Intimate Garden Wedding In LA with Flower Crowns and Doughnuts

We've such a lovely real wedding to share with you guys to see out the week.

This one is set in one of our favourite locations (California!), features one of our favourite dress designers, (Jenny Packham) and was captured by one of our favourite photographers, Sarah Kathleen Photography.

Oh and it's got flower crowns, doughnuts, and popsicles, AKA, even more of our very favourite things.

Sherry & Brody got married with a sweet and sunny afternoon wedding in LA.

Their balmy day featured organic eats, an abundance of blooms (and leaves!), bright hues and gorgeous style.

With the guys in hats, and the girls in flower crowns, their super short ceremony was followed by cocktails, lunch, cronuts and dancing.

Afternoon weddings are becoming more and more popular, and they're such a lovely way to celebrate with friends and family, while still having the intimacy of an elopement with the evening to yourselves (it's an effortless way to cut back on your budget too!).

So if you've been considering ditching the late night bash, be inspired by Sherry & Brody's fun garden wedding…

Wedding Day Snapshot

Our Love Story

We met on Eharmony in 2011.

From Sherry: Brody took me to LA fair for our fourth date and we had so much fun that we made it our tradition. Since we got a free ride on one of the ferris wheels there the first year, we have been riding the same ferris wheel every year, and then in 2014, our fourth ride, Brody proposed.

From Brody: She actually knew I was going to propose because I had stupidly told my mother I wanted to and when she visited, she dragged Sherry to a jewelry store in Santa Monica and started asking her about which rings she liked.

Sherry turned and looked at me and I knew she knew.

The Inspiration

My wedding dress was the first wedding related thing I decided on for the wedding, and I used it as my main inspiration and built the entire wedding around her.

We also wanted to find a fine line between being stylish (boho mix with vintage) and classy, so I decided to keep everything simple, and use vintage items and minimum decorations to bring the natural beauty of the venue out.

Another thing is we wanted to keep the wedding fun for everyone, so we picked more festive color, cream, soft peach, cranberry, lots of natural greens and brass gold.

Our wedding in three words? Intimate, Hot (it was so hot that day in LA), Fun.

The Attire

I wore Nicole from Jenny Packham. It’s not a traditional dress, but it's delicate, light, and has a good balance between vintage details, a bit boho and classy.

I fell in love with this dress the moment I saw it, however I did not know if my body type would work for it. I still purchased it because I just knew the moment I had it on me.

Eventually it might not be the best dress to make me look thinner or something, but I felt so good picking something I love instead of getting what makes me prettier in other people’s eyes.

I was really struggling to find the right bridesmaid’s dresses that were both beautiful and affordable. I knew I wanted soft peach, but all the dresses I ordered online were either cheap looking, too pink, too orange or poorly made.

Eventually I increased the budget and started looking from one of my favorite stores, J.Crew, and found the perfect dress (and bought them when they are on sale).

The Flowers

Flower Crowns – Star Eucalyptus, Dianthus, Spray Roses, Berries

Bridal Bouquet: Star Eucalyptus, lisianthus, Dahlia, Spray Roses, Berries

Centerpieces – Peonies, Dahlia, Spray Roses, Berries

Brody: I personally thought that she had the leaf to flower ratio off, she likes leaves a lot, but ultimately whatever made her happy, made me happy.

The Honeymoon

We left two weeks after our wedding since my family were in town the entire week after our wedding and I wanted to spend time with them.

We went to Hawaii!

It’s perfect but we felt like the money we spent on it could get us some super luxurious trip to Bali or a just-as-pretty South East Asian spot, instead of staying at a Sheraton.

But hey, it was our honeymoon and it was still perfect.

The Photography

I fell in love with Sarah’s photos first glance!

There are a lot of photographers who can capture pretty photos, great light, great composition, but not a lot show the atmosphere and emotion of the event.

So I sent her an email and waited patiently for her to say yes to shoot our wedding. And… she is wonderful!

Brody has a cinematographer friend who filmed out ceremony.

The Budget

We went under our budget since having a Saturday lunch saved us about 5000 dollars.

The Ceremony

Sherry: We wanted to keep the ceremony short and intimate. So we asked Brody’s uncle to marry us, and his grandmom to be our flower girl. (Unfortunately my grandmom passed away two months before our wedding or she would have been there too).

It felt very casual being married by a close family member. We also wrote our own vows, without talking about it before hand, we both made it funny and short.

Guests really enjoyed the short ceremony (like ten mins) and were able to be engaged with the entire thing.

Brody handpicked all our ceremony songs and it was just very special that way.

Brody: I am Jewish so I also stepped on the glass.

The Venue

We went to the venue for a brunch before meeting them, and saw a very cute and intimate baby shower there that gave us a lot of confidence.

We loved that all their food was organic, and very vegan friendly. Plus the venue just felt perfect for my dress and we knew it could be beautiful without lots of decoration, we made our decision the day we got their quote.

(There was a time where we had second doubts about the venue. We went for our food tasting and the food was terrible and took a long time to come out. At the end of our meal the waiter came out and apologized and said the meal was free.

We came back for a re-testing and the food was delicious and we learned that the first time we went, two chefs quit that night and one of the waiters had to make our food.)

The Decor & Details

We tried to keep it simple and easy so we could DIY it. We went to the LA flower mart the day before and picked all the flowers that matched my color palette. I believe whatever is in season is the best kind of flower.

We put single flowers in vintage brass candle holders and glasses I collected from Craigslist. We also used fabrics and greenery I ordered online to make the arch.

We had two party favors, fedoras for men and flower crowns for ladies. What’s great is that they were not just favors, but also worked out as great decor for our wedding!

Advice for Other Couples

Sherry: Pinterest and Instagram. I just searched for specific things by using keyword and hashtags and tried to avoid browsing randomly, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to make decisions after seeing too many choices (still happened a few times though).

The most important thing is to have fun at your wedding, we made sure we had a bunch of time to look at each other in the eyes, kiss, hug and have our moments as well.

Brody: My advice is let your bride have whatever she wants…within reason, and to listen.

Sherry knew what kind of wedding she wanted and I just wanted her to be happy really, so I did all I could with helping and setting-up to make sure she got what she wanted.

Also, it goes by really fast so try to take mental pictures so you can reminisce about it later.

The Refreshments

We had wine, beer and champagne cocktails because that’s what the venue provided. And they were delish!

Besides the hor d'oeuvres and formal sit down luncheon, we also served gourmet popsicles. It was a big hit (maybe because it was over 90 degrees).

But what’s better than having gourmet popsicles in a hot summer day? (I actually ate 5 of them…)

We skipped wedding cakes to save some money (and cake cutting fee), instead I ordered cronuts and donuts from one of my favorite donut places in Santa Monica. Everyone loved it.

Favourite Moments

Sherry: This is hard! I love everything!

Brody: I have a few special moments. After the ceremony, while everyone was eating, I had a moment to take Sherry away from everyone and we had a nice moment to sit and laugh about the day.

Also, the speeches that were made were very touching, last nice memory I remember, as the end of the party, when everyone was going home, Sherry and I got to dance to one of Sherry’s favorite songs “Just the Way you Are” by Bruno Mars, but it was so hot and we were pretty tired so we shared a popsicle before cleaning up and leaving the venue.