A Hot Pink Backyard Wedding in the Garden Where It All Started

The first time Olivia came over, in June 2021, Amanda gave her the garden tour, introduced her to the chickens, and saved the best for last: Mortimer, the tortoise. In April the two of them got married in that same backyard, at the house in South Pasadena where Amanda grew up, with the chickens in attendance, no bridal party, and the two of them walking each other down the aisle.

Mandee Johnson photographed it. Holly Gray of Anything But Gray Events planned it, bringing to life a vision the couple had already put into words: pink and red with pops of orange, “a touch of camp, general silliness, but with an authenticity that celebrated the difficult journey that we took to be together,” and, in their words, “celebrating queer joy without it just being a bunch of rainbows.”

Together With Their Animals

Amanda drew the invitation herself, and the guest list on it is the whole household: Butter, Noodle, and Dot, the three cats; Mortimer; a few of the chickens. Clover Calligraphy & Letterpress, a queer-owned studio in the Midwest, letterpressed it, and the envelopes were sealed in wax with the couple’s matching tattoo. The save the dates were a different Amanda drawing, the two of them walking toward a willow tree with the animals trailing behind, and Olivia made magnets to go with them that read, “The chickens like literally cannot wait to see you.”

A Slow Morning With the Cats

They got ready together, with their three cats keeping them company, and took the morning slow. Amanda’s ceremony gown is Helsi, a strapless column covered edge to edge in oversized paillettes that shift from rose gold into mauve depending on where the light hits, which in a backyard on an overcast April evening is everywhere. Bobbie Pins & Blush did hair and makeup for both of them. The nails came from Blackheart Nails, the queer-owned studio in LA: Amanda’s pink cat-eye by Antone Martinez, Olivia’s sequin set by Lauryn Rousseau.

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Olivia’s suit is Aggi by Halewski, hot-pink satin cut with a flowy leg and some stretch in it, chosen that way because she has endometriosis and wanted a wedding outfit that could carry her through a long day on her own terms. Satin next to sequins is a good trick: the suit takes the light softly and the top throws it straight back, so the look reads glamorous without a stiff seam anywhere. The top is a silver sequin crop from Revolve, and on her feet, sparkly silver loafers.

Then the lapel. One side of the jacket is covered in brooches, handmade and thrifted vintage, and Olivia chose them for meaning: several reference lesbian lore, the ladder among them. Keeping them to one side is the detail that makes it wearable. The other lapel stays clean, so the eye has somewhere to rest, and the weight of all that metal hangs on one shoulder instead of pulling the jacket forward on both.

Before the ceremony, Olivia’s sister, her best friend, and two close friends presented her something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. The blue was from her sister: a hand-sewn heart with a photo of Liv as a little girl, sized to fit her suit pocket.

They each proposed to the other, almost a year apart: Amanda at a waterfall in Big Sur, Olivia with a scrapbook whose last page asked the question.

Do You Want the House Tour?

Guests found the house by the sign at the bottom of the driveway, which Amanda and Olivia painted themselves: a Sabrina Carpenter lyric on one side and a Taylor Swift lyric on the other, so there was a pop girl for whichever direction you arrived from. From there it was through the gate and into the garden.

The Airstream, a shell of Amanda’s dad’s that lives in the yard, became the photo booth; the two of them lined it in tinsel and backed it with hot-pink velvet. The props inside were their animals, lesbian iconography, and Taco Bell sauce, because they took their engagement photos at Taco Bell. The ribbon over the windows and the garage door is theirs, the tulle pom-poms are theirs, and as much of it as possible was sourced from Remainders, their local resale craft shop, to keep the waste down.

Winston & Main wrapped the ceremony tree from the roots to the first branches, and the way they did it is worth a close look. The color runs as a gradient, deep crimson at the top, through coral and hot pink, down to blush at the base, with pink fringe trailing from the crown. A single gradient turns a tree’s worth of roses into one object, which is what lets it hold its shape as a backdrop from the back row; mixed at random, the same flowers would read as spots. Underneath, the snapdragons the couple planted in the same palette the year before pick up those colors at ground level, so the installation looks like it rose out of the bed instead of being set in front of it.

Walking Each Other Down the Aisle

Before anybody sat down, Amanda and Olivia had every guest stand up and dance “HOT TO GO!” with them, to get the jitters out together. Then the walk: no bridal party, just their two best friends first, then immediate family, Olivia’s sister and brother-in-law, Amanda’s mom and stepdad, her dad and stepmom, to “Ivy,” and then the two of them, hand in hand, through the ribbon cube Corrie in Color built at the garden’s edge. Their own processional was “True Blue” by boygenius, the song Olivia once said reminded her of Amanda, back in the friendship era when neither of them had caught on yet.

Marie Burns Holzer of Let’s Get Married by Marie officiated, on Holly’s recommendation, because the couple had one requirement for the role: a queer woman who does this professionally. The same standard ran through the whole vendor list. “All of our vendors needed to be either queer or women,” they wrote. “If that was impossible, they needed to be strong allies. We had difficult conversations with all of them to ensure that we were aligned on our morals and beliefs.” Then the vows, one of their favorite moments of the day: “Getting to finally read our vows to each other!”

The confetti is a year old. Olivia collected petals from the garden across the seasons and dried them into toss packets, so what landed on them walking back up the aisle was the same garden they had just married in.

Never Apart

After the ceremony the two of them slipped away, first by themselves, and then to the park where Olivia had proposed, for portraits. Two kids walked up to them there with flowers and a pink balloon to tell them they looked great.

The chickens got their portrait too, in the run, under tinsel chandeliers the couple hung for the day. They had been there at the very first hangout, and the menu was planned around them: the whole wedding was pescatarian, partly because Olivia is, and partly because, as the couple put it, they “didn’t want our guests to be weirded out by eating chicken in front of chickens.”

Their list of favorite moments runs long, and most of it is the two of them alone together: the slow morning, the vows, “taking a moment by ourselves after the ceremony to squeal and kiss and celebrate being married.” As they put it, “All we really cared about was being together, which is why we got ready together and walked each other down the aisle.”

Guest Favors

The favor vending machine took a dollar in quarters, with a dish of them set out beside it for guests, and gave back a capsule: temporary tattoos of the couple’s matching tattoo, heart-shaped carabiners, beaded lizards the two of them made by hand, the kind they made as kids in the nineties, axolotl toys, and pins Olivia made. The bug spray station came with a sign Olivia wrote, “love bugs are welcome, mosquitos are not,” followed by a request that you please laugh at the joke because she thought about it for so long. Disposable cameras in custom wraps, Olivia’s design again, were scattered around for guests, printed with their initials, the date, and “Lights, Camera, Bitch Smile.”

The pins read “I fed chickens at Olivia & Amanda’s lesbian wedding.”

24 Carrots Catering built the menu around the couple’s favorite foods, with one dish written specifically for Amanda: a stinging nettle agnolotti, because she forages.

A tarot reader set up in the garden, one of the stations that kept guests moving between the ceremony and dinner.

And the other vending machine, the one that mattered most to the flock: chicken treats, 50¢, with a dish of coins beside it so nobody had an excuse.

Dinner in Screaming Color

Corrie in Color’s tinsel heart hangs behind the sweetheart table, the fringe running orange on one side to magenta on the other, and the coral cloth sits right in the middle of that gradient, so the table reads as part of the backdrop instead of standing against it. The silver candlesticks are thrifted, and the “Just Married” heart hung on the front is the same red as the roses.

During the reception Amanda gave a speech. She talked about the queer stories she and Olivia grew up with, all turmoil and hiding and tragic endings, and about what they wanted this night to be instead. “We wanted to celebrate in the loudest, brightest, and most sequin-covered way possible,” she told the room, “because the little girls that grew up thinking they couldn’t have this kind of love deserve to know that a happy ending is possible.”

The guest tables carry the color in the cloth rather than in the flowers. A pink-and-red rose print does the work a tall centerpiece usually does, which let the arrangements stay low enough to talk over, with faceted ruby goblets adding the shine. Table numbers were the couple’s pets, each with a drawing Amanda did of them.

Nicole Bakes Cakes made the cake: two tiers in pale pink with red rope swags and a ruffle of piping under each, a little carnival, a little vintage bakery box, and on top, a toy U-Haul.

The Silent Disco

Their first dance was “Best Guess” by Lucy Dacus, and they danced through almost the whole song to get to the lyric at the end: “You were my best friend before you were my best guess at the future.” They had met Lucy by chance at a Chappell Roan show the year before and got to tell her it would be their wedding song.

Then the house. The entire inside was turned into a tinsel wonderland for the dance floor, with thrifted gold candlesticks along the mantel, SEP Lighting washing it in pink, and two custom neon signs: “We were in screaming color” and “GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS.” DJ Dazzler ran the silent disco. “Born This Way” came on, and Olivia, an OG Little Monster, counts it among the best moments of her day.

Giggling through the change into their dance party outfits was another of their favorite moments. Amanda’s second Helsi is the ceremony gown’s little sister, a strapless mini in the same rose-gold sequin, worn with sneakers. Olivia’s after-party look is a Kate Hewko hot-pink tulle overlay, which she then customized: pearls, rhinestones, and a beaded safety pin that reads O <3 A. The tee under it she cut herself on her Cricut. It says WOMAN’S WIFE. The boots are Amanda’s, Betsey Johnson silver sequin cowboy boots, and the jewelry is Hey Harper and vintage.

The last song of the night was “Love Story,” and they scream-sang it face to face. At 1 am, after everyone had left, the two of them sat in the kitchen with Holly and decompressed, and before bed they set up a tripod and recorded themselves talking through the whole day so they would not lose a single detail of it. Of everything at this wedding, it might be the idea most worth stealing: a recap no videographer could make, recorded while it was all still fresh, and one they get to rewatch on every anniversary.

Congratulations, Amanda and Olivia! All the best from GWS.