Summertime Wedding

Two years ago today my gorgeous little sister married the man of her dreams. She gained a husband and I gained a brother – it has been fun times ever since.

Although this beautiful wedding has been featured on other blogs, I have never shared the photos of the day I helped create. So, I’m going to personally take you through my favorite moments and details of this special day.

Okay, so lets start from the beginning. John and Natasha were engaged late January of 2010 and while a Fall wedding had always been the plan, they moved it up to late June. With 5 months to prep, she immediately enlisted my help to do the event planning, styling and floral design – not to mention the role of Maid of Honor. It was such an honor to be part of creating this special day.

Once the location, a dear friends backyard, was decided – the theme, colors and style became quite easy to determine. As we began to plan, there were many design directions, color pallets and style ideas that would have worked but ultimately I decided (with Natasha’s approval) that the main colors were going to be brown and pink with key elements like rustic burlap juxtaposed with silver mercury glass. I also wanted to little bit of the indoors outside with gauzy white curtains flowing in the breeze, crystal chandeliers, pink paper peonies and fluffy white couches outside the grass.

For the floral design, I decided upon pink-green and white roses, peonies and other flowers in the color theme for the centerpieces, bouquets and isle flowers all from the LA Flower Mart. Other details included little labels for everything including tissues in glassine envelopes, fans to keep guests cool and jar favors filled with pink jelly beans covered in eyelet cotton fabric. There were apothacary and mason jars, burlap, vintage linen and fresh flowers everywhere.

While there were some stressful and tear filled moments (long story involving some wedding decor not arriving) in the lead up to the big day, I thought that everything looked absolutely perfect. So, Happy 2nd Anniversary to two of the most important people in my life.

Okay, here we go.

Overall look of ceremony site. Brand new silver Chiavari chairs, pale pink tissue peonies and white cotton eyelet lanterns.

I designed the structure (and decorated it) at the top of the isle and my dad welded it for me. He’s so handy.

I wanted the entrance to be spectacular as it is the first thing you see when you entered the space. I wanted it to set the tone of the wedding.

We hung white curtains on either side with the table in the center for the guest book and also the favors at the end of the night. I did the floral design for the whole wedding and in addition to Natasha’s bouquet, the center piece above was my second favorite element I created that day.

We had these beautiful vintage chandeliers hanging around the event.

There were supposed to be more but that is that long tearful story I mentioned above.

No boring catering at this wedding (no offence to any caterers, I love you) – we hired the SoCal favorite In-n-Out to grill burgers for us.

It was a total crowd pleaser and one of the highlights to the wedding.

I made these tiny labeled glassine envelopes filled with tissues on the guest book table for guests to take.

It was a beautiful warm Southern California day but because the ceremony was in the sunshine, I made these little labeled fans for guests to help keep them cool.

The glass jar favors.

Now on to the flowers. I think this bouquet was my favorite design piece of the wedding. It was huge, heavy and a statement but man was it gorgeous – pink peonies flanked by white roses. Perfection.

These little hanging mason jars flanked either side of the isle.

The floral shepherd hooks were another one of my fathers engineering masterpieces. I wanted to purchase a bunch of these but they were so expensive so he made them for me ! He’s really talented.

This is just an example of the reception centerpieces. There were three per table flanking a water filled, floating flower apothecary jar.

This is the bouquet I designed for us bridesmaids.

Here she is – the bride! The dress was a masterpiece by Spanish designer Rosa Clara. We knew the dress was meant to be because as soon as she put it on her face lit up and as soon as she took it off she started crying. We later learned that it was nearly one of a kind, the only one in the US and was not even supposed to be in the trunk show because it was a small size. The bridal store reluctantly put it out that very day we had an appointment.

It also was the same cut of the Homecoming Princess dress she wore 7 years earlier which also happened to be the last formal dress that my mom ever bought her before she passed away.

It was meant to be.