inside and we’re sitting on the couch, and she says she has my birthday present and to close my eyes. I was so nervous, waiting to ask her the question.

Natalie: I’m shaking.

Marissa: When I opened my eyes, she was proposing. Of course, I said “yes.”

Natalie: I give my whole spiel, and then I’m like, “Okay, get up, come see the ring.” We go to the kitchen, and she proposes to me. She had the ring in her pocket.

Marissa: It was very us, very cheesy. It was perfect.

Natalie: We met on Tinder. Our first date was breakfast.

Marissa: I was managing a restaurant at the time, so we landed on breakfast. We met at Denny’s. I fell in love with her instantly.

Natalie: There was an aura about her that felt so natural, so real, so genuine. I was smitten.

Marissa: A lot of it came from the similarities in our families, our goals, where we want to be. And she’s beautiful. I love her smile. She makes you feel so welcome and comfortable.

Natalie: I’m the youngest of five and she’s the oldest of four. I was the last one to get married, and we’d had all four of my siblings’ weddings within two years. So we wanted it to be simple. We didn’t want it to be a gay wedding.

Marissa: We probably sounded crazy; we wanted a traditional-nontraditional wedding.

Natalie: This was going to be the first time a lot of our family on both sides would go to a same-sex wedding. So as much as we are proud of who we are, we didn’t want the rainbows.

Marissa: We’re fortunate — we’re able to celebrate not just with friends but with family, and families that have different views. So we kept it very traditional in the sense that there was an exchange of vows, father-daughter dances, cutting the cake. It was just playing out with two women.

Natalie: We went to see a few venues, and I dragged my parents along. Our parents actually helped a lot with the wedding.

Marissa: Both of our families are big on hosting, like, “Our home is your home.” Anything is up for grabs. So we wanted it to be both comforting and have some significance to our Hispanic culture.

Natalie: When we stepped through the arches of Grand Gimeno, I was like, This is it. We loved the Spanish style. It used to be an old YMCA gym, and I was like, Oh my God, the courtyard is like a basketball court. It reminded me of growing up and being at school dances — and we knew how fun and popping those parties were.

Marissa: It was also fairly new, recently renovated. It was kind of bare bones, which was also nice because we could decorate in any way we wanted.

Natalie: It had two giant getting-ready suites, so everybody could get ready there and bring snacks and leave their stuff. That really sold us. When you walked to the back doors, you saw this greenery, a nice bar, and a pizza oven. There were just so many ways to use the venue.

Marissa: The foyer with fireplaces at both ends was perfect for a cocktail hour, and then you went through the grand arched doorway to a dancing room, and outside the doors was a beautiful courtyard filled with fig trees.

Natalie: Terra-cotta and talavera planters are a part of the culture we’ve always loved. We have a bunch of those clay planters in our backyard now. We love that ikebana style of flowers, and we wanted color.

Marissa: The flowers were chaotic but architectural. Chaotic in a good way. That was No. 1 for me, the feel of the flowers. Our florist, the Little Branch, had us create a mood board of what we wanted to see. There wasn’t much of a strategy beyond making it colorful and eye-grabbing.

Natalie: Marissa has a really good eye for that. People still talk about our flowers! The Little Branch was amazing. We went to the same bridal stores, but made appointments on opposite days. I was way more nervous than I thought I would be trying on dresses.

Marissa: That was probably one of the more traditional things we did within our wedding — not dress shopping together.

Natalie: I have a very specific body. You know, I’m thick, I have child-bearing hips and a big chest. The biggest thing was it being comfortable for a long period of time. I needed to be able to dance, get low, without feeling like it’s going to rip. I went to Strut in Long Beach with my mom and sister. The instant I put on my dress, I was like, “I’m comfortable!” When she put the veil on me, it solidified the whole thing.

Marissa: It was nerve-racking because I went with my two sisters and mom, and they are very opinionated and I am sort of picky. I originally wanted simple and flowy, but once I saw this dress, I was like, Okay, I have x amount of months to really get in shape. Didn’t really happen, but I still love the dress!

Natalie: We did something special the night before the wedding. We were so nervous to say our vows and get emotional on the microphone, so we shared our vows the night before. We were able to get the raw emotion out, and it was just her and me, which is who the vows are for. The next day, we woke up together, drove to the venue together, then got ready separately with our families.

Marissa: I was so nervous, but our photographer made us feel really comfortable.

Natalie: Our photographer, Tara Beth, was so, so great. We don’t take pictures normally, and it was nerve-racking, but she said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to walk you through it.”

Marissa: She had us touch back to back and broke it down: “Let’s take it back to when you guys first met, when you first held hands, when you had your first kiss.” She slowed down the moment for us.

Natalie: When we turned around for the first look, I obviously got emotional. I just could not believe how beautiful Marissa looked.

Marissa: I just took the moment in. I was speechless.

Natalie: It was romantic taking photos with our families and friends, too. It was the first time we had ever kissed in front of everybody, which was nerve-racking.

Marissa: We had a man named Michael Thieling officiate. He was recommended by our wedding planner, Events by DeCor. He was super-cool, very laid-back.

Natalie: We could have asked somebody, but again, I was like, I want everyone to be chill. We don’t want any potential officiant to stress about it. We met with Michael, and I was amazed at how it clicked.

Marissa: It was very quick. The vows were the most traditional part.

Natalie: Because we were so nervous, we didn’t want anyone sitting there for two hours. He talked to us about how we met, and he built a script that we approved. It was maybe 17 minutes long. All of my siblings did church weddings, and they’re like an hour and a half. My grandma told me, “It was the shortest, sweetest wedding I’ve ever been to.” That’s exactly what we wanted.

Marissa: Cocktail hour was in the foyer, which was a last-minute decision, because it did end up raining a bit.

Natalie: Our wedding planner told us, “You blink and it’s over, so I want to whisk you guys away to take 20 minutes by yourselves. Eat something and drink something.” We went to a bridal suite and shut the door and no one was allowed in, and Marissa and I looked at each other like, “We just did that!” And just laughed.

Marissa: The venue gave us the option of a DIY cocktail station with different garnishes — mint, basil, sugarcane straws, lemons, limes, cherries. The kids were nonstop, getting soda and adding cherries and limes to it. And there were a bunch of hors d’oeuvres: mini hardshell tacos, beef Wellington, empanadas. They were bringing pizzas in at the same time, and everyone would pick at them.

Natalie: We had two cocktails named after our dogs: Maxi, a gimlet, and Tula, which was a paloma. The wood-fire-burning pizza was a hit. We also had a mariachi band play our entrance and exit from the ceremony and our cocktail hour. It’s sad; our planner reached out to maybe 20 to 30 different bands, and when they found out it was for a same-sex wedding, they either said no or stopped responding. We were super-fortunate to get Mariachi Arcoiris, an all-LGBTQ+ mariachi band — lucky that they were available and within our budget.

Marissa: Dinner was inside at rectangular tables, with a table in the corner of photos of family members who’ve passed. Our main was a dual plate of filet mignon paired with chicken breast and broccolini and mashed potatoes, with a Caesar salad before.

Natalie: The venue does its own catering, super-streamlined. We also did something cool that I highly recommend if you want to get pictures with everyone: the table game. We had the length of a song to get to every table, sit down, take a picture, then move on. The MC was like, “If they don’t make it, they’re going to have to take a shot.” It was fun and interactive with the guests. It was a nice way to get them motivated and get engaged.

Marissa: Once dinner was served, I had my sister start off the speeches, and then my dad, then Natalie’s sister and her dad to close it off.

Natalie: We had our first dance as we did our grand entrance, right before dinner. We were super-nervous too, because I’m like, Don’t be off the beat. We can’t be off the beat. So we practiced dancing in the kitchen, as always.

Marissa: Our first dance was to Shania Twain’s very cheesy “Still the One.”

Natalie: And we danced with our dads.

Marissa: My father-daughter dance was to “Tu Sangre en Mi Cuerpo” by Ángela and Pepe Aguilar, because my dad is a Spanish speaker and I wanted him to feel comfortable in front of a bunch of people. Natalie danced with her father to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder. We had a DJ, Mike Mireles, and I give him kudos because we gave him such a ginormous playlist.

Natalie: I created an 800-song playlist. Spanish music is universal — you just move your hips and it’s very fun — so we did a lot of Spanish, some line dances, the Cupid shuffle, the cha-cha slide.

Marissa: Natalie’s family has this tradition where they pull their mom to the dance floor in a chair and everyone gives her a lap dance, all her kids. My friend, who she’s never met before, starts to unbutton his shirt and he’s shaking himself on her and ultimately does the splits in front of her, which was so funny. I’d say that was the rowdiest part.

Natalie: A funny thing was the clinking of glasses. We were very nervous because, again, we had never kissed or been intimate in front of our families. Our parents are very proud of who we are, and supportive, but I was not expecting this — they were the ones who’d always start the clinking. I was like, Whoa, you’re asking us to kiss in front of everybody?

Marissa: At one point, our photographer brought us back to the courtyard. It was drizzling a bit so no one was really out there, and she had us slow dance for a bit. Again, it slowed down the moment and let us lean into each other.

Natalie:Oh my God, we did this together. We have the love and support of our families and friends, and they showed up. Not a lot of people get this.

Marissa: We cut the cake and fed each other.

Natalie: The cake was super-low-key and kind of small, because we did a whole dessert table: chocolate-chip cookies with milk shots, strawberry shortcake, macarons.

Marissa: It was hard to wind down. No one really wanted to leave! We’d actually asked the venue prior to doing all the contracts for an additional hour in our timeline. We assumed, Okay, everyone’s going to have a lot to drink, then they’ll just kind of waddle out. And no one really did! We had to do the “you don’t have to go home, but you’ve got to get out of here” thing.

Natalie: I would say 80 percent of people stayed until the lights got turned on. We didn’t make it out with anybody — we were dead tired from being up at 6 in the morning. Everybody else went out to get tacos. We went back to our room to unwind and soak it in: We cannot believe this just happened.