Why A Wedding Planner?

When you’re planning your wedding, you really want to have a pleasant experience that you can look back on and not have any regrets. Hiring a local wedding planner can be so beneficial and a key element to your wedding day. Whether you are the bride-to-be or the mother-of-bride, your wedding planner will allow you to relax and enjoy the wedding with loved ones and family while your coordinator is busy coordinating and making sure everything works out the way you dreamed.

Molly Curtiss with Allen Ranch Weddings has 5 years of wedding planning experience and can navigate the unclear waters of wedding planning. Her expertise provides insider advice and tricks that only a wedding professional will know. She will provide pre-wedding consultations to help you corral all of your inspirations and dreams into a concise wedding day theme. Molly has all the DIY plans on hand to help you achieve the home-made wedding that won’t break the bank. Allen Ranch Weddings has been compiling a local list of preferred vendors that she recommends based on their experience, quality, personality, and cost effectiveness so that the bridal party is getting the best bang for their wedding day buck.

Services include as little or as much as you desire! If you are just looking for some advice and a few organizational tools or if you need a right-hand-gal from day one of planning, Allen Ranch Weddings is here for your Amador County Dream Wedding.

Sutter Creek Engagement Session | Family Photo Session | Relish Photography | Ranch Setting | Rustic Setting

Eryn Willard made me so unbelievably excited about our first lil’ family photo session which at first was not an engagement session and very possibly might not be the only one ;) Who says two is too many? Any hows, I wanted to have some nice photos taken of my baby, princess, puppy girl named Cali. She is my 5-year-old pit bull angel and I wanted to have a lasting memory of her before… you know… she gets old and stuff… This was a great alternative to getting a tattoo I may regret later. Who knows, I may have ended up with multiple dog paw prints on my person if I started on this road to dedications to my pets. AAhhhhh!

We had no idea what to expect out of Cali that day but she did relatively fine. She was actually really very un interested in running around. We tricked her a time or two to run and act playful but the majority of the time she just wanted to sit and lay down and be lazy. My better half made the photos a family keep sake (actually, our first family keepsake for the record). The photos are a treasure I will keep for eternity and share with family and friends as well.

I highly recommend including your pet in your engagement photos! Relish Photography made it work for us, pets are just as unpredictable and difficult as kids are but a professional photographer will make it worth the effort. These are memories that must be documented via photo!

An Allen Ranch Weddings Engagement Session – Stuart and Marissa Allen – June Wedding

I love this part of Amador County, a part this groom to be got to grow up on! We started our session out with no plans really, we just drove untill it was pretty and started running around and taking some great photos of the two. The cows were in on it as well :) The rustic materials mixed with the perfect golden hour sun light blessed us with soft and picturesque memories of these two before the big day.

Engagement Session by Churchill Studios – June 22nd Bride and Groom

Mother Lode Wedding Magazine is out! Check out Allen Ranch Weddings special promo price!

A very cute Kirkwood Mountain Resort engagement

These two are so darling aren’t they?!? The couple asked me to take their engagement photos in their back yard which happened to be mine aswell.. Kirkwood Mountain Resort. We had to schedule it just right as there was a storm rolling in that we knew of, and when a storm roles in at Kirkwood… it’s coming down.

We drove out to the highway entrance and tramped in the mud a little way to get to the green grass and to get to a point where all the well-known Kirkwood features would show in the back ground. In between cloud cover, I’d yell at them: “Dance!”, “Kiss!”, “Dip Her!”, and so on. It was such a flurry of get the camera on and ready while the sun was showing that the smiles and laughing was a natural no brainer.

Rain on your wedding day? Was happy to have it at Silver Lake!

September in the Sierras is on the fence of sunny skies and rainy days. This wedding of two of my closest friends was a unforgetable day including the thunderstorms and a double rainbows!

The original wedding day plan was to have a very romantic ceremony on the lakes beach near the Kit Carson Lodge where the reception was being set up and the final touches were going in place. It was a blessing that our close friend is part of the Plasses resort original family and gave us permission to find cover and have a just as fantastic of a ceremony at the Plasse’s Resort Chapel.

Just before the delicious dinner was served, the couple spotted a double rainbow over the lake. The grooms family hails from Kauai and says that the rainbow meant happiness and luck for the newly married couple. Toasts, Hugs, Cake, and Dancing followed!

The brides two best gals made her cake in the Lodges kitchen that AM. Kimberly Merrill from KMBeautification came out to take care of the bride and bridal parties hair and make up. Floral and decor was done by your’s truly. The day was captured by Jessie and Nate Giles. The rest of the wedding day inspiration and fulfillment was completed by the friends and family of the Bride and Groom!

Stylized Wedding Shoot by Allen Ranch Weddings & Relish Photography

How fun is it to plan and set up a fake wedding? Amazingly fun! When I first started out last summer, my besty: Eryn Williard with Relish Photography and I dreamed up a grand idea to put together a stylized wedding photo shoot so that we could help build each others portfolios. So I began to plan.

I had to create a theme to follow, so I created what I would want to see on my wedding day. I chose a cute little location on my family-to-be’s ranch that included a very rustic looking barn, rocks and trees I’ve only ever seen in Sutter Creek, and all the cows and horses I could ask for. My black tie affair was in the works! I asked my closest friends that have become wedding professionals to help me out by donating their time and skills.

For starters, Relish Photography produced the lovely photos you all see every where I market. Kimberly Merrill with KMBeautification came out from the Bay Area to do hair and makeup for all the ladies. Katie Collins from Katie Cakes made for me the most delicious cup cakes and the foe cake you see here. Party Smart Rentals provided the tables, linens, and chairs. Perfect Scents provided the flowers that I arranged into the pretty bouquets and table arrangements. Two of my friends provided their good looks and smile that day (thank you Jamie and Marissa) The rest is history and beautiful!

Sierra Ridge Winery offers Amador County an amazing wedding location.

Fall of 2013 offered the glowing and rich colors that provide any wedding scape a romantic and rustic touch. Relish Photography captured the perfect evening of Luke and Jessica Allen’s wedding set at Sierra Ridge Winery in Sutter Hill. I got the opportunity to help the family pull all the details together and also put my best foot forward with some creative projects along the way.

What a busy day it was! Sierra Ridge is kind enough to allow you to do a lot of the behind the scenes work as soon as they open the gate. I was able to get Jessica’s brides maids and her bridal bouquet, 16 tables worth of mason jar table arrangements, and Luke and his guys Boutonnieres finished just in time to greet the DJ (Country Cliff) and the Catering Company (Jim Jorgensen).

No need for a back drop here… the ceremony and reception are located just above the wineries grapes and just the right elevation to see the mountains in the background. I teamed up with my favorite photographer, Eryn Willard, to get all the wedding day details in crisp and timeless photos.

We ended the evening with dancing and hugs, and they lived happily ever after!