Bright Florals at Whimsical Sonoma Wedding
Bright, vibrant colors fill this whimsical Sonoma wedding captured beautifully by One Love Photography. Tucked underneath a white tent from One True Love Vintage Rentals, the bride looks gorgeous in a romantic Hayley Paige design, while the groom is dapper in Indochino. You can see every moment and detail here!
From The Bride...Jerome and I met in college. We were basically just kids when we met and have been by each other's sides while we each grew into successful adults with real careers. He wanted me to finish graduate school before moving on to the next chapter of our lives together, and we dated for almost 8 years before he proposed in the vineyards outside a castle in Napa. We got married exactly on our 9 year dating anniversary, so we really wanted our wedding to feel like a big celebration of LOVE! Since Jerome proposed in a vineyard, we wanted to continue with the theme and have a wine country wedding. And because really, in my opinion, it does not get anymore beautiful than an outdoor summer wedding in wine country! My idea of our perfect wedding design included modern elements (for the groom), vintage details (for the bride) surrounded by romance, with a dash of whimsy and fun. It was really important to us that the wedding truly reflected us as a couple, with respect to both our tastes and our personalities. My husband and I are pretty much polar opposites, but we worked with each other and with our planner to create something beautiful for our big day, and we could not have been happier with the end product.
When we first started the wedding planning process, I had these wild dreams of a beautiful DIY wedding. I had lists of projects that I wanted to accomplish to truly make our wedding bespoke. However, I had just finished graduate school and started a new career so of course my big plans didn't work out. We were still able to have custom items for our wedding, though, which I absolutely was thrilled about. With some help from our loving family and friends, we managed to personalize several things including our bar menu and other signage, our version of the Mr. and Mrs. chair sign, custom gold marquee lights, escort cards, programs, hand embroidered bridesmaid hankies, and hand planted succulent favors. I feel these small details added a very special touch to our wedding.
Since my husband and I have very different tastes, it was difficult to come up with a design that would reflect us both. We decided on neutral base colors of grey, white, and gold for a classic and clean feel, and had a spectrum of the rose family included in our floral design for added whimsy. The neutral base colors contributed an elegant feel, vintage furniture brought in the details I craved, the gorgeous flowers added romance, and our glitter sequin linen completed the look with the sprinkle of whimsy I was looking for. The result was just magic. Another aspect of our wedding that I love was our custom invitation suite and wedding paper goods. This was designed by my good friend and bridesmaid. The flowers were hand water colored by her and added such a unique touch to our paper goods.
It is easy to get sucked into the glitz and glam of the wedding world. You begin to want and dream of things you never even knew existed! To keep yourselves from becoming overwhelmed (and staying within budget), I recommend sitting down with your partner and making a list of a few things that are really important to you. That way, you can focus and splurge on these things. For us, it was food, photography, and design. Being self proclaimed foodies, catering was important to us. We hired our day of coordinator to help us pull together themes and elements we loved, and to assist in putting together a design we truly were happy with. And of course, we had to find the perfect photographer to document our magical day. Ours were able to capture the love and magic of our big day just beautifully. We were so happy when our guests ranted and raved about how the wedding truly felt very "us".
There were so many special moments from our big day, including the anticipation of our first look, walking down the aisle with both my parents by my side, and literally being surrounded by love during the last song of the night. However, my dad passed away very recently and I want to share my memories of him from our wedding day.
My dad's health has been deteriorating over the past couple of years, and we did not know if he would be able to make it to the wedding. However, luckily he ended up being well enough to walk me down the aisle and to my surprise, even make a beautiful speech during dinner! About six months after the wedding, just as we thought he was on the road to gaining his health back, my dad unexpectedly passed away. His loss has been more difficult than I could ever imagine, but I am comforted by some of our last memories together on my wedding day. Before the wedding, my dad mustered what little strength he had and with heavy determination, helped my mom build our wedding arch. It was truly special to exchange vows under something my parents lovingly built, especially now looking back and knowing that it was one of my dad's last gifts to us. I also fondly remembered our father/daughter dance. My dad twirled me, and I must say he was not the twirling type! During our dance when I asked him if he was happy, he smiled, nodded and said, "Ba happy." (Ba is Vietnamese for father)
From The Groom...The day started off with me waking up bright and early, sneaking out of the groom/groomsmen house, and heading to a coffee shop so that I could gather my thoughts and write the letters I would be putting into our wine capsule (we would read these letters 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years later). Of course I had waited until the last minute to get them done. I was making great progress until I looked at the clock and realized I had been there longer than I anticipated. In fact, I needed to get back and get ready! And that sort of set the tone for the whole day. It went by in a blur. My bride looked stunning in her gorgeous dress. The beautiful outdoor ceremony was perfect. The food was delicious. The speeches were all so heart felt. I guess in general, what I will remember most is all the love I felt from our friends and family. When else will you ever attend a party of 150 people in their best attire where you’re the center of attention, you know all the attendants, and everyone is wishing you nothing but happiness? Just once in your lifetime and our wedding day could not have been more perfect.
When we first started the wedding planning process, I had these wild dreams of a beautiful DIY wedding. I had lists of projects that I wanted to accomplish to truly make our wedding bespoke. However, I had just finished graduate school and started a new career so of course my big plans didn't work out. We were still able to have custom items for our wedding, though, which I absolutely was thrilled about. With some help from our loving family and friends, we managed to personalize several things including our bar menu and other signage, our version of the Mr. and Mrs. chair sign, custom gold marquee lights, escort cards, programs, hand embroidered bridesmaid hankies, and hand planted succulent favors. I feel these small details added a very special touch to our wedding.
Since my husband and I have very different tastes, it was difficult to come up with a design that would reflect us both. We decided on neutral base colors of grey, white, and gold for a classic and clean feel, and had a spectrum of the rose family included in our floral design for added whimsy. The neutral base colors contributed an elegant feel, vintage furniture brought in the details I craved, the gorgeous flowers added romance, and our glitter sequin linen completed the look with the sprinkle of whimsy I was looking for. The result was just magic. Another aspect of our wedding that I love was our custom invitation suite and wedding paper goods. This was designed by my good friend and bridesmaid. The flowers were hand water colored by her and added such a unique touch to our paper goods.
It is easy to get sucked into the glitz and glam of the wedding world. You begin to want and dream of things you never even knew existed! To keep yourselves from becoming overwhelmed (and staying within budget), I recommend sitting down with your partner and making a list of a few things that are really important to you. That way, you can focus and splurge on these things. For us, it was food, photography, and design. Being self proclaimed foodies, catering was important to us. We hired our day of coordinator to help us pull together themes and elements we loved, and to assist in putting together a design we truly were happy with. And of course, we had to find the perfect photographer to document our magical day. Ours were able to capture the love and magic of our big day just beautifully. We were so happy when our guests ranted and raved about how the wedding truly felt very "us".
There were so many special moments from our big day, including the anticipation of our first look, walking down the aisle with both my parents by my side, and literally being surrounded by love during the last song of the night. However, my dad passed away very recently and I want to share my memories of him from our wedding day.
My dad's health has been deteriorating over the past couple of years, and we did not know if he would be able to make it to the wedding. However, luckily he ended up being well enough to walk me down the aisle and to my surprise, even make a beautiful speech during dinner! About six months after the wedding, just as we thought he was on the road to gaining his health back, my dad unexpectedly passed away. His loss has been more difficult than I could ever imagine, but I am comforted by some of our last memories together on my wedding day. Before the wedding, my dad mustered what little strength he had and with heavy determination, helped my mom build our wedding arch. It was truly special to exchange vows under something my parents lovingly built, especially now looking back and knowing that it was one of my dad's last gifts to us. I also fondly remembered our father/daughter dance. My dad twirled me, and I must say he was not the twirling type! During our dance when I asked him if he was happy, he smiled, nodded and said, "Ba happy." (Ba is Vietnamese for father)
From The Groom...The day started off with me waking up bright and early, sneaking out of the groom/groomsmen house, and heading to a coffee shop so that I could gather my thoughts and write the letters I would be putting into our wine capsule (we would read these letters 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years later). Of course I had waited until the last minute to get them done. I was making great progress until I looked at the clock and realized I had been there longer than I anticipated. In fact, I needed to get back and get ready! And that sort of set the tone for the whole day. It went by in a blur. My bride looked stunning in her gorgeous dress. The beautiful outdoor ceremony was perfect. The food was delicious. The speeches were all so heart felt. I guess in general, what I will remember most is all the love I felt from our friends and family. When else will you ever attend a party of 150 people in their best attire where you’re the center of attention, you know all the attendants, and everyone is wishing you nothing but happiness? Just once in your lifetime and our wedding day could not have been more perfect.