Rustic Malibu ranch wedding in a magical tent space

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Marquee weddings (fancy word for ‘tent’!) are tricky business – how do you shield your guests & party from rain or blistering sun while still making the scene ultimately gorgeous?

Well, one way to go about it is to find a magical tent such as this! Set at the rustic Calamigos Ranch in Malibu, California, this whimsical lavender wedding ups the standard on the traditional marquee wedding. Not only did they find a tent pretty enough for their wedding ceremony – but its design is a masterpiece in itself, adding beauty to their photos rather than a hindrance.

Sent to us by their fabulous DJ (who was a massive priority for the couple!) and photographed by Tracy Rinehart, we are giving five stars for this incredible tent wedding feat.

The Wedding Style

We didn’t get too distracted with finding a theme. Instead, we focused on finding a venue that was going to set the theme / ambiance for us, which is why we fell in love with Calamigos. Torin loves trees and nature and Sarah loves sunshine, and Calamigos provided both. Having the trees, windows and greenery around us set the theme organically. We love natural, simple aesthetic and don’t appreciate anything over the top, so it was easy to pare everything down and keep it simple.

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Photo by Tracy Rinehart Photography via Bridal Musings

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The Flowers & Dresses

We chose neutral colors very naturally. Sarah has always loved pink so she gave her bridal party the autonomy to choose colors in that palette that complement their complexion. The bouquets and centerpieces were white — simple with babies breath — and we added green and tan accents and tablecloth to go with the natural setting the trees provided.

The Destination

One of the best pieces of advice we got during the wedding planning process was that we can’t care about EVERYTHING so we should chose three things that we care a lot about. For us, it was to entertain our guests that were so kind enough to travel to Malibu to be a part of our wedding. We wanted to be authentic to ourselves, and one of the things we love doing is hosting our friends at our home. We wanted our guests to feel like their travels to LA were worthwhile — we felt that the “success” of our wedding was hinging on this aspect. To this day, our friends still reach out to us saying that it was the most fun wedding they’ve ever been to so we feel accomplished in this sense!

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Advice to Other Couples

For every decision, ask yourself “why is this important?” We talked ourselves out of a lot of unnecessary decisions just by questioning our motives. Was it to impress our guests? Was it from our parents’ pressure? Do we think this is what we’re supposed to do?

Wedding planning is an emotional and overwhelming process so it was important to take a step back and add logic to our decisions and come back to the priorities we decided on early on (which again for us was having a fun party for our guests). It’s easy to be distracted by wanting to impress guests, so we consistently recommitted to “guest joy” rather than “wow factor.” That’s why the DJ, photo booth and open bar were more important than flowers, wedding favors and invitations.