Wedding photographer Sarah Lord and Zachery Lord, a spaceflight engineering manager, met at a bar in College Station, Texas. “Zach is 6’10″ and I am 6’3”,” she explains. “I saw him from across the room—above everyone else. I went directly up to him and asked him for his phone number.”
After five years together, Zach surprised Sarah with a proposal in August of 2021. She was photographing a wedding 12 hours from where they were living at the time. Her cousin took her to breakfast the next morning and asked if they could stop at a bakery to pick up some sweets she had ordered for Sarah. She came out of the patisserie with a cake featuring two check boxes with “Yes” and “No.” Sarah felt horrible that she had clearly forgotten some deep inside joke they shared, but then she spied Zach approaching them.
He asked her to marry him with a ring that had a small engraving of a butterfly to honor her grandmother, who loved the insects. “Before she passed, I got matching butterfly tattoos with her—she was 90,” Sarah smiles. “She always told me she wanted me to have her wedding ring, but after she passed, the ring went missing. Zach said he had the ring engraved with a butterfly so that one day I could pass on the ring to our granddaughter, exactly how my grandmother had always wanted.”
After a few glasses of rosé with friend and wedding planner Tory of Smith + James, Sarah agreed Positano was perfect for her wedding. “As for the venue, I told Tory my only requirement was that we could see the coastline and colorful homes,” the bride shares. “Tory agreed and brought me to Villa San Giacomo.”
The two then set the date for April 20, 2023, as a very permanent yet practical joke, so they would always remember the day. Sarah Lawless was enlisted to photograph, and Our Story Creative shot video of the events. Gates Paper Co. brilliantly set the tone for the wedding with a beautiful invitation suite.
To walk down the aisle, Sarah knew she wanted to wear something custom and asked her friend and bridal designer Elizabeth Leese to create and completely style her rehearsal, ceremony, and after-party looks. “I gave her minimal guidance on what I liked, but entirely trusted her to create whatever she wanted,” the bride states. The groom complemented Sarah in a white and ivory tuxedo by Indochino and Salvatore Ferragamo shoes.
On the day-of, Sarah got ready with makeup artist Jen Lagers. “Keeping with the theme of trust, I gave Jen minimal notes on what I wanted, and we were on the same page,” the bride shares. “She finessed with her own style and absolutely nailed it.”
Overlooking Positano, Kaleb Norman James designed a beautiful garden ceremony space which attracted real butterflies. “[It was a] special touch that made me feel like my grandma was present,” Sarah says. The bride walked down the aisle to a piano rendition of “The Afterglow” by Silverstein, and the couple’s friend, Matt, married them. “We exchanged written vows that were originally meant to be private. With 24 guests, it didn’t feel like too much of a leap to share those private vows out loud.”
After being announced as officially married, the newlyweds sat with their guests at one single table during golden hour for the candlelit reception. Later on, Sarah changed into her second look, styled with a black bow veil and platform heels.
The pair cut their wedding cake and then promptly sat down to get matching honeybee tattoos—a nod to their first dance to “Honeybee” by Steam Powered Giraffes. Guests enjoyed pizza to fuel up for the after-party at the local nightclub, Music on the Rocks. “There was virtually no one in the pre-peak season Thursday night cave club,” Sarah shares. “Our group of friends made up more than half of the patrons there. Limoncello shots, Italian margaritas, and giant disco balls. We had the best night dancing with our friends and meeting other travelers or locals.”
