Glitter shoes and ocean views are just a few of the pretty details tucked inside this Malibu soiree. With gorgeous images by Rebecca Yale, it’s a mashup of DIY garden details meets gorgeous beach backdrop and I guarantee it’s going to shoot to the top of your favorites list. Get lost in the prettiest shades of blue and the perfect blush colored dahlias too all right here.
From the Photographer… Hanna and Ted’s beachside wedding in Malibu, CA is an amazing example of DIY done right! The bride and her mother planned and designed the event to perfection with the help of Crystal from Orange Blossom Special Events. It was truly a family affair with the bride doing all of the calligraphy and the bride’s mother doing all of the florals, using the bride’s favorite flower- dahlias- as a centerpiece for the day. The Adamson House is situated in a beautiful garden adjacent to the beach in Malibu and the bride used elements from both the sea and the garden in the decor for the day. The bridesmaids donned different shades and silhouettes of Jenny Yoo gowns with long trailing ribbons and bouquets of Dahlias. Dahlia’s were also used in lanterns and terrariums placed on the side of the aisle for the ceremony, but the bride and groom decided to forgo a large floral installation instead choosing to leave the incredible ocean view behind them open for their guests to enjoy. The bride’s “man of honor” officiated the ceremony and the couple updated the jewish tradition of the groom stomping on the glass at the end of the ceremony by both the bride and groom stomping on it. After the ceremony guests enjoyed the bride and groom’s signature cocktails, “The Bel Air Bullet” and the “Rolling Hills Refresher” along with passed hors d’ouerves including mini ahi tuna cones and mini sliders in the courtyard of the house while also enjoying tours of the historic house led by docents. Guests found their names on hand calligraphed and watercolored escort cards made by the bride placed in individual seashells as they entered into the reception on the lawn of the house right on the ocean. Dahlia’s were used once again nestled in leafy green runners along with terrariums with gold candles on the farm tables paired with French bistro x back chairs and sea shells placed atop each napkin. While guests made their way to their tables the bride and groom enjoyed a moment alone taking a walk through the bougainvillea catching the last of the evening’s golden rays. Command performance set up incredible food stations all around the perimeter of the garden for guests to enjoy including street tacos, a California Grill, Feast from the East and a Mac and Cheese bar. Guests danced the night away under a canopy of twinkly lights and enjoyed cake from Sweet Lady Jane.
From the Bride… Although Ted and I met in law school in New York City, one of the first things we bonded over was that we were both raised in Los Angeles. 6 years later, when it came time to plan our wedding, we knew we would bring our guests to our home town to celebrate. I had a hunch that the Adamson House would host our celebration from the first photos I saw. We loved that the entire venue was outdoors–a formal, ballroom wedding wasn’t really our style, but a backyard cocktail party steps from the ocean was right up our alley. When we visited we fell in love with the Spanish tile and the view of the surfers on Malibu beach from what would become our ceremony space; it was the perfect place to treat our guests to a taste of LA and show them everything that we miss about home.
When I thought about what I wanted our wedding to look like I drew a lot of inspiration from our seaside venue, but wanted a more modern, organic take on a typical ‘beach wedding’. Luckily, I had the most incredible team who turned my vision into reality. My mom served as my crafter-in-chief, and incredibly, also as my florist. My favorite flowers are cafe au lait dahlias, and she managed to source them from a local dahlia farm, which we supplemented with succulents that we pulled from my parents’ and our neighbors’ backyards. With an army of my aunts who spent the week before our wedding tirelessly helping out, she created our bouquets with silk ribbon I sourced from Amazon, decorated lanterns that had been collected throughout our engagement for our ceremony space, and put together the driftwood centerpieces for the cocktail tables and the table in our sweetheart lounge area. My mom also made the eucalyptus and dahlia garlands that ran down each of our dinner tables, and knowing that my inspiration images were full of gold accents, she and my aunts took sharpies to the iron candleholders on each table and literally colored them in gold. For convenience, we used faux dahlias to create our flower wall photobooth backdrop, and one of my aunts had the genius idea to arrange them on a giant piece of astroturf that she found at Home Depot.
Another common element in my inspiration images was loose, organic hand lettering. Our invitation calligraphy was done in a style created for me by Jill of Copper Willow, but I also love doing my own lettering and decided to take on the rest myself. Another one of my aunts hand-washed the watercolor paper that we used for our signage and our escort cards, and I lettered everything in gold pen, from our guests’ names to our guestbook sign, to our menu of signature cocktails (named after the neighborhoods in LA where Ted and I grew up). I found a gorgeous image of oyster shell place cards on Pinterest, and my mom and I convinced our local seafood market to give us hundreds of their empty oyster shells for free. We fixed our escort cards in the largest ones with a bit of white decorative moss, and placed one of the smaller shells at each place setting. We found the gold Umbra frames on sale, bought as many as we could, and filled them with our signs and our engagement photos and used them throughout the space.
While our guests appreciated all of the effort that we put into executing the wedding, I hope what they remember most was how much fun we had. I knew our friends and family would be a dancing crowd, but my most memorable moment from our wedding was when we blew out a power generator just as the dance floor was heating up! Even though the music was out for a few minutes, our incredible friends stayed on the floor and sang an acapella rendition of every song they knew the words to, just to keep the dancing going– and it made sure that nobody left the dance floor once the music came back on!
Photography: Rebecca Yale Photography | Coordinator: Orange Blossom Special Events | Cake: Sweet Lady Jane | Invitations: copper willow paper studio | Bride's Shoes: Jimmy Choo | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Jenny Yoo | Catering: Command Performance Catering | Hair and Makeup: Kelly Zhang | Lighting: Revagio Productions | DJ: Red Shoe LA | Groom's Suit: Theory | Venue: Adamson House | Bride's Dress: Lihi Hod | Bride's Dress Point of Purchase: LOHO Bride | Photobooth: Drunken Pixel | Rentals: A Rental Connection | Robes: Plum Pretty Sugar | Specialty Rentals: Circa Vintage {Rentals}