St. Monica Catholic Church, Santa Monica, CA

   Amanda and Brendan met in 1999, during their senior year at Georgetown University. They had known each other from a distance for some time, but Brendan finally worked up the courage to talk to Amanda in Jamaica on spring break. “He was so sweet and funny,” Amanda recalls. “I later learned that he’d had a crush on me for a while.” Brendan asked Amanda on a date, and the two have been inseparable ever since.
After graduation, the couple moved to Los Angeles. “It all happened very fast,” says Amanda “and it seemed crazy at the time, but we decided to follow our hearts and not our heads for once.”

   Seven years later, Brendan’s career as a screenwriter took off. When he received a contract from ICM, he suggested that he and Amanda go to dinner to celebrate, and that they first stop at the beach to watch the sunset. “He was very sneaky,” Amanda says with a smile, “making me feel like I was the one making the plans.”
   Amanda was so excited about Brendan’s burgeoning career that she packed a cooler with champagne and hid it for a surprise. Once at the beach, she opened the cooler and said “Surprise, Brendan!” They toasted Brendan’s success, and Amanda had no idea that her sweetheart had an even bigger surprise for her! “Brendan got down on one knee to tell me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He was so nervous, and I could hardly wait to say yes. Thinking back, I should have known, but I thought I was the sneaky one!”

   The couple chose a full Catholic mass for their wedding, and incorporated a poem by William Shakespeare that expressed their feelings for one another. Because Amanda’s father had passed away, her mother walked her down the aisle.
    As Amanda and Brendan were seeking a simple, classic look, Amanda wore a L’ezu Atelier gown of ivory dupioni silk with fitted bodice and full skirt, and Brendan wore a black Ralph Lauren tuxedo with a pinstripe shirt and light blue tie.
   The reception dinner at Michael’s Santa Monica restaurant included Alaskan halibut with maitake mushrooms, Colorado rack of lamb, and filet mignon with pommes frites. The cake from Lara Fischman of Luxe Baked Goods, a vanilla almond cake with white chocolate buttercream frosting, was designed by a friend of Amanda.

    Amanda and Brendan spent ten days on Taveuni Island in Fiji.