Intimate, Modern Country Chic Wedding In LA

One custom, country chic colour palette and a floral plethora of succulents, cacti and bright billy balls.

Two beautiful, stylish brides radiating happiness.

(Yes, that means two gorgeous wedding dresses to covet, two chic hairstyles to inspire your big day ‘dos and just you wait till you see their accessories! Bridal Oxfords anyone?)

Plus 40 of the couple's closest friends and family gathered at the modern, country kitsch Farmer's Daughter Hotel in LA to celebrate Bre and Kendall's special day.

Including Jeffrey of J. Shipley Photography, the man behind these captivating, love filled photos.

From The Photographer…

Bre & Kendall are two of sweetest, most genuine people I know. Their love is inspiring, their story remarkable, and their laughter contagious. I adore them.

They crafted one of the most intimate, personal and stylish weddings I’ve ever been a part of. It was fabulous and delightfully fun. It was such a honor to document their love and celebrate their awesome-tastic-ness!

I think you'll agree ‘Awesome-tastic' sums up their wedding perfectly.

From the Brides…

I would describe our theme as modern rustic or country chic. We wanted to co-ordinate with the amazingly fabulous décor of the Farmer’s Daughter hotel. Our custom color palette, which was included with our invitations as a paint swatch to inspire our guest’s “best bib & tucker” included: red & white gingham (“country picinic”); light blue (“california sky”); mustard yellow (“corn on the cob”); and dark blue (“wrangler”).

Guest Dress Code

Because we wanted to keep our wedding very intimate, we decided not to have a wedding party. Instead, we included a custom color palette with our invitation to inspire our guest’s attire (see above). We loved seeing how our friends and family interpreted the palette & the coordination made for some great photos.

Pre Ceremony Fun

We had a pre-ceremony cocktail hour with a personalized game of “bingo.” We pre-made game cards that contained a funny/intersting fact about each guest (i.e. Has a cat on Prozac; Went to high school with Justin Beiber’s mom). When guests arrived, they received a card and attempted to meet & match other guests with their interesting fact. The facts were great conversation starters & lended to the intimate dinner party vibe we were going for.

We also had a functioning vintage typewriter set up for guests to type a wish/hope for us to be later shared as part of our ceremony.

The Ceremony

There were no aisles or awkward formalities. We had a friend open in prayer before we passed around our rings on a larger hoop for people to string their wish/hope card on. Many guests took this opportunity to speak to what they had written on their card, which set the stage for us to stand up and share our vows that we had written to each other. Our vows were sealed with a kiss and followed by an acoustic performance of our song, “The Story” and a champange toast to conclude the ceremony.

We were so blessed to have our amazingly talented friend & singer/songwriter Melody Klemin perform our favorite song, Brandi Carlile’s “The Story,” which was an extension of our vows and so beautiful and personal that it quickly became very emotional. This moment was one of our favorites of the day, an amazing way to conclude our ceremony, and such a special gift!

Each part of our unique ceremony was equally purposeful, touching, and a true celebration of our love and commitment. We spent the remainder of the evening dining and talking, reveling in the bliss of each other and the love we felt having all of our favorite people gathered in one place.

Bridal Attire

Both brides wore simple ivory silk chiffon gowns with added accessories for detail and color. We aimed to coordinate without matching – a fine line for a wedding with two brides! For this reason, Bre belted her dress, wore her hair down, and wore galdiator sandals, while Kendall wore her hair up, cropped her gown to just below-the-knee, and wore heeled oxfords – two unique but complimentary takes on the modern rustic theme.

The Refreshments

Warm fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies & milk to greet guest’s arrival.

Cocktail hour

Tea Punch (brewed iced tea, peach nectar, lemons, vodka)

Blackballin’ Punch (blackberry vodka, orange juice, cranberry juice, & muddled blackberries)

Fried dill pickle chips, Mini mexican pizzas (tortilla chips with refried beans, cheese & salsa), Twinkies and Moon Pies

Dinner

Mixed green salad with corn bread & maple butter.

Pre-selected choice of grilled steak, salmon, or fried tofu with sides of green beans, mac n’ cheese, & sweet potato fries

Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvingnon or Chardonnay (our favorite wine we brought in, featuring a rooster on the label)

Dessert

Bread Pudding & vanilla ice cream

The Décor & Details

We chose our venue based on their pre-existing décor and vibrant blue & yellow color scheme which included large potted succulents, recycled barn wood, gingham tablecloths, exposed-bulb string lighting over the courtyard, and a family of rubber duckies floating in the pool.

On the tables we added custom burlap runners, billy buttons in milk glass vases, tea lights in holders filled with recycled beer glass, and our favor/placecard holders: indivdually potted succlents. To complete this look we scoured local thrift stores for clear class vessles of all shapes & sizes and layerd them with rocks, moss, and soil before planting various succulents and surrounding with decorative pebbles.

The Photography

Originally we hadn’t planned on a having a professional photographer, although we enlisted our multi-talented friend and invitation designer, Katie Korgan, to capture the candid moments.

As luck would have it, our rapidly developing friendship with out-of-our-league photographers Jeff & Isaac resulted in their gifting of a portrait session, which evolved into a “first-look” session and resulted in them so very graciously capturing the entire day in their perfectly complimentary and artistically inspiring style that we are obsessed with.