Rustic Elegant Santa Cruz Wedding
By combining their backgrounds (she Italian, he Mexican) and adding in their love for all things tasty, these two created a celebration that not only represented them perfectly but was one amazingly, delicious bash at the same time. Melissa Fuller captured the day, from the beautiful bridesmaids' decked out in Weddington Way, Rent the Runway and more, to the Bride's bouquet with the perfect pops of red thanks to Huckleberry Karen Designs. See this (and more!) in our VAULT this way!
From the Bride... Ryan and I wanted our wedding to closely reflect the things that matter most to us in life - family and friends, food and lots of fun. I come from a big Italian family and Ryan comes from a large Mexican family. For us, having 40 people at Christmas dinner is the norm, so we wanted our wedding to feel like that. One big celebratory dinner to honor our families and closest friends coming together. So we had five long farm tables placed out on the gorgeous lawn amidst the Redwood trees in the Santa Cruz forest. Tables were adorned with olive branches and figs from my grandma's garden. Gold chargers, gold-rimmed champagne flutes and gold flatware made for our perfect Tuscan dinner party, and don't forget freshly baked bread and sea-salted butter!
Food was also a major source of inspiration for us. We cook together a lot at home, we even stated in our vows that day (without knowledge of one another's vows) to always be the other person's head chef and sous chef. Our caterer worked with us closely to create the perfect menu with lots of Italian/Californian farm-to-table flavors and details. We had an olive oil tasting bar with olives imported from Spain and it featured olive oils that Ryan and I had collected at local farmer's markets and in wine country throughout the year. To keep with the dinner/food theme... even our invitations were printed on dish towels. I worked closely with our designer (Kim at Bright Room Studios) to create a map of the Bay Area that included all of the most important places to Ryan and me throughout our time as a couple. We printed our invitations on dish towels to remind people of how we like to cook and spending time in the kitchen together, hoping that one day the towel would be reused by our guests.
Fun radiated throughout the entire wedding day and the team at Nestldown, My-Dung in particular, helped us bring our vision to life that day! Some of the "fun things we did" - choreographed our first dance, we had four matching ring-bearers and one flower-girl carrying an oversized balloon, the bridesmaid's sequin dresses, a Dr. Seuss reading, dragons, dwarf-cottages and a king's throne, a custom Nor-Cal vs So-Cal corn hole set, bocce ball, custom beer koozies, a life-size train for people to ride around the grounds, the bride and groom being "Iced" by the best man, a vintage Volkswagen bus for a photo booth and glow sticks on the dance floor!
We spent most of our 14 months of planning brainstorming ways to make our guests feel like they were at the center of the celebration right along there with us. This is why we hired Melissa, our awesome photographer. We loved her photojournalistic style and knew she would help us capture all the special moments of our family and friends we might have missed so that we could re-live this special day for years to come. She did a fantastic job capturing all the details from our special day and our fun, loving group of family and friends - pictures really are worth a thousand words in this case! :)
Other standouts include: every detail was thought through to try to make the whole experience really reflect Ryan, me and the things we love in life. The table numbers reflected the different locations on our invite map, I hand-painted each and every sign, the drinks were called "La Sposa" (the wife in Italian) and "El Novio" (husband in Spanish), and we even poured wine from the small winery we belong to and spend many weekends at in Sonoma.
Food was also a major source of inspiration for us. We cook together a lot at home, we even stated in our vows that day (without knowledge of one another's vows) to always be the other person's head chef and sous chef. Our caterer worked with us closely to create the perfect menu with lots of Italian/Californian farm-to-table flavors and details. We had an olive oil tasting bar with olives imported from Spain and it featured olive oils that Ryan and I had collected at local farmer's markets and in wine country throughout the year. To keep with the dinner/food theme... even our invitations were printed on dish towels. I worked closely with our designer (Kim at Bright Room Studios) to create a map of the Bay Area that included all of the most important places to Ryan and me throughout our time as a couple. We printed our invitations on dish towels to remind people of how we like to cook and spending time in the kitchen together, hoping that one day the towel would be reused by our guests.
Fun radiated throughout the entire wedding day and the team at Nestldown, My-Dung in particular, helped us bring our vision to life that day! Some of the "fun things we did" - choreographed our first dance, we had four matching ring-bearers and one flower-girl carrying an oversized balloon, the bridesmaid's sequin dresses, a Dr. Seuss reading, dragons, dwarf-cottages and a king's throne, a custom Nor-Cal vs So-Cal corn hole set, bocce ball, custom beer koozies, a life-size train for people to ride around the grounds, the bride and groom being "Iced" by the best man, a vintage Volkswagen bus for a photo booth and glow sticks on the dance floor!
We spent most of our 14 months of planning brainstorming ways to make our guests feel like they were at the center of the celebration right along there with us. This is why we hired Melissa, our awesome photographer. We loved her photojournalistic style and knew she would help us capture all the special moments of our family and friends we might have missed so that we could re-live this special day for years to come. She did a fantastic job capturing all the details from our special day and our fun, loving group of family and friends - pictures really are worth a thousand words in this case! :)
Other standouts include: every detail was thought through to try to make the whole experience really reflect Ryan, me and the things we love in life. The table numbers reflected the different locations on our invite map, I hand-painted each and every sign, the drinks were called "La Sposa" (the wife in Italian) and "El Novio" (husband in Spanish), and we even poured wine from the small winery we belong to and spend many weekends at in Sonoma.
