Spurred by the thawing of winter, the blossoming of spring, and the gorgeous silhouettes of oak trees in the Sonoma area, this shoot focuses on blending natural textures with bright, bold colors and details. The result is an soft and inviting combination of light-hearted playfulness and serene sophistication, which maintains an authentic, personal feel.

Photography: MEF Photography / Vintage Rentals: One True Love Vintage Rentals / Planning and Design: Esla Events / Flowers: Leigh Okies Design / Hair and Makeup: Betten Chaston / Rentals: Hartmann Rentals / Venue: Running Rabbit Ranch

If you missed any, here are all of our pretty posts from the week:

the most romantic, beach wedding we’ve ever seen
a stunning bouquet and oh-so much more
a chic, modern garden party in La Jolla
the latest trend in summer colors
our favorite groom’s central coast celebration

Some fabulous links from around the web:

my new favorite wedding activity?  hula hooping, of course!
all-american BBQ inspiration perfect for the holiday weekend
so many cute ideas at this barn bash!  cowboy hat wall, hello!

Have a glorious weekend and we’ll see you back here on Monday! xoxo.

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 1 comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Backyard, Betten Chaston, Esla Events, Hartmann Rentals, Inspiration, Leigh Okies Design, MEF Photography, Modern, One True Love Vintage Rentals, Paper Chain, Running Rabbit Ranch, Summer, Vintage, wedding
Post categories: California Weddings

Click here to see more inspiration in the full wedding gallery!

The wedding was at our house overlooking the Moriches Bay, East Moriches, NY. It has been in the family since the 1920′s and my parents were married there too ( except their wedding was inside because it rained). Since our families have known each other for over 10 years, but we only started dating when he got out of the Marine Corps several years ago, we wanted the wedding to have a family oriented atmosphere.   His brother-in-law officiated, his nephew was our ring bearer and my cousin read the Irish Prayer during the ceremony.  Even the majority of our animal friends made appearances at the wedding!

We tried to pay attention to small details that reflected our personalities and interests. We used the bee symbol throughout the wedding mainly because during my time as a forensic investigator in Baltimore, MD I developed a fancy for insects. The bee symbolizes hope and diligence which seemed fitting for a marriage. Our invitations had a bee wax seal which my mom and I also used to make the napkin rings at each place setting. A family member embroidered the bee on tiny gift bags which were  filled with Tate’s Cookies. They are baked locally and the smell inundates people as they drive through our town!  We wanted to look to reflect the setting so the colors were muted and really emphasized the surroundings. Bayport Flower House provided the flowers for my parents wedding so they were an obvious choice. It also kept with the homegrown feel of the day.  Mike and I even sat in needlepoint chairs that were plucked out of my parents living room and have been part of the family as long as the house has!

The groomsmen were all former Marines so they wore miniature gold wings as tie tacks. The gold wings were also on the wedding cake which was fashioned to look like a stack of antique books to pay tribute to my favorite hobby. Each book represented us as individuals, Mike with the military and equestrian motifs for my layer with one layer dedicated to our union. We chose the bagpipes because I have a long deceased relative who would come play the bagpipes by the water during family gatherings so it was a way to remember those that could only share our day in spirit.  Our first dance was to Rolling Stones – Wild Horses, mostly because I am an avid horseback rider and when Mike and I first started dating he informed me that the thing in this world he is most fearful of are horses! The DJ was a pal of Mike’s who is in the Air National Guard with him.

We ended the night with fireworks, set off by friends….which probably should have been left to professionals.

Oh, and I wore red shoes because, with a name like Dorothy, I had to sneak a Wizard of Oz reference in somewhere….and there is no place like home!

Photography: Heidi with Our Labor of Love / Catering: Moriches Catering / Flowers: Bayport Flower House / Cake:  Toni at Have Your Cake, Ltd. / DJ: Pat Williamson / Bagpipes: Members of the Suffolk County Police Pipe Band / Wedding Dress: Vera Wang (the same style as Chelsea Clinton!) / Bride’s Shoes: Badgley Mischka / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: J. Crew / Suits: Rico’s Clothing / Jewelry: Metal Monk / Favors: Tate’s Cookies

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Backyard, Bayport Flower House, New York Weddings, Our Labor of Love
Post categories: Casual Elegance, New York City Weddings, New York Weddings

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Melissa Waldrop wanted her wedding to be an unforgettable party and wanted to forget all the traditions.  There was no cake cutting, father-daughter dance or big send-off for this bride.  Instead, we held a very intimate ceremony at a historic home on Barton Creek, where guests all gathered around the couple in a circle.  Guests enjoyed fine cigars and scotch during the cocktail hour, where the topic of discussion was “what is up with those swans?”  Afterwards guests dined on the lawn under vintage chandeliers hanging from the oak trees.  DJ Chicken George got everyone shaking on the dance floor and once all had worked up their appetites again we served Chick-fil-A, the bride’s favorite!

Wedding Coordinator:  Sarah Miller, Caplan Miller Events / Photo: Kate Mefford / Flowers: Petal Pushers / Decor: Townsley Designs / Catering: Word of Mouth / Lighting: First In Last Out / Rentals: Marquee Rents / Wedding Dress: Nicole Miller / Reception dress: J. Mendel / Matron of Honor Dress: Rachel Pally / Menswear: their own suits with Hermes ties

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Post tags: Austin, Backyard, Caplan Miller Events, First in Last Out lighting, J. Mendel, Kate Mefford, Marquee Rents, Nicole Miller, Petal Pushers, Rachel Pally, Townsley Designs, Word of Mouth Catering
Post categories: Austin Weddings, Texas Weddings, Traditional Elegance

Click here for more inspiration in the full wedding gallery!

As always, it was a great pleasure to photograph at Healdsburg Country Gardens in Sonoma, California. I thought this late-summer BBQ inspired wedding was adorable! Loved the checkered table cloths and the cherry held escort cards. The BBQ was great too!

Wedding Photographer: Julie Mikos Photography / Wedding Ceremony and Reception Venue: Healdsburg Country Gardens / Florist: Erica Rose Design / Caterer: BBQ Smokehouse Restaurant and Catering / Band: The Wild Catahoulas / Event Producer: Gillian Shenon

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Post tags: Backyard, Barn, BBQ, California Weddings, Erica Rose Design, Gillian Shenon, Healdsburg County Gardens, Julie Mikos Photography, Rustic, Sonoma
Post categories: California Weddings, Casual Elegance, Napa Valley Weddings, The Blog

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We married on a warm summer day at my grandparent’s house on the lake where I grew up. The day was old-fashioned, personal, and full of love.

During the day, guests played bocce ball, croquet, horseshoes and badminton, which were set up around the property with handpainted wooden signs marking the areas. One of my favorite details was using one of the antique wooden badminton racquets from my childhood to decorate the sign post. A string quartet, who were friends from my grandmother’s days in the local symphony, played a mix of classical, swing and motown tunes, followed by a hip young backwater blues band that kept the party hopping till midnight. Our 100 guests enjoyed summer cocktails with quirky names, a menu of Spanish tapas selected by the groom, a Spanish professor, and buttercream-frosted chocolate-and-raspberry and carrot wedding cake.

Under a driftwood arbor I built with my dad, a close friend officiated, using words which described not only our love, but the meaning of bringing friends and family to this place filled with so much history and meaning. My father also built the long farm tables, the bar, and helped with the extensive restoration of the property, which had fallen into neglect since my beloved grandfather’s death. My wedding was a tribute to my grandpa, my most-loved role model, and his love of gardening and of literature. In the year before our wedding, we grew the lavender as well as nearly all the wedding flowers used for the tables and bouquets. We planted over 80 Grosso lavender plants around the ceremony arbor. I recommend doing this more than one year in advance, however!

Before the wedding, I was lucky enough to spend an entire week with my maid of honor, my best friend since third grade; she helped me prep the flowers as I arranged bouquets, centerpieces and aisle flowers. I letterpress printed our four-color save the dates, invitations, and signage seen around the ceremony and reception. It took 50 hours at the old platen press, but was well worth it. I made a lifelong friend of my letterpress mentor, Robert Johnson. Part of the letterpress design included a drawing of a mason jar hanging from a branch by a ribbon, and I knew just where to mimic that—from a twisted oak branch hanging over the ceremony area.

While I was never one to fantasize much about my wedding as a child, I did always have a favorite “wedding” book: A Frog Went A-Courting, so I used illustrations from the book as backings on our program fans. To celebrate my mother, a children’s librarian, we included a reading based on The Runaway Bunny. Marrying near the willow trees was appropriate because I used to beg my grandfather to plant one so I could get married beneath a willow “just like in Frog Went A-Courting.” He was adamantly against it, saying it would block the view of the lake. But about six years before he died, he planted not one but four willow trees, sprinkled around the lakeshore. He wanted to fulfill my dream.

Style Me Pretty was a huge source of inspiration for me. I truly enjoyed designing our wedding from scratch on an affordable budget: collecting vintage jars from antique shops, beverage dispensers, café lights, apothecary jars and other décor second-hand; handmaking eyelet lace candle holders, birch wood centerpieces, calligraphy drink name tags which we hung on a magnet mirror, and spending hours crafting eyelet candy favor boxes and other DIY projects.

I have since helped several friends with their letterpress, floral and design needs. Thus my event planning and design business was born, Clementine & Clover, based in Southern California. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are planning a wedding and are in need of a swift sidekick, a deft day-of designer or a fiesty florist!

Wedding and Floral Design: Elizabeth Nixon of Clementine & Clover / Catering: Chic le Chef / Wedding Dress: Melissa Sweet / Wedding Hair: Danielle’s Dream Salon in Lakeport / Bridesmaid Dresses: David’s Bridal / Menswear: Jos Bank / Wedding Cake: McKee Somerville in Kelseyville / Graphic Design: Bellew Creative / Letterpress Printing: Clementine & Clover / Band: Quinn De Veaux and The Blue Beat Review / Photography: Tanja Lippert

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Post tags: Backyard, California Weddings, Clementine & Clover, David's Bridal, Do-It-Yourself Inspired, dock, lakeside, Melissa Sweet, Southern California, Tanja Lippert
Post categories: California Weddings, Casual Elegance, Do-It-Yourself Inspired

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From Julie Mikos…Young couple and new parents, Beka and Josh, live in a tiny mountain town outside of Phoenix and had an extremely limited budget for their wedding, but wanted to invite practically their entire town population. Luckily, the bride and her mother are both artists and very crafty and were able to create all of the details on their own.

The bride spent weeks preparing. Cutting and stringing all of the birds, creating all of the decorative pinwheels for the cupcakes, directing her fiance (who is a carpenter) to build frames to house the pictures of them together as they grew up (yes, they’ve know each other since they were babies!), etc. They also recruited a small army of town-folk to help decorate, put together floral arrangements set in colored glass (collected by the bride and inspired by Martha Stewart’s recent article on colored glass collections), set-up tables and chairs and even cater the food. The ceremony was an extremely private ceremony which couldn’t be photographed, but the party was held at a friend’s cabin down the dirt road and nearly the whole town DID attend and pitched in to help. I was honored to also pitch in and help as the bride was one of my former wedding photography interns and now a good friend. This wedding truly took a village to create and was down-home charming!

From the bride…I wanted my wedding to be fun. I was inspired by old mexican colors and decor. We had a small budget so I looked for ways to make my wedding beautiful and fun without spending too much. I got almost all of my ideas from Style Me Pretty like the colored glass and paper birds. My friends and I went to work collecting glass from all the antique stores in town months leading up to the wedding. My mom painted all of the table centerpieces, signs, and peacock mural. I wanted everything to be personal. Josh made me frames from old barn wood and I filled them with photos of us and our new family. I bought a lot of scrapbooking paper and crafted the birds, cake topper, and pinwheels with it. Using the paper really tied everything together. With the help of all my close family and friends, Josh and I were able to have the wedding of our dreams. They helped us with everything, down to the home brewed beer and amazing wedding cake.  We laughed, danced, and had the time of our lives.

Photographer: Julie Mikos Photographer / Minister: Trina Kamp / Stylist: Kathy Karrys / Hair and Make-up: Rose Walker & Sumer Harper / Dress: Davids Bridal / Wedding shrugs: Mary and Angelika via Etsy / Decor: Rebekah Sampson (bride) & Elizabeth Silver(mob) / Music: Landon Shill / Food and drink: Walker Catering / Flower arrangements: Glenn Widger & Lucy Karrys / Cake: Sydney Kamp

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Post tags: Backyard, Craft, Do-It-Yourself Inspired, Handmade, Julie Mikos, mountains, Phoenix
Post categories: Do-It-Yourself Inspired

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Karen from Volare Events…When the Bride and I first discussed what she pictured for her wedding, she said she wanted it to feel like a relaxed afternoon bbq while she also wanted the event to be elegant and sophisticated.  She loves Anthropologie and described herself as “simple.” We zeroed in on the styles that best suited them – shabby chic, vintage and rustic.

From there we came up with colors and materials to tie those styles together. For colors we chose shades of purple and periwinkle accented with a soft gray and crisp white. We also chose materials such as twine, mason jars, modern clear glass, soft white embroidered fabric, vintage picture frames, hand made tree branch table number holders, white linen & textured artist paper and simple chalkboards.  

Flowers: For floral styling, we enlisted the incredibly talented Holly Vesecky of Holly Flora. Holly used loosely gathered collections of showy large flowers – hydrangea, peonies, dahlias, ranunculus, alyssum, freesia, delphinium, tulips, china mums, garden roses, stephanotis and lavendar herb – in purple, periwinkle, grey and white displayed in a mix of modern glass and mason jars. Ceremony aisle and bride’s bouquet were decorated with grey swiss satin and the pathway, stairs and fountain were highlighted with groups of pillar candles. Again, shabby chic to perfection!

Linens: For the table linens, we chose Natural Flax (think burlap, only soft and refined) and periwinkle napkins that we folded and tied with twine and placed on top of white plates.{Dare we say shabby chic inspired?}

Custom Printed Items: Design goddess Christina Reinersman created the custom print materials – wedding programs, escort cards, table numbers and favor tags. The setting and florals provided lots of color (energy) so it was important that the printed materials touched on the natural side. Understated and varying shades of  violet, perwinkle and charcoal in custom water colors were hand painted on highly textured artist paper to create a hand-crafted, natural feel to items guests would have their hands on (programs and escort cards).

Escort Card Table: For the escort card table, sandblasted manzanita branches were arranged in a simple large glass cylinder and we hung guest escort cards from the branches. The escort cards were longer in shape and featured the hand painted watercolors, providing a ‘floral blossom’ touch to the arranged branches.  This arrangement was placed on top of a custom made table covering by Christina made out of a beautiful white on white embroidered fabric.

Guest Favors: Bottles of agave nectar were placed at each place setting with a tag tied to the bottle with baby twine.  The favor tags featured the bride and groom’s names and wedding date and when removed and unfolded, revealed a favorite margarita recipe of the bride and groom’s using the all natural agave which guests would take home.

Food and Drink: Guacamole, chips and margaritas (the bride and groom’s favorite cocktail) set the tone . . . followed by a sit-down dinner served family style.

Henna Ceremony: The henna ceremony is traditionally part of the rituals that take place on the eve of a wedding. The dried green henna leaves are ground and soaked in water, which turns them red, and then cooked into a thick paste. At the ceremony, the paste is placed in the center of a decorated tray. The henna tray (as well as trays of sweets) is passed from hand to hand, above the heads of all the women. The whole time, the guests dance to the beat of the drums and are swept into a state of ecstasy. It is meant to be a joyous celebration with sweets and desserts, which symbolize a sweet life for the couple. Each time the tray is lifted over the head of the chosen woman, the guests erupt into a joyful “Kululululu!”. After all the women have received the blessing, an elder woman dips her fingers into the paste and paints a circle on both of the bride’s hands. The circle is meant to ward off the evil eye. Then the grandmother does the same for all the other women. While in some cultures women were the only ones invited to the henna, nowadays, the henna ceremony is a large celebration with many guests of both genders. Everyone is welcome!

Wedding Design and Planning: Karen Oliver – Volare Events / Photography: Sarah Yates – Sarah Yates Photography / Floral Design: Holly Vesecky, Holly Flora / DJ and Dance Floor Lighting: Lee Dyson – courtesy of DeBois Entertainment / Ceremony String Quartet: Fiddle Stix / Custom Printed Materials/Linens Design and Production: Christina Reinersman – maré c (no website yet) / Specialty Linen Rentals: Classic Party Rentals / Chivari Chair Rentals: Fusion Linens / Bride’s Make-Up: Robyn Fisher / Bride’s Hair: Leah Vautrot / Bride’s Dress: Angel Sanchez / Bride’s Shoes: Badgley Mischka / Groom’s Suit: Isaia / Valet: Premiere Valet Services / Henna Ceremony Planning: Moroccan Party Planners / Guest Shuttles: Corporate Coach Charters

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Angel Sanchez, Backyard, Badgley Mischka, California Weddings, DeBois Entertainment, Henna, Henna Ceremony, Holly Flora, Lee Dyson, Malibu, Residence, Sarah Yates, shabby chic, Volare Events
Post categories: Cultural Beauty, Traditional Elegance, Vintage Chic

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From Lisa Vorce, of Oh How Charming!…

This was a 30th anniversary party for the parents of one of the bridesmaids of a former client. We had such a blast with her at the wedding, and were delighted to be called to produce the anniversary party for her parents. Tracy and her brother Teddy wanted to throw a “travel themed” soiree for their parents. We set the tone with an airline ticket inspired invitation by Tiny Pine Press where we asked the guests to “escape” for an evening of great food and great friends.

I ordered vintage luggage tags from eBay and used them to create the escort cards, table numbers, and details for our wraps for the evening. The menu was a global 9 course extravaganza created by Tracy, Teddy, and Jerry from The Food Matters. It was one of the most extraordinary menus I’ve seen!

For the decor — we paired La Tavola’s natural linens with some custom skirted linens I had sewn. I love the femininity of the skirted linens. They hang so beautifully. On the tables, we used vintage silver spoon napkin rings, hand painted stand-up menus from Yellow Owl Workshop, and mother of pearl flatware. R. Jack Balthazar did an amazing job of pairing fluffly white peonies with maiden hair fern, mercury glass, and grapewood. Was such a stunning combination. I asked them to do a “statement” piece on the center table of the dinner party, and they did the most amazing display of clear glass, mercury glass, and candlelight. It was so gorgeous! R. Jack also did stunning lounge set-ups for me complete with transfer ware vessels that had a magical glow. Barker Decor finished off the details by providing ambient lighting that mimicked a gorgeous candlelight glow. As guests dined under the stars, Supernova rocked contemporary tunes on their strings. It was a perfect evening!

Event Design: Lisa Vorce of Oh How Charming! / Photography: Aaron Delesie / Rentals: Barker Decor / Invitations: Tiny Pine Press / Florals and Design: R. Jack Balthazar /Menus: Yellow Owl Workshop / Linens: La Tavola’s / Catering: The Food Matters

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Aaron Delesie, Anniversary, Backyard, Barker Decor, Elegant, La Tavola, Lisa Vorce, Oh How Charming, The Food Matters, Tiny Pine Press, travel, Travel Theme, Yellow Owl Workshop
Post categories: Real Parties