Santa Monica Wedding by Ashleigh Taylor Photography
Oh my gosh, I love this wedding and its theme which the bride described as art deco meets literary geek chic. Each and every photo from Ashleigh Taylor Photography reaffirms this couple’s unique and adorable vision for their day. From the newspaper bouquet and bouts to crossword puzzles and library cards, this wedding is bursting from the seams with spunk and personality and that’s exactly what we like to see here at SMP. Click here for the entire gallery!
Click here to see the entire gallery of images!
From the Bride…My husband Drew and I married at the Marion Davies Guest House in Santa Monica. We currently live in Chicago, but both grew up in Los Angeles. In fact, we met and began dating in high school in west Los Angeles, so it was only fitting we get married on the west coast! Our theme for the wedding can be described as art deco meets literary geek chic. Which is so us. We are both major nerds. We both have our areas of nerdy speciality–in college, I majored in opera and he wrote a thesis about the video game “Portal.” Nerds. But one way in which our nerdiness seriously overlaps is literature. When we moved in together, finding enough shelf space for our combined book collections was a challenge. And if it weren’t for an amazing Shakespeare class we took in high school, we might never be where we are now. So, it only seemed appropriate to pay homage to our shared love of books. We’re also big fans of art deco style (see: our obsessions with Charlie Chaplin films, Boardwalk Empire, Gatsby et al) and our venue was built in the heyday so we went with it!
For the color palette we went with shades of blue with accents of black and white. Very simple, but also very us. Drew has the most incredible blue eyes and I *love* it when he wears blue. Our venue was beach side. Blue just seemed like a natural choice. So we just used blues of all kinds of shades of blues: sky, navy, teal, royal, dusty and anything else. It’s funny though, my ring actually was the one thing that was green instead of blue. It has emeralds which are important to me because of my Colombian heritage.
As for the ceremony and reception, Drew is a writer and we’re not terribly traditional in general so we knew right away that we would write our own vows. Our officiant is also an English teacher and a fabulous writer in her own right so we asked her to write the rest of the ceremony and just knew she come up with something great. She has an incredible sense of humor and we definitely wanted to keep the mood light. Neither of us are big on dancing. At all. So the idea of a dance floor was really unappealing for us. Our favorite parties are ones where you can actually talk to people and hear their responses. It was really important to us to be able to actually be able to see and talk to everyone who came and we’re very proud that we succeeded at that! But we didn’t want people to end up getting bored because they might have expected dancing so we tried to come up with fun things for people to do that would encourage them to get to know one another. Most of my family had never met his family and so forth. We came up with three things: 1) a fun DIY photo booth using my laptop, a decent printer, some fun props and this super easy software from sparkbooth.com 2) Two good friends brought an entire rock band setup and put up Beatles Rockband–all of our ceremony music was The Beatles and even some old timers stepped up and gave it a try! 3) We made crossword puzzles–sticking with our nerdy/literary theme–where all the answers were about the life we have together. Some answers only our high school friends would know, some only newer Chicago-based friends would know, and others would only be family. This way if people wanted to complete the puzzle they would be forced to branch out and meet new people! It totally worked! And they were great conversation starters!
Wedding Photography: Ashleigh Taylor Photography / Venue: Marion Davies Guest House at Annenberg Community Beach House / Caterer: Schaffer’s Genuine Foods / Wedding Dress: Leluxe Clothing / Hair + Make-up: Talia Londoner / Wedding Cake: Emily’s Custom Bakeshop / Styling: The Bride + Groom, Their Rad Parents, and Friends
20 Comments about “Santa Monica Wedding by Ashleigh Taylor Photography”
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OMG that art deco cake??!!! OUTRAGEOUSLY gorgeous! And the brides dress with the birdcage veil? I truly dig this! i wore a birdcage as well and it's a classic look that I'm grateful came back!
Wow! Such a beautiful wedding! I love all the details, and the photography is amazing!
super fun style!!! xo
Just one word. Classy
the cake, the paper bouquet, the garland on the mantle...
love these details! i can't choose a favorite!
thank you so much aimee and the SMP team for this LOVELY feature!!! i'm so excited to share this wedding and i know lauren + drew are too!! xoxo ashleigh
In.LOve.With.That.CAKE!
Ashleigh Taylor has done it again! Her work is PHENOMENAL!!!
I love Ashleigh!!!! xoxo
That wedding dress is adorable! It fits so perfectly with the theme. I love everything!
loving all the little paper details...bouts are totally adorable!!!
LOVE the dress! Love the paper garlands too. The blue works really well.
what a great wedding
Thank you everyone for your kind words! We worked hard to make our vision a reality and could not be happier with how things turned out. We had been crafting since November. We're also so privileged to have such gorgeous memories of our day from Ashleigh!
Hi Lauren,
Love your wedding style - totally gorgeous!!!!
We are doing an art deco theme on the beach, but I have been searching for my bridal shoes for so long! Any chance you could tell me where you found yours? They are beautiful.
Thanks!
Tarryn
The shoes I wore are by Seychelles. They're called "Pot of Gold." I ordered them directly from their company website but I'm not seeing them there anymore. Maybe try ebay or other resellers? Good luck on your hunt!
This is one of the most unique and wonderfully creative weddings i have ever seen!! The cake is great. Just love it! I have 2 daughters and I hope they pick somethng fun when it is their turn.. Kudo's to the bride, you could have a new career in wedding planning..lol Thanks for sharing
Wow Lauren- Such a fabulously executed theme. I need to repost the link so Katie can see it, she left Monday for Bordeaux for the year and she lives for unique party and wedding theme blogs. Congratulations on a beautiful wedding that reflected who you two are and not the cookie cutter Brides magazine version of what a wedding should look like. PS The camera loves you!
Love and Best Wishes - Kimberly
Thanks so much Kimberly and Lucinda!
After getting so many compliments and comments about how I should start a new career in wedding planning, I've decided to dabble just a bit. I've just opened my own shop on etsy where I will be offering custom made bouquets, boutonnières and paper garland decorations.
http://www.etsy.com/people/bookishbride
Thanks again for the support and inspiration!
This was one of the most personal weddings I have ever been to. EVER! I would say that even if I weren't the mother of the groom. Ashleigh captured the mood and spirit of the occasion to total perfection.