Hayley & Cody - A Real Fall Wedding at Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort
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Hayley and Cody were destined to be joined together in matrimony. The couple celebrated a lovely wedding at the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort in Huntington Beach, California with beautiful photography coverage by Barnet Photography. An outstanding wedding film was produced for the couple by the team at Bydesignfilms.com.

Real Weddings, Hayley & Cody, WeddingCompass.com

How did you meet?

Cody and I met at Hume Lake Church Camp in 2008.  I was 16 and he had just turned 17. Little did I know, Cody and I went to the same church and were even on the same bus out of the 3. Once we got there, we were assigned our cabins, and after we unpacked we had to head back down and wait for chapel to start.

I walked down with my friends, and we waited at least 30 minutes to even be let inside the chapel, I looked around to see everyone who was there, and I spot Cody for the very first time in a light yellow shirt. There was no way I was going to go up to him and introduce myself, so I turned back around and joined in on a conversation. Literally one minute later, the guy friends that my girlfriends and I came with, were walking over… with Cody. I’m freaking out, of course. He introduces himself, I shake his hand, and I’m just like “Ugh, he’s so cute.” For the rest of the week, we all hung out as a group.

We looked for shooting stars one night by the lake, where Cody laid his jacket out for me to lay on so I could look up to hopefully see my first shooting star… but I had no luck in finding any! This was something we attempted to find every night at camp, but I never saw one! Once we got home, Cody and I hung out with our other friends a few more times until Summer ended, but once school started, which was our senior year, we kind of just went our separate ways for the next 2.5 years.

Real Weddings, Hayley & Cody, WeddingCompass.com

 

Then when I was 19, after we had just ended our second year of college, a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to go get lunch with him and Cody. In my head, I was like, “What in the world? Cody Baray? So random.” I went, everything was totally normal, and we had lunch like normal friends but I still thought he was cute. We went the rest of summer hanging out together and started dating, but had no title. Then It was time for Cody to move back to San Diego for school. Luckily my two best friends also went to school in San Diego so I had plenty of reasons to go visit.

Not too long after, on October 21, 2011, Cody asked me to be his girlfriend at P.F. Changs with a cake. We spent a little over a year of our relationship iChatting (video chat) on the weekdays, and I would try to go down to San Diego whatever weekends that I could, and vise versa. It’s not the ideal way to start out a relationship, and yes, it was very hard but we dealt with what we were given, and now here we are, 5 years later. I still look back on all of the weekends I would stay in San Diego, or the nights we spent iChatting for 5 hours while trying to do homework at the same time, and those are some of my favorite memories that we have.

Real Weddings, Hayley & Cody, WeddingCompass.com

Oh, and remember earlier when I said Cody and I were looking for shooting stars back at camp? Well, I saw my first shooting star with him on my 21st birthday…. And ever since that day, I’ve only ever seen shooting stars while hanging out together. It’s actually pretty often that we see the same one and we both freak out and go “did you see that?!”

 

How long did you plan the wedding after the proposal?

– We had a full year to plan, but it went by SO quick!

The top 3 challenges/difficulties of planning the wedding.

1. Who to invite + how many people to invite. This was definitely a difficult one for me because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I made it a point to focus on inviting a lot of our friends rather than worrying about the family members we have never spoken to. It’s YOUR day and you want to celebrate it with the people you have fun with and who have been there for most of your life!
2. Not letting others opinions sway your decisions on what YOU want to do. Again, it is YOUR day!
3. Taking in every moment of the planning and remembering to enjoy it all. I miss being a Bride-to-Be!

The top 3 most fun/easiest parts of planning the wedding.

1. Picking your colors & pinning ideas on Pinterest
2. Having your Bridal Shower & Bachelorette Party
3. Picking things for your registry with a glass of wine, lol.

What fun/unique feature of your wedding made you the proudest?

– I’ve been a dancer my whole life and danced professionally in LA for 5 years, so people asked me many times if I would be doing a surprise dance at my wedding. Four of my bridesmaids are also dancers, so we did a full-on Bride & Bridesmaids dance to Beyonce. Everyone loved it!

If you had it to do over, what would you change, add or do differently?

– I never went wedding dress shopping, which is my biggest regret. I designed my wedding dress & had it custom made, but once it was all done, I was kind of sad I never got that experience. I wish I had at least gone to a few places to see different styles on me because I didn’t get to see my finished wedding dress until THREE DAYS before my wedding, so that was stressful because I was so nervous that I wasn’t going to like it.

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FEATURING

Credit to these vendors/services
Cakes/Cupcakes Simply Sweet Cakery
Caterers Provided by Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort
Floral/florist Flowers by Cina
Formal Wear Friar Tux - Black & White w/ Black tie
Formal Wear Friar Tux - Black & White with Champagne colored ties
Gowns Designed by me! Made by Janet Hicks
Gowns Champagne colored dresses designed by Me, made by Janet Hicks
Hair/Makeup Nora Doench (IG: @noradoench )
Officiants John Riley
Linens Flowers by Cina
Musicians String Quartet Provided by Hotel