Samantha and Brendan’s idyllic Kestrel Park wedding paid homage to the bride’s culture in the most beautiful way. Inspired by delicate chinoiserie patterns and the venue’s natural beauty, TOAST Santa Barbara planned a timeless affair, interwoven with personal touches and beautiful blue hues. We’re head over heels for the dainty details featured on the couple’s wedding stationery by Julie King Studio, not to mention their adorable butterfly escort cards. Take a peek at this oh-so-pretty day and all of its sentimental surprises at the full gallery, captured by one of our faves – Jen Huang Photography!
From TOAST Santa Barbara… Inspired by her Chinese culture, Samantha and Brendan’s wedding design was inspired by beautiful chinoiserie patterns. From her invitations, to her bridesmaids dresses, to her wedding china, we used shades of blue and various patterns to create an elegant and timeless wedding design. We also pulled inspiration from the natural beauty of their wedding venue, Kestrel Park. Escort cards were shaped like butterflies, floral design incorporated local citrus and blueberry foliage and the linens were covered in embroidered vines much like the property.
From the bride… There have always been a few “details” that I hoped would materialize (I think millennials call this #manifesting) with our wedding. Since I was young, I knew I wanted to have a garden wedding, that I’d hold a bouquet of lily of the valley while my father walked me down the aisle, and I’d have a cathedral-length veil. My favorite childhood film was Alice in Wonderland and I always fantasized about throwing a fabulous adult garden party. There is something about the wonder of a bountiful garden that brings such joy and when we decided to host our ceremony and reception at Kestrel Park, it felt like all signs pointed to the garden party of our dreams.
Kestrel Park has a 19th-century English country house with an exquisite country garden on the property. In keeping with the English country garden theme, our color palette was a lot of ivory, light and dusty shades of blue, and pops of green. Kestrel Park is naturally stunning and my amazing planner Tamara and I (oops, almost forgot Brendan :) ) wanted to compliment the existing landscaping by weaving in shades of green that matched the sycamore allee we walked down, the shades of blues from the delphiniums in the garden, and the bright ivory of my dress. It was important to me that I picked a planner that knew Kestrel Park inside and out, and Tamara nailed it in making sure that our color palette and design choices blended seamlessly with the flowers in bloom during late June. Stylistically, I wanted to make sure that we were creating a cohesive experience for guests beginning with the Save the Dates (that we had to send out twice due to our Covid postponement) and ending with the Haviland Ritz china pattern we used for our plates. For ambiance, Kestrel Park provided such natural splendor with the butterflies in the lavender bushes to the shade of the peach tree grove that we simply had to bring in a string quartet to set the tone for our garden fête.
It truly takes a village to throw a wedding and we can’t thank our extremely talented friends and family enough. Brendan’s parents threw us the most special rehearsal dinner that included our Chinese tea ceremony with our closest friends and family the night before our wedding. I was lucky enough to wear the cheongsam (tea ceremony dress) that my mom wore to her tea ceremony and I hope to be able to pass on this beautiful heirloom one day as well as continue the tradition of the Tea Ceremony.
Our venue was a (beautiful) blank slate when it came to rentals, which allowed us to have a completely personalized wedding. Julie King designed our entire wedding suite and she took such a thoughtful approach to weave in our wedding florals, the natural flora and fauna from the garden, and personalized details like Chinese ginger jars and the double happiness symbol. It was important to me to pay homage to my Hong Kong heritage throughout the design process and it was so fun to see these elements woven in. You can never go wrong with a nod to chinoiserie!
We’re always thinking about our next glass of wine, so one of our favorite details was our wedding wine label. We always knew we wanted to serve Brendan’s family wine at our reception and enlisted our talented friend Lauren to design the labels. She is an amazing designer and we ended up with a fun label picturing two kestrels (we love a theme) representative of us!
My favorite moment was being walked down the aisle by my dad. I’m pretty sure that’s the equivalent of the dad Super Bowl.
A close second to this was spending the entire day with Brendan. We took an extremely untraditional approach to our wedding day starting with breakfast burritos with the wedding party, getting glammed with my bridesmaids while the guys popped in and out of our suite, and shuttling to the venue together. I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s my best friend.
My favorite crafted detail was the personalized dinner menus that Julie created for our reception. When Tamara suggested we work with Julie on our suite, I knew I had to have her create our menu and all the day-of goods. Her food illustrations are so beautiful and fun, and we had them personalized for each guest to also double as name cards.
Cake: by Monique Chan (@therealchezmomo)
For our cake, we asked my childhood friend Monique to create something chic and delicious. Monique was Chef de Partie at The French Laundry and other Michelin-starred restaurants so we knew to give her full control over what she wanted to create and she did not disappoint. I’m not sure we’ll ever taste such a delicious confection ever again. Fun fact: Monique’s siblings were my parent’s ringbearers and flower girl!
1. Make a to-do and packing list!
As I was unpacking in Santa Ynez, I realized I forgot my second look (the most beautiful mini Carolina Herrera number) in San Francisco and had to quickly readjust my limited wardrobe. I ended up wearing my cheongsam (tea ceremony dress) to our rehearsal dinner/welcome party and shifted to wear my Marchesa welcome party dress as my second look at the wedding. Somewhere in between this chaos, I also realized I forgot to get that dress altered. Let’s just say I’m more of a big-picture person and a chronic under-packer. Thankfully, it was nothing my mom couldn’t quickly fix. Looking back, these moments bring the biggest smile to my face and I love that I have such a funny story to tell. Now I’m just waiting for someone to invite me to an extremely chic white party. Anyone!?
2. Hire a Tamara
Brendan and I joke that Tamara is the reason we got married. We met/began our wedding planning process in 2019 and while we knew we wanted a longer engagement because of Brendan’s business school schedule, we didn’t expect to have our wedding date pushed out further from Covid. Between the stress of planning a wedding in California while living in Massachusetts and Covid-related changes, we truly wouldn’t have been able to manage and throw an event without her expertise and guidance. As a couple, we made the conscious decision to focus on wrapping up business school, moving across the country, and hitting career milestones. It was such an obvious decision for us to hire a planner that just got it. I knew from the beginning I needed someone to help narrow down my choices while somehow reading my mind. I’ll never forget when Tamara asked me what flowers I wanted and I replied “white with leaves on it”. To this day, I couldn’t name half of the flowers we used but I know it’s exactly what I wanted. When you find the right planner (and friend), it just clicks!
Photography: Jen Huang Photography | Event Planning: TOAST Santa Barbara | Floral Design: TOAST Santa Barbara | Wedding Dress: Carolina Herrera | Invitations: Julie King Studio | Catering: New West Catering | DJ: DJ Amara | Wedding Venue: Kestrel Park | Beauty: Chiali Meng | Rentals: Bright Event Rentals | Rentals: Theoni Collection | Rentals: SPARK Creative Events | Rentals: BBJ La Tavola