Weddings: Diosa Werner and Ryan McDowell

Rather than a veil, flowers flowed down the bride’s long, dark hair. Guests arrived from places as far flung as Germany and Turkey. The toasts were pared down, and no bouquet was tossed. These are some of the elements that made the wedding of Diosa Werner and Ryan McDowell nontraditional.

Yes, it was held at the Prado at Balboa Park, a quintessential spot for matrimonies. But the focus was on the gathering more than the couple, and that was just the way the McDowells wanted it.

“As far as our reception, we wanted it to be more of celebration with family and friends, rather than a put-together schedule everyone had to follow,” said Diosa (pronounced Joe-sa). “We had minimal toasts. After the parents’ dances, we cut to the celebration.”

Because both Diosa and Ryan are San Diego transplants, their wedding guests were mostly from out-of-town, including Ryan’s hometown of Albuquerque and Diosa’s of Bremerton, Wash. Ryan’s cousin, Jake, his wife and three children traveled from their home in Turkey. Diosa’s brother, Hans, and his wife visited from Germany. Also attending was a contingent of friends from Seattle, where the couple met.

They connected at a mutual friend’s party there in 2008, the night before Diosa, now 29, moved to Orange County. Ryan was a sailor stationed in Seattle at the time. Six months later, his ship relocated to San Diego, and a long-distance friendship blossomed. In spring 2010, Ryan invited Diosa to attend the Naval Submarine Ball with him. Two years later, she landed a job here and moved to San Diego. The couple now live in an apartment in Golden Hill.

Their proximity to Balboa Park attracted them to the Prado as their wedding site. Diosa works as an internal auditor at LPL Financial, and Ryan is in his last year at University of California Irvine, where he is majoring in environmental engineering.

“We looked at a few venues,” Ryan, 31, said. “After talking with the Prado’s catering manager, Rachel (Wilkerson), we decided. People come to San Diego for the beaches, but we love Balboa Park. The garden where we got married was perfect.”

Diosa agreed and also credited their florist, Julie Edwards from Simply Regal Events.

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“When I saw the ceremony space — the pond, wishing well and garden,” she said, “I fell in love. It’s a fairy-tale setting at the Prado. I had this vision — we were going for an enchanted garden.

“I put all my hopes in Julie. I told her: ‘This is the feel I want, run with it.’ She made my vision a reality.”

Ryan noted that they chose the planner, Revolution Weddings, because the company covers all aspects of the event.

“Booking with them meant having the coordinator, florist, everything, in one organization,” Ryan said. “We talked to Staci (Nichols), who helped us save money by bundling. She was emcee and DJ. Overall, we were pleased with it.”

Diosa said Revolution Weddings’ Mikaela Swanson was an “absolutely spectacular” coordinator, taking pressure off the bride. That doesn’t mean Diosa slacked off; she spent a year and a half working on the wedding.

Ryan and Diosa wrote their ceremony, which Ryan’s uncle, Ray Walkowski, officiated. After the wedding in the Prado’s garden, the party moved inside, where things loosened up.

At some point in the festivities, the groomsmen dropped their drawers (boxers stayed on). The bridesmaids did a song-and-dance routine to a rewritten version of “I Will Survive.”

The bridesman was Terrell Stephens, Diosa’s close friend, who brought her to that fateful Seattle party where she met Ryan. Some of the bridesmaids had been with Diosa in the Fantastic Six, a ballet-and-jazz group in Washington.

For their dresses, Diosa told them any navy or dark blue cocktail dress would do — she wanted to avoid “$200 chiffon disasters that they’d never wear again.”

As for her style, Diosa kept her hair down and makeup simple.

“It was important to look the best version of myself. I didn’t want to look like a stranger,” she said.

The couple knew their efforts were worth it when they saw how much the guests appreciated the wedding.

“It’s hard to put into words how much it meant to us that almost the whole family showed up,” Ryan said. “We’re really close to our families and it was great to have them support us starting out as a married couple. It turned into a whole two-week celebration of our families combining into one.”

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