The flutter sleeves on this dreamy dress captured my attention immediately but it isn’t the only detail I’ve been pinning to my Pinterest boards from this bright celebration. And once I learned the Bride herself is a photographer, it all made sense. She designed her wedding with light and color being of utmost importance, and it paid off, because these pics by Steve Steinhardt are brilliant. I could go on forever fawning over it all, but you can see for yourself, with all the beauty in our Vault right here!
From The Bride…As a wedding photographer myself, I’ve had the opportunity to see and experience many different unique and beautiful approaches to planning your wedding day. When Tyler and I found each other and fell in love, after he popped the question I felt so overwhelmed about the wedding planning process and all the decisions ahead I didn’t even know where to start! But after taking a step back and narrowing our focus to what we really wanted our big day to look and feel like, and what would be most true to us, we decided to take a simple, organic approach to our wedding. We used as many friends for vendors as possible so we were surrounded by people who knew us on a personal level, and we tried to make as many of the details by hand as time permitted so that our guests were surrounded by a world we created for them. Tyler’s warm, loving nature tempered my stress and made the planning fun!
The perfect backdrop for our vision was The Lombardi House in Hollywood, CA. The size of the space was perfect for our guest count of 130, and the color palette was exactly what we were looking for, with bright white walls and lush green grounds. Given my line of work, photography was the most important thing to me and I designed 95% of the wedding day decisions around it. Time of day, lighting, color, timeline, it was all designed around optimal photography! And there was no photographer I could have trusted more than Steve Steinhardt, my dear friend, mentor, and photo-idol. Steve captured our wedding day perfectly, down to every last detail! We are so in love with the images and will treasure them forever.
After all of the planning and preparations, the big day was everything we dreamed of and more. To be surrounded by our closest friends and family from all over the country was so surreal, and to make our lifelong vows of love to each other in their presence was an honor. We are so glad we kept our wedding day simple. We invested our time and resources into the details we valued most, and tried our best to take on a manageable amount of tasks so the process wasn’t ruined by stress.
My favorite project was my dress, which began as a strapless ballgown I found at a small boutique in Utah, then worked with a seamstress here in California to strip out several layers of tulle and add on the flutter sleeves with lace appliqués I had designed for the dress. It came out exactly like I imagined! Other handmade details we loved were the wooden planters in the shape of our initials that my friend Patrick made for us, and the little bags of rose petals we fixed to the backs of the chairs so people could throw them after the ceremony.
Looking back I’m still so overwhelmed with gratitude for our families and friends who helped us pull this together. Most of all, I’m grateful to have found my perfect companion and forever love, Tyler. He makes every day an adventure and I couldn’t feel luckier to get to spend the rest of our lives together.
Photography: Steve Steinhardt Photography | Event Planning: Merren Events | Wedding Dress: Allure Bridal | Cake: SugarKup Bakery | Invitations: Wesley Bird | Makeup: Meghan Nguy | Hair: Christine Nelli | Venue: The Lombardi House | Air Plants + Vessels: Airplantman | Rentals: Premiere Party Rents | Veil: BHLDN