30,000 Roses Were Used for this Santa Lucia Preserve Wedding

Melissa Baran
March 1, 2019
Categories: Real Weddings, Romantic, The Blog

As described by the Bride in her wedding day story, there were several details that made their day uniquely theirs. From incorporating animals into the celebration and asking their guests to adopt them elephants in lieu of gifts to every inch dripping with roses by Eddie Zaratsian (30,000 to be exact), it is truly a fete like no other. Allison Weddings planned it all, while Larissa Cleveland made sure those moments will live on forever in the form of these images. Oh, and incase you missed it, we kicked it all off with the welcome party this morning!

From the Bride… Michael and I met through mutual friends in 2011 and started dating in April of 2012. Michael grew up in Menlo Park and I in Palo Alto and though we didn’t meet until college it was like we had known each other our whole lives. We shared a love for families, friends, bay area sports teams, snow covered mountains, travel and live music. Over the years we have traveled the world together and also built an amazing life at home in Woodside, CA where we happily live with our dog Bear and six chickens. Our wedding was a dream come true and we are thrilled to have started our marriage in such a beautiful and personal way. We are forever grateful for all of the love, support and hard work that everyone around us put in to making the day such a dream come true.

The Santa Lucia Preserve was the first venue that we visited and we absolutely fell in love with the whole venue, especially the redwood grove where the ceremony took place and the barn where the reception was held. Carmel was also an ideal location for us as it gave us the ability to incorporate some of our favorite things we loved into the other events. Having our rehearsal dinner at on the adorable patio at Casanova, a welcome event on the beach and a wedding in a redwood grove really made our wedding weekend feel personal to us.

We knew that we wanted to make our wedding feel unique to us as a couple and my mom was there every step of the way to help us achieve just that. Flowers are something that both my mom and I absolutely love and she found the incredibly talented Mr. Eddie Zaratsian to help make our dream become a reality. He truly transformed both the redwood grove and the barn into a masterpiece dripping with flowers. The flowers not only looked beautiful but they smelled absolutely amazing and he did not miss a single detail. Everything was stunning from the flowers covering the arch that was built for us to get married under, to the flowers hanging from the ceiling of the barn, to the beams and tables draped in flowers, to the flower crowns and baskets for the flower girls and even the flower collar for our dog Bear were perfect.

We knew that we wanted to have live music at our wedding but we also wanted to do something a little less traditional. We found The Hackensaw Boys, a string based band out of Virginia and decided that they would be the perfect fit for cocktail hour and they would even lead the guests on the walk from cocktails to the reception. They were a huge hit that everyone loved including us!

A love for animals is something that Michael and I share and being able to incorporate some throughout our wedding events was really a highlight. My bridal shower was African Safari themed with goats, alpacas, monkeys, alligators, a pig and even camels which Michael road in on. For the wedding day, Santa Lucia Preserve was nice enough to organize having a horse named Teddy come to take pictures with me before the ceremony. We also knew that we wanted to have our own dog (Bear) be a part of the ceremony so she walked down the aisle as the dog of honor. Fun fact: Michael’s rehearsal day activity with his groomsman was golf mine was goat yoga.

After dating for six years we were fortunate enough to have most of the “essential” home items that newly engaged couples need. Therefore, in lieu of gifts we asked our guests to adopt us elephants at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is incredible elephant orphanage that we fell in love with when we spent time there in 2017. They rescue and rehabilitate orphaned elephants with the intention of reintegrating them back in to the wild. We had the pleasure of experiencing their newborn nursery in Nairobi as well as their location in Tsavo East where the elephants begin the transition to becoming wild again. The experience was incredible and we were honored to be able to make a small contribution to such an amazing organization. My bridesmaids decided to adopt me the orphanage’s resident blind Rhino, Maxwell, as my wedding gift. The orphanage in Nairobi gave Maxwell a forever home because his blindness would prevent him from ever being able to successfully integrate back in to the wild. I have always loved animals (especially ones in need) and this gift could not have been more perfect.