When Kirk Spahn and Jennifer Alden exchanged marriage vows under towering California redwood trees, Ms. Alden, a former actress who played a bride in the film “Wedding Crashers,” acknowledged the many obstacles she overcame on this journey to the altar.

For starters, there was that troublesome brain tumor.

“You know the joke ‘It ain’t brain surgery?’” said Ms. Alden, 37, a California native who spent summers at Alden Vineyards, her family’s Sonoma County ranch, where she mastered off-road motorbikes and horses. “This time, it was.”

Greg Alden, an older brother, said, “Jenny grew up more rough and tumble than one might expect from her Hollywood good looks.”

The tumor was discovered in 2012 after she was flipped out of a hammock. The growth near Ms. Alden’s left ear was unrelated to that mishap, and was considered serious.