I am prone to bouts of bouquet envy but when I saw this darling little number I just about died of flower lust.  Cotton, lace , burlap and luscious coral blossoms?  Be still my petal loving heart!  I was shocked to learn that the bouquets and all the flower arrangements were made my friend of the bride!  Get out of town!  The rest of this Corona ranch wedding by Melissa Munding Photography is not too shabby either.  Head on over to the full gallery to get your dose of California rustic for the day!

Click here to see the entire image gallery!

From the Bride… Early on, we knew we wanted a youthful wedding that wasn’t too formal. We wanted traditional but still fun-loving, memorable but not over the top. There wasn’t a cohesive theme or direction for a while.  All I knew was that my dress had pockets, so that was pretty stinkin’ fun and lighthearted.  Also, we had a relatively short engagement (6 months) and a very low budget, according to the wedding-world, so we needed to DIY or sacrifice details as much as possible.

Once we found staRRanch, it really created the rest of our inspiration for us. With such a beautiful venue, we didn’t need to decorate nearly as much, so the stress of creating an atmosphere was over. Armed with our wedding-day colors and the buzz word “ranchy” (As in, “Is this ranchy enough?”), all the details fell into place.

I fell in love with cotton bolls instead of flowers, and Thomas fell in love with the price of burlap in the Home Depot gardening section. I found a couple awesome wedding blogs and followed them closely for inspiration. Just about every good idea we had started from a tutorial or wedding forum; it was incredible how much information there was to draw from! And for the things we couldn’t make ourselves, because of time restraints, we purchased online for very reasonable prices.

One of our favorite details was the lanterns! A good friend of ours suggested lanterns for the centerpieces and it just took off from there. We realized they were ranchy, rustic, AND affordable. Ikea had awesome lanterns in all sizes, and we found some cool extra large lanterns on Craigslist for a good deal. They looked really pretty at our evening reception with the flickering candle light, and we didn’t have to worry about the wind blowing them out. In the end, we were able to give them as thank you gifts to our MANY friends who “worked” our wedding. Dual purpose and a beautiful detail!

I love antique cameos and we both liked the idea of having our likenesses implied somewhere in the wedding. Our very talented artist friend, Jamie Sugarman, worked at Disneyland for several years making hand-cut silhouettes, so she was able to make these silhouettes for us in a matter of minutes! For the actual cake topper, I photocopied them down and mounted them on dowels and card stock. On top of the most beautiful (and delicious!) cake we could have asked for from Thomas’ aunt, Sherry, it was stunning!! We still have the normal-sized original silhouettes and plan to frame them in our home.

We found a few photos of floral arrangements on wedding blogs that featured cotton bolls and immediately our interest was piqued! Unfortunately, there are only about 3 weddings out there with real cotton bolls in their floral arrangements from which we could draw inspiration. We printed every picture from those weddings and provided them to our friendor florist, Anna. We purchase high-quality cotton online and she arranged them with lovely coral-colored silk flowers. They held up excellently, they didn’t have to be sprayed with water (which would ruin the cotton), and the overall effect was soft, sweet, and romantic. Love, love, love!

In the end, it came together just right. While there were lots of little, lovely details that we created ourselves, we really allowed the ranch’s natural, rustic beauty to take the lead and that was the best decision we could have made.

Wedding Photography: Melissa Munding Photography / Flowers: Friend of the Bride & Groom / Wedding Cake: Friend of the Bride & Groom / Cake Topper: Jamie Sugarman, Friend of the Bride + The Bride / Wedding Dress: Galina via David’s Bridal / Event Coordinator: Heather Orosco / Officiant: Jeff Biard, Father of the Groom / Hair: Salon réBelle / Wedding Ceremony & Reception Location: staRRanch / Lanterns: IKEA