Golden Sebastopol Wedding at O’Connell Vineyards

Erin Lepperd
May 8, 2014
Categories: The Blog

When you work for Minted, it’s pretty much a given that your wedding stationery is going to be extraordinary (hint: it is!) But that’s just the beginning of this golden hued Sebastopol wedding. It’s brimming with the cutest signage by Knead To Make, loads of happy color and vintage conversation spots designed by California Vintage Rentals + Design and all captured by White Daisy Photography. Have a look at the full gallery for more. Oh and theres a film by Paperweight Films that you absolutely must hit play on below.

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From the Bride… The most important part of our wedding was that it truly represented us as a couple. We did all of the planning and decision making together to make sure that both of us felt like the wedding was ‘us’. When picking a venue we wanted to find a place that felt intimate but still allowed for 170 guests. We met through mutual friends in San Francisco and knew we both wanted an outdoor wedding so wine country seemed like a perfect option. We both fell in love with the beautiful greenery and setting at Vine Hill House in Sebastopol, which was a vineyard and apple orchard. We also loved that this venue was like a blank canvas so we could customize and personalize every detail. Alex & I planned every element of the wedding as we did not have a wedding planner, we did have a lot of great help from our family and some wonderful vendors! Throughout the entire year we were constantly crafting and planning together. It all started when we asked our bridal party to be a part of our wedding. Alex made home-brewed beer and custom printed labels on the bottle ‘Will you be my groomsman?’ and I made a custom-made flip book asking my best friends to be bridesmaids. It was important to us to weave in some Jewish traditions (as well as Alex’s Russian heritage) with the modern vibe of the day. I am really drawn to colors and have been eyeing coral and aqua for quite some time. Plus my absolute favorite color is gold so of course that rounded us out! So many elements of the wedding were truly crafted with love, most all of the elements were handmade by either us or our family members. We even dedicated a section in our program with fun facts about the wedding to call out some of the homemade touches. Here are a few of those fun facts:

– The bride’s father hand built many of the wood elements. (Including the chuppah, wine racks/guestbook rack, and wood signs)

– The groom’s father hand painted the watercolor piece that wrapped around the invitation and was on the cover the program. The painting is an interpretation of us getting married at the venue. He also painted from scratch a beautiful family tree that had black & white photos of both sides of our families on their wedding days.

– Alex home-brewed all of the beer for the toast, this is a hobby of his that we wanted to incorporate into the big day. The favors/escort cards were cast-iron bottle openers with tags water-colored by Alex’s father as well as fun customized beer koozies to take home.

– I personally have a large sweet tooth. So we treated out guests to little pieces of cookie dough (my absolute favorite) as a pre-dinner treat (love is sweet, eat dessert first) – and it was placed inside a kraft bag along with our printed dinner menu and placed at every seat. All of these elements were created and printed on our own.

– My brother-in-law officiated our ceremony. He interviewed each of our families throughout the year leading up to the wedding and brought their words of wisdom into the ceremony. The entire thing was so thoughtful and personal; it was such a special moment for us. He weaved both of our lives into the ceremony as well as touching on our strong family backgrounds.

– Alex really loves bourbon so we brought in a bourbon and cigar tasting bar under the trees after dark. The lounge was customized with some great ‘man cave’ furniture and famous quotes about cigars & bourbon scattered throughout.

– We brought the chalkboard from our kitchen at home to the wedding. Over the years we have written messages to each other on this chalkboard for special occasions and moments throughout our lives. We displayed it with snapshots of these messages and incorporated a few other chalkboard signs throughout the space.

– We met at a Tom Petty concert in San Francisco so it was only fitting to have the bridal party walk down the aisle to one of his songs (Wildflower)! I walked down the aisle to ‘Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World’ by IZ on the ukulele,

– We printed one of our engagement photos on canvas as our homemade Ketubah.

– I surprised Alex with a storm trooper (from Star Wars) grooms cake, his all-time favorite movie – it was quite a hit and so delicious! We were actually announced as husband and wife to the Star Wars theme song.

– The wedding guest book comprised of 10 wine bottles where guests could write notes and we will open the corresponding bottle on that anniversary year and read all of the lovely things everyone had to say on our wedding day.

We chose the infinity symbol to represent our wedding day as Alex has always told me he loves me infinity x infinity. We had the logo with our initials custom made by one of my co-workers at Minted. We incorporated the logo throughout the wedding from our wedding stationery, program, cocktail stir sticks, printed menu, customized matches for cigar bar and more. A few other ways we liked to represent our families was that I wore my sister’s wedding veil that she wore on her wedding day. We also wanted to make sure both of our parents walked us each down the aisle, they are so supportive and loving that we really wanted to share our appreciation in a small way for all they did for us (for the wedding day and throughout life). Alex’s brother surprised us during his toast with a hidden video from the day Alex actually proposed- it was such a touching and sweet moment! Plus Alex’s dad hand-painted a mural during his toast where we put our heads through the holes and everyone got some great laughs!