30 03, 2011

Ashley & Mike Real Wedding

By |2011-03-30T08:00:54-06:00March 30th, 2011|Real Wedding|

I just loved working with Ashley, such a sweet girl! For Ashley’s hair we incorporated a few hair extensions for volume and gave her a little height for a 60’s inspired doo. It was important to her to have bounce in her hair and not too much product. Being our extensions are treated prior to placing in our brides hair, the wave or curl tends to stay for hours and hours. Ashleys hair stayed in a loose curl and with just a spritz of anti-humidfying hair spray. With Ashley’s makeup it was important to her that her eyes really popped! I swept a sheer champagne across her lid and added a warm brown on the outer corners for depth. The finishing touch was individual lashes on the corners in different lengths for a little drama and viola! A beautiful bride!”

Planner: Jill La Fleur

Photography: Jose Villa

Location: Foley Winery

29 03, 2011

Prim & Kris Real Wedding

By |2011-03-29T07:27:32-06:00March 29th, 2011|Real Wedding|

It’s all about the skin! Prim had such beautiful skin I wanted to be sure her look was very fresh and clean looking. Her photographer was Jose Villa and being that he shoots film, I wanted Prim to look natural with touches of color on the lips, cheek and eyes. The ole’ myth “You have to wear more makeup for photos” is so 80’s! With a talented photographer who has mastered his lighting, how you look in person is how you will look in your photos. I used a creme blush in a light pink for a natural glow on her cheeks and I used a muted apricot stain on her lips for just enough color to bring out her natural pigment. With Prim’s hair she asked for a loose curl, I gave her just that and went throughout her hair with a smaller curls for a bouncy textured look. Overall Prim was a beautiful bride who screams natural beauty.

Planner: Jill La Fleur

Photographer: Jose Villa

Video: Joel Serrato

Location: Bacara Resort

26 03, 2011

Anna & Robert Real Wedding

By |2011-03-26T08:42:17-06:00March 26th, 2011|Real Wedding|

My mom always said less is more and she was right! Anna has such a delicate look I wanted to stay within a classic look and bring a vintage flare in. Her makeup is uber soft and making her skin look soft and adding touches of color really brought out her features without over powering her. Here are a few pics from Jose Villa Photography of Anna & Robert’s Four Seasons Biltmore wedding. Planned by Jill La Fleur of La Fleur Weddings.


25 03, 2011

Featured on Style Me Pretty!

By |2011-03-25T07:38:57-06:00March 25th, 2011|Featured|

We were excited to see that one of our beautiful brides was just featured on Style Me Pretty! Our Stylist Rachel Wall did the makeup and makeup.
It’s easy to design a pretty wedding. A few beautiful flowers, a lovely white dress, maids dressed perfectly all in a row. The hard part is designing a pretty wedding that is also deeply personal and unique. The kind of wedding that guests remember for years and years to come. The kind of wedding that was built by a bride and groom who wanted their day to reflect their own unique vision and style. And yet those are just the kind of weddings that have us swooning here at SMP…and it just happens to be the kind of wedding that this next little number is. Perfectly beautiful and yet undeniably personal. Love, love, love. Click here to see even more.

Jacob and I really wanted to have a wedding that was very personal, intimate and all about the joining of two families. The idea of a destination wedding where we could spend quality time with our friends and family for a whole weekend seemed just about perfect.  With both our families from Oregon, and the fact that I own a wedding shop in Portland (which would have made choosing vendors nearly impossible), we decided to head south to Ojai, California and bring our friends and family with us.

Once we decided to have a destination wedding, Ojai, became the obvious choice. The town has special meaning to my family as my Great-grandma lived there for most of her life, and currently my Grandma lives in Ojai.  The Ojai Valley Inn was the perfect backdrop for the ceremony, reception and the wedding weekend.  We could not have been more excited to spend this amazing weekend in such a gorgeous location.

I am named after a bird and my brothers and sisters all have bird names as well, so it was no surprise that we went with a “love birds” theme.  We wanted our wedding to be very “us”.  We wanted our guests to think, that is so Petrel and Jacob! After deciding the look would be a love affair between Anthropologie and J.crew, where romance meets vintage, the colors became shades of gray, peach, pinks and ivory. I actually saw a blog post of a photo shoot on SMP and it all clicked – the photos were exactly what I was envisioning but had been having a hard time describing it! Once I realized that the florist, Lauryl Lane, from the photo shoot was from California (how lucky is that!?), I decided it was a match made in heaven and hoped she would be able to do the flowers for my wedding. Lucky for us, she was available, and the flowers and colors fell into place.

Making our wedding personal was really important to us so we decided to tackle quite a few projects. My mom decided to sew the flower girl dresses, the runners, the welcome bags, and pillows for the reception (my mom was amazing and probably went to the fabric store 25 times during our engagement to make all these projects).  For the reception, we decided on one long family style table to make it more intimate, and we brought our family’s china to use at the reception for the chargers.  Even though I think many people thought I was crazy to pack up and bring the china from Oregon to CA,  it was an idea that just seemed too wonderful to pass up.   We made the sign above the cake,  our friends made the pottery cake stand, my bridesmaids (my sisters and girlfriends since first grade) helped put together the favors, and Jacob and I created our own playlists for the cocktail hour, dinner and dancing.

The stationery part was easy because I own a boutique in Portland called The Wedding Cottage, and we specialize in invitations and accessories! We were able to get our invitations, menus, placecards, napkins, and gifts from my store which made it even more special and personal.  We designed a love birds themed letterpress invitation and a postcard RSVP, which was in mad-libs style! It was so much fun to read what everyone had written that we decided to frame everyone’s rsvp cards at our reception on a refurbished window frame.

For the ceremony we had Jacob’s brother officiate and we incorporated a poem that my dad had written to us into the ceremony.  Jacob and I wrote our own vows, and then included the guests into the ceremony by giving them two hershey kisses inside of a paper maiched egg (my mom actually paper maiched each individual egg, she really was amazing!) One hershey kiss we all ate together right there at the ceremony to enjoy “the sweetness of the day”, the other kiss was actually made out of pewter (made by my parents who are pewtersmiths).  We told our guests to hold onto the pewter kiss, and if there is ever a time in the future where Jacob and I started to forget how happy we were on this day, they should give us this kiss and it will remind us how in love we are.

With an amazing ceremony filled with laughter and tears, yummy cocktails and appetizers,  a plated dinner under the stars, fantastic toasts by our sisters, and lots of dancing and cake,  we couldn’t have asked for a more magical evening. We definitely had the love and energy of family and friends behind us, and couldn’t have done it without them.  The best part of it all though, was that I got to marry Jacob!

Michael & Anna Costa Photographers Ltd., Alesia Zorn Calligraphy and TEAM Hair and Makeup are members of our Little Black Book. For more information on how members are chosen, click here.
J.Crew is a member of our Look Book. For more information on how members are chosen, click here.
24 03, 2011

Jose Villa 1-Day Workshop

By |2011-03-24T08:04:32-06:00March 24th, 2011|Photo shoot|

Recently we had the opportunity to do the hair and makeup for Jose Villa’s 1-day workshop at Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse. Below are some of my favorites images from some if the students! Hair and Makeup by: Rachel Wall & Janeena Merricks of Team Hair and Makeup

‎{ Jose Villa workshops } –http://www.josevillaworkshops.com/
{ Planner/Stylist } Jill La Fleur –http://www.lafleurweddings.com/
{ Flowers } Kate of Flower Wild –http://www.flowerwild.com/
Joel Serrato Films – http://joelserratofilms.com/
{ Hair and Makeup } TEAM –http://www.teamhairandmakeupservice.com/
{ Dress } Claire Pettibone –http://www.clairepettibone.com/
{ Hair Accessories } Lo Boheme –http://www.loboheme.com/
{ Paper Goods } Paper and Thread –http://paperandthreadblog.com/
Richard Photo Lab – http://www.richardphotolab.com/
{ Journals, Charm } Palomas Nest –http://www.palomasnest.com/
{ Cake } Erica O’Brian Cake Design –http://www.ericaobrien.com/
{ Vintage Bed Springs } Avec Moi Decor www.avecmoidecor.blogspot.com/
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