A Vineyard Dinner Was Followed by a Neon-Lit Dance Party at This Napa Wedding Weekend
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While we’re all currently social-distancing and committed to mask wearing, this wedding took place in the months before the coronavirus pandemic began. We hope it will bring some joy to your reading list.
Lance Lin and Jared Levan first met when a mutual friend brought Levan to a barbecue Lin was hosting at his summer share house on Fire Island. “I happened to be on Fire Island for the day and ended up at Lance’s house,” Jared, an account manager at Impossible Foods, remembers. “It was my first time visiting Fire Island and it had been a last-minute decision to go...so happy I did!”
Six years later, Jared proposed right before Thanksgiving. “We wanted to take some time to ourselves,” remembers Lance, a senior manager in the communications department at Apple. “We decided on Palm Springs and spent our weekend at The Parker. “The last night, we had an incredible dinner at Workshop and then headed back to the hotel for a night cap.”
On their walk back to the room, Jared guided Lance in a different direction, away from their room. “While we were at dinner, he had the hotel staff move all our luggage into one of their Villas, so when I stepped into our new room, all I remember is seeing a bucket of champagne and the rest is a blur,” Lance admits.
“Since the day we met, Lance had always talked about writing a children’s book one day,” Jared adds. “So I worked with San Francisco-based illustrator Dan Bransfield to create a book cover. The plot centers around a boy-turned-man and his stuffed bear, which Lance actually has. Throughout the story, both head out on different adventures together—from growing up, to college, to living in New York City, [traveling] around the globe, and ultimately moving out west to California. Getting married would be the next chapter of the story, part of which which would also be finishing the book together. We both envisioned the ending to be the main character ultimately having a baby with his husband and his bear finding a new home in the crib.” When they entered the villa, Jared showed Lance the book cover, and brought him over to the bedroom where his actual stuffed bear was holding the ring box.
“The next thing I remember,” Lance says, “is Jared saying, ‘Would it help if I got down on one knee?’ while opening the Chopard box to reveal the exact ring I dreamed about.”
For their wedding weekend, they chose two special venues—Promontory Winery and The Charter Oak Restaurant in Napa. “We grew up and spent our 20s on the east coast, but after moving out west, we’ve completely fallen in love with the northern California sensibility,” Lance says. He always had a vision of getting married in a loft in Tribeca, while Jared wanted to celebrate in a more open landscape—their final venues worked to achieve both goals.
Lance and Jared share a passion for food, so they knew from the start that their wedding would need to be focused on friends, family, and an amazing meal. To that end, they worked with Ashley Smith Events, Fogcutter’s Chef Guillermo Perez, and The Charter Oak’s Chef Christopher Kostow to put together unforgettable dinners.
“Because our [actual] wedding took place at City Hall in San Francisco, it was a very intimate and traditional wedding,” Jared says. At that ceremony, they were only joined by Lance’s parents, Evelyn and John, and they continued the celebration with lunch at their favorite restaurant in San Francisco, Zuni Cafe.
“We always knew we didn’t want a religious ceremony [during our wedding weekend],” Lance explains. “So the idea of a chic seated dinner party surrounded by the people we loved felt like the perfect way to celebrate our union.”
Their mission was to have flowers from Wild Club everywhere, alongside an epic multi-course meal by Fogcutter, served with incredible wine at Promontory Winery. They worked with Bourne Paper Co, who did all of the paper goods, to create beautiful books in lieu of traditional menus, which really set the tone for the night.
The dress code called for Creative Black Tie. “We knew that we both wanted to wear tuxedos—mine white and Jared’s navy,” Lance says. “My years at Ralph Lauren and GQ exposed me to many beautiful options, but for us, the idea of investing in a tuxedo to only wear it a few times, didn’t quite make sense. Enter The Black Tux, this innovative menswear rental business that delivered everything we, and many of our guests, needed.”
