TEAM BLOG
Featured on: Once Wed
This month has just flown by and our features have been coming in!! With our holiday brides, photo shoots & Wedding Day Makeover TLC show we have been very busy! Because of that, we have been neglecting staying up to date with our postings:( Now it is time to catch up!…Last week we were featured on Once Wed. This beautiful photoshoot was shot by, the always amazing Jose Villa, in the Santa Ynez Valley. Check out the Once Wed post!
Tada! Welcome to the new site! We’re so excited to finally show you! There are a ton of new features rolling out soon but we just couldn’t wait any longer to launch the new look. First off, over the next few days, we are SO excited to feature an amazing line of dresses from NY designer, Saja. Not only are they beautiful…they’re also amazingly affordable with every dress in her line being priced under $1150! And now you can order Saja wedding dresses online in our BRAND NEW Boutique!
Photography by Jose Villa
Wedding Dresses by Saja
Hair and Makeup by Mar of TEAM Hair & Makeup
New Wedding Day Makeover Episode Today at 11:30 am (pst) & 5:30 pm (pst)
Jacklyn can’t seem to get away from her au natural look and is overwhelmed by wearing makeup even for her wedding day. Meanwhile, Trina, a geeky gamer, is ready to come out of her shell and look like a princess for her big day. Check out tlc website to view all episode listings
Featured in: Montecito Journal
Featured on Style Me Pretty Again!
Los Angeles Wedding by Meg Perotti
I smell a new trend coming on and it smells like freshly cut grass in the city. Meg Perotti is the talented shutterbug behind the lens of this nature-infused, modern wedding that is just overflowing with style and romance. A green, white and gray palette with oodles of soft, romantic touches plays perfectly against the urban backdrop of downtown Los Angeles. For more organic meets metropolitan inspiration check out the full gallery!
Very shortly after Adam and I were engaged, we started scouting out wedding venues in Los Angeles. From the moment we first saw Cafe Pinot, we knew it was the perfect place for our wedding. We both wanted to be married outside, ideally in an urban setting ( but one that was not cold). This venue offered a beautiful park and garden setting surrounded by tall buildings on almost every side. This became a big part of the inspiration for our wedding decor. Our colors a rich green, white, and gray were inspired by the colors that we fell in love with at the venue — the green of the trees and grass and the gray of the concrete buildings and sidewalks. As the planning evolved, we decided to add hints of blush pink for a feminine touch.
The taller centerpieces on each table featured white and blush colored garden roses (for their soft ruffle effect) and poufs of white hydrangea, contrasted against the shorter centerpieces which contained succulents perched atop gray river rocks. Our escort card holders were hand cut birch branches which displayed the names of our guests in calligraphy done by the amazing Grace Edmands. For our cake stand we used a 6″ thick wood slice from an actual tree. The cake was decorated simply with olive leaves and garden roses. We had our table numbers made using white paper embossed with a wood grain pattern.
Since Adam and I both love candy, we thought that candied apples would be the perfect treat to send our guests home with. I came up with the idea to only partially dip the apples so that they looked more organic and rustic (and so the green would show). We had them dipped in caramel and then in white chocolate to match our wedding colors. The amazing staff at Generations of Lee Gelfond Chocolate did such a wonderful job of painstakingly preparing the apples and wrapping each one in a beautiful clear box with a bow and favor tag we provided.
Our wedding day was so special and absolutely wonderful — not only because of the incredible that love Adam and I felt for each other, but because of all of the love and warmth that we were so lucky to be surrounded by. Although it rained on the morning of our wedding, looking back on the day this only added to the romantic and dreamy quality of the day (and the photos!). In the end, our organic romantic wedding (as we like to call it) turned out to be even lovelier than we could have imagined thanks to all of the amazing time and energy our vendors put in to help our vision become a reality.
Wedding Photographer: Meg Perotti Photographer / Wedding Venue: Cafe Pinot / Wedding Coordinator:Chic Ambiance Events / Wedding Cake: Fantasy Frosting / Entertainment: Rossi Music / Florist: The Hidden Garden / Hair and Make-up: T.E.A.M. Hair & Makeup
Featured on: Style Me Pretty!
Santa Ynez Wedding by Duet Weddings
Aside from being insanely beautiful, the reason that I fell so hard for this next little number is that the couple did what we preach over and over on SMP…they created a wedding brand. A perfect detail that was threaded through each and every element of the day. Actually, they created two brands which is even better. The gorgeous monogram crest and the amazing use of herbs. For me, a wedding brand is that key ingredient that will take your wedding style to another level. It brings a sense of cohesion, of beauty, of defined style to your look in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the design. And if ever there was a glimpse into crafting the perfect branded affair…this wedding, designed by Rebecca Stone at Duet Weddings, would be it. Click here to see even more!
click here to see the full wedding gallery!
When David proposed to me on the beach at my parent’s summer cottage on Lake Michigan, we immediately started to think about where we wanted to get married. David grew up in the Village in NYC, but has been a California boy since he was 19. I grew up in a myriad of places: Chicago, Boston, Boca Raton, etc…but have been happily settled in Los Angeles for 7 years now. So it made sense to us to celebrate the place where we found each other, instead of where we grew up and Santa Barbara was at the top of the list, both of us being big wine-lovers.
We knew we wanted to plan something outside and laid back, yet with a classy feel to it. We had spent many weekends up in Santa Barbara while dating and while we knew the area quite well, when we started looking, we found it challenging to find the perfect venue. Enter – Roblar Winery. The moment we walked in the door of this fairly new Santa Ynez winery, we were instantly in love! It was absolutely what we had been looking for. Once we had picked our venue, the rest was a fun creative process that we gladly shared with Rebecca from Duet Weddings. She helped us shape our wedding into an entire weekend of events that just felt like us. We started by designing our own monogram that we used throughout the year. Not only did it go on all of our wedding stationary and thank you cards, but we also ended up putting it on the market bags we filled for the hotel rooms and on the cover of the cd we made for everyone.
Both David and I love to cook, and at home, we are dedicated to eating locally from the various LA Farmer’s Markets. This ended up being a kind of theme for our wedding, as we decided to get herbs from our friend’s Agoura Hills Farm (Maggie’s Farm) and dry them and make our own herb mix to give out as favors. This went in our welcome market bag along with the cd, vineyard maps, itinerary, welcome letter, snacks, etc….
We didn’t have a very large budget for flowers and I knew I wanted to use flowers that grew locally and that were in season. So, when I met with Juniper to discuss ideas, we talked about using white and blue hygrangeas, along with simple white and green flowers, so as not to compete with the natural beauty of the vineyard. We also discussed adding the herb theme in that area as well, so we placed pots of herbs in various places. An idea I got from looking at countless Style Me Pretty posts over the last year!
We lucked out when my husband’s sister, Susan, offered to bake our wedding cake for us as a gift. She is an accomplished baker and had made a few others in the past and we gladly accepted. It turned out AMAZING. Definitely one of the tastier wedding cakes we had ever eaten and it was so special that she was able to make it for us.
Our wedding day was unbelievable…and very peaceful. At the winery, we served a red sangria for pre-ceremony enjoyment. There was also an atrium room adjacent to the cocktails where guests could, keeping with the herb theme, fill paper cones with rose petals, sage leaves,rosemary, lavendar, etc…to throw at us at the end of the ceremony. We also had a table of vintage handkerchiefs laid out for “tears of joy” and Rebecca had brought lots of snuggly brown pashminas to display by the fireplace for later in the evening. Rebecca and her team placed hand-painted wooden signs all over the property, so as guests walked in to the wedding, they passed sentiments such as “To have and to hold” and “From this day forward” which added to the romantic rustic feel we were going for.
Chef Ryan at Roblar catered our wedding and we decided to do a huge cheese and charcuterie station for the cocktail hour (he smokes his own prosciutto!) and then a heavy pass of hors d’oeuvres and a few stations. The whole menu was dedicated to fresh local ingredients and the kind of food preparation that David and I enjoy at home. Simple, fresh and seasonal. Local rock shrimp, baby lamp chops, grilled filet mignon, risotto, etc.. And after discovering that Roblar had an outdoor pizza oven, we decided to have 3 kinds of gourmet pizzas passed as well. We kept with our rustic theme using Roblar’s wooden tables and forgoing the white linens (another great money saver!).
Instead of a guest book, Rebecca had guests write little notes to us and drop them in large vases throughout the night. At the end of the wedding, we were presented with a beautifully wrapped box of notes to open on our 1-year anniversary!
One very special picture that I will cherish forever is the one of my mom putting my veil on me. She wore that veil 42 years ago at her own wedding and time had failed to alter it in the slightest way. Jenny Lee ( who made my dress) was nice enough to alter it to fit me, and also told me that the lace in her veil was from the exact same place as the lace in my wedding dress!
All in all, it was a beautiful night at a beautiful venue with our favorite people in the world. There was a lot of laughter, music, delicious food and wine…and I married my best friend. What more could you possibly ask for? I can truly say that if I could go back and do it again, I wouldn’t change one thing. And I’m a perfectionist, so that’s pretty huge! It’s an amazing feeling….
Coordinator: Rebecca Stone, Duet Weddings / Flowers: Juniper Designs / Photography: Amy Nave at MaryJane Photography / Venue & Catering: Roblar Winery / Band – The Martini Kings / Calligraphy:Little Miss Press / Strings – Diane Siminski’s Festival Strings / Hair & Make-up – TEAM Hair & Makeup / Dress: Jenny Lee / Tux: Hugo Boss / Bridesmaid’s Dress: Priscilla of Boston / Groomsmen’s Tux: Calvin Klein / Cake – Susan Sheinkopf
