We hope you had a fabulous Christmas, a wonderful New Year, and are ready to enter 2016 with a bang.
Because we have one gorgeous real wedding to kick off the year as we mean to go on… inspired!
Wes & Diann's California winery wedding is laden down with beautiful styling and creative ideas that will get your Pin It button working overdrive.
It was all captured by the amazing Anita Martin Photography, whose work we're just elated to be sharing as our first real wedding of the year.
As an interior designer, Diann was already an inspired bride, and with the help of Pinterest, and her co-ordinator, Leah Bertoli of Bertoli Bridal, she and Wes created a bespoke wedding that featured many of their favourite things; unique style, beautiful blooms, lots of socialising… and dessert!
With gold and pink-laced decor, and plenty of vision, the Sonoma setting of St. Francis' winery was the perfect backdrop for this refined yet fun bash. With a luxe lounge area, elegant tablescaping, a unique photobooth, and picturesque ceremony spot, the couple certainly made the most of their vineyard surroundings.
Polishing off their day with glamorous style, (Diann's Bliss by Monique Lhuillier gown and pink peeptoes by Badgley Mischka are just fab, and Wes looks so handsome in his classic black tux) this couple celebrated their wedding with a day that was quintessentially ‘them' – but one that's also laced with details that might just be quintessentially ‘you' too!
Wedding Day Snapshot
Our Love Story
Wes planned a super sweet and thoughtful proposal at one of our favorite local wineries.
I thought I was going to show up to a day of wine tasting with just us two.
But little did I know he planned a surprise birthday party, which included many of my close friends and family.
One of our best friends made a video for us to remember the special day.
The Inspiration
Well I'm a sucker for pink and gold just like many brides. So I knew I wanted those to be a part of the colour palette.
When looking through magazines and searching Pinterest for inspiration I noticed that blush was widely popular as a bridesmaid dress (obviously because it looks beautiful) however I wanted my dresses to be a little more unique.
I stumbled upon Jenny Yoo's metallic gold Annabelle dress and was in love. The dress can be styled in multiple different ways which is my favorite part, each girl could choose to style it in a way they felt was best for their body type. Not only that, but the tulle and floor length gowns were so romantic, which was exactly what I was looking for.
I decided to bring in the color of pink through my accents and accessories. My shoes, flowers, ribbon, table runners, wedding invitations, and pillows in the lounge area.
The Venue
Many of scenarios factored into this decision. In fact, I felt like it was my biggest and hardest decision of the whole wedding process.
More than 50% of our wedding guests were going to be traveling from out of town, in which many family members were from out of state. We really wanted to make this an exciting location to visit, as well as a place that felt unique and special to us.
When researching for venue ideas I fell in love with all the outdoor weddings with string market lights and vineyard settings.
We both have a huge passion for wine and knew that we wanted to have an outdoor wedding at a winery. However many of the Sonoma and Napa valley wineries have noise restrictions that require the music and dancing to end before 10pm. We love dancing and this was something we were looking forward to most.
Not only does St Francis have one of the most stunning backdrops in the valley but they have an indoor ballroom for dancing that opens up into the reception area. Because the music was indoors, this meant that our wedding could go as late as we wanted to pay for!
The style of the building and the surroundings was so romantic and instantly felt special the first time we visited.
The Flowers
I love garden roses so those were the main flower in every arrangement, in white, blush pink and a medium pink with loose greenery!
The Photography
I love how my photographer captures genuine moments and the style of her editing!
The Refreshments
Our caterers were amazing and made our wedding experience feel that much nicer!
One of our hors d'oeuvres was chicken and waffles which was a crowd favorite.
We both come from large families and love the idea of sitting around the table and sharing a great meal together. We decided to have our dinner served family style, it kept the atmosphere really social and fun.
Advice for Other Couples
Do a TON of research for inspiration before you plan or make any decisions. Use Pinterest or the wedding sites to save a bunch of your favorite ideas.
Then start editing and notice what some of your favorite pins have in common and how you want everything to feel. This will help narrow down decisions and lead you towards selecting your venue and an overall theme for the wedding.
There are so many beautiful and fun ways to plan your wedding, and it’s easy to doubt your decisions when you compare. Not everything can fit all into your day so try to stick to your theme and what is most true to you as a couple.
Hire a wedding planner, and one that has a style that jives with yours! This will save you tons of time!
The Decor & Details
I would say I may have tried to tackle too many projects myself.
I am an interior designer, so I had many ideas I wanted to incorporate in our wedding. However doing this all within a ten month engagement kept me extremely busy. This is when having a coordinator/ planner is so helpful.
My advice would be to provide as much detail as possible for them to work off of and then trust them and their experience. After all this is what they do for a living so let them do their job so you can enjoy your days leading up unto the wedding!
I had particular ways I wanted each space to be set up, and my coordinator Leah did a beautiful job executing and improvising.
The photo booth was a custom built structure by my father and I. We borrowed a variety of gold antique frames from Bertoli Bridal (my coordinator) to hang from the structure.
I wanted it to be set up amongst the vineyards so the scenery was apart of the photo booth backdrop.
We placed two of my coordinator's blush chairs in front and purchased custom laser cut words from Etsy “And the Greatest of These is Love” to hang from the top (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Wes and I love dessert, I mean who doesn’t? So we wanted our wedding cake to be smaller to leave room for a variety of our favorite desserts.
We decided to have them displayed on shelves (we bought from Ikea) and add in pretty cake stands and gold accents for some fun accessorizing.
I still wanted the cake to have its own special spot, I saw La Tavola’s gorgeous sequin fabric and knew that had to be used for the cake table.
Favourite Moments
The speeches. Our families did an amazing job sharing some of our favorite memories and special words we will never forget.
And to top it off, my sisters put a rap together to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. It was hilarious, we were completely suprised!
Our first dance was another favorite moment. We took a few private lessons from a dance instructor who put together a routine for us.
It was so fun to perform it for our guests and when Wes picked me up for the spin everyone cheered. Such a fun moment which kicked off the start of the dance floor.
Wow-wee. Just so many details, I love how that photobooth was DIY and that the dessert table backdrop was from IKEA, it's always inspiring to see luxe details being created from a little resourcefulness and creativity.
Oh, and isn't Diann & Wes' proposal story just awesome? I love the idea of a birthday party ruse!
Thanks so much to Anita Martin Photography, and of course to Diann & Wes for sharing their wedding day with us.
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