Jennifer and Aamer’s Malibu wedding took place at the Adamson House this past May.

from Jennifer …

The inspiration for our wedding style was modern, fresh, and FUN! My fiancé and I didn’t want anything to feel too formal, and we wanted a wedding that really reflected us. Growing up in Southern California, my one requirement was that we HAD to get married by the beach.

Aamer and I are huge music fans, and we wanted to find a way to incorporate our love for music into our wedding. It all started with our invitations that were designed by Tifany at Gourmet Invitations. She came up with the fabulous idea of our invite actually being a CD! She also incorporated a sound wave design, which we carried over into other aspects of our wedding.

invitation suite photography courtesy of The Shooting Gallery

CEREMONY
We were very fortunate in finding the Adamson House in Malibu!  It is a beautiful historical house right on the beach, with a gorgeous sycamore tree and garden.  Our pre-ceremony music was songs that we loved by bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, and The Smiths ~ performed by a string quartet.  I chose to walk down the isle to Teardrop by Massive Attack, which had personal meaning to my groom and me. 

The wedding ceremony was performed by a dear friend of ours under the beautiful sycamore tree.  He did an excellent job of keeping it light and entertaining, while not detracting from the intimate and meaningful moments.  We wrote our own vows, which really personalized the ceremony.  At the end, we released doves in honor of my mother, who had recently passed away.  It was a very touching moment that we will never forget.

COLOR PALETTE
Our main color was burgundy, which we highlighted with a light pink.  Burgundy has always been my favorite color, and even though we had a spring wedding, I insisted that we still use a dark color.  It turned out that the burgundy really popped against the greenery at the Adamson House, which was an unexpected bonus!

FLOWERS
Our flowers were designed by Floral Art.  I carried a burgundy bouquet made from maroon cymbidium orchids, black calla lilies, baccara roses, and burgundy peonies.  I love the way the flowers looked with my white wedding dress.  The bridesmaids carried pink bouquets made from pink lisianthus, roses, and pink cymbidium orchids.  Aamer wore a miniature black calla lily, and the groomsmen wore miniature pink cymbidium orchids to match the bridesmaids bouquets.

Our cake was designed by Vanilla Bake Shop and was actually tiers of baby cupcakes, with a small cake on top.  To keep things fun, we used Batman and Wonder Woman to top it off!

My dress was designed by Rivini and available exclusively at Lili’s Bridal in Tarzana.  When the sales person showed it to me, I didn’t even want to try it on.  I had a completely different idea of the kind of dress that I wanted to wear.  However, once I reluctantly put it on, I never wanted to take it off!

We wanted a very clean and simple look to our centerpieces.  It took some time, but with the help of our fabulous wedding coordinator, Stephanie Lairson, we came up with the idea of submerging flowers in water.  The centerpieces consisted of 3 cylindrical glass hurricane vases in varying heights filled with submerged flowers, that alternated between black calla lilies pink cymbidium orchids, and burgundy cymbidium orchids.  They were all placed on a round dark wood tray and surrounded by votive candles

Our table numbers were actually names of our favorite bands.  One side had the band name written out with the sound wave design and the other side had a CD cover from that band.  The menus were done in our color palette with a burgundy back plate to help them pop against the white table linens.

We absolutely LOVED all of our vendors, but one key person in pulling everything together was Stephanie, our wedding consultant.  Our wedding day was flawless because of her help, ideas, and support.  We can not thank her enough for keeping things running so smoothly!

In addition, our photographers, Mark and Candice from Mark Brooke Photography, were absolutely fabulous!  They take fun and funky images, and are incredibly easy to work with. They did an amazing job making us and our day look flawless.

invitation suite photography courtesy of The Shooting Gallery

MUSIC
Our music was of course a key factor.  We had a fantastic DJ, Richard Blade, who also served as our MC.  Together, we made sure the dance floor was full throughout the evening!

ADVICE
The one piece of advise that I have to give to brides planning their wedding, is to find ways to incorporate little things that reflect you as a couple.  Personalizing your wedding is what will make you and your guests really remember your special day.  Don’t feel like you have to follow any particular set of rules.  Just do what feels right to you, and remember to have fun!

Congratulations Jennifer and Aamer! We thank you so much for sharing your lovely day with us!!

* * *

For more fantastic weddings from today’s featured Little Black Book members, here are some links to their websites and blogs …

Gourmet Invitations … Blog and Website 

Stephanie Lairson … Website and Gallery

Vanilla Bake Shop … Website and Cake Gallery

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Post tags: Adamson House, California, Cupcakes, Doves, Gourmet Invitations, Malibu, Rivini, Vanilla Bake Shop
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Little Black Book Blog, Wedding Cakes, Wedding Invitations & Stationery, Wedding Planners & Designers

Ahhh, I haven’t seen navy and pink in a while and I certainly haven’t seen it done this well…and on a cake to boot! Now, take a peek at this sweet but modern, black and white floral design…

And beneath that incredible cake, well…perfection!

It just keeps getting better and better! Vanilla Bake Shop is always surprising me with their fresh, chic approach to wedding cake design. I would honestly wear most of their creations, as they are often inspired by great fabrics and prints. If you haven’t checked their website lately, it’s a must! They now have an entire section devoted to sweets and those fabulous dessert bars that they design!

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Post tags: Vanilla Bake Shop, Wedding Cakes
Post categories: Wedding Cakes

from Stephanie … “Victoria originally came to me with the idea of black with white polka dots. She insisted on a black background with white dots (not the other way around) and RED. Oddly enough, one of the first finds was the flower girl dress and then everything came together from there. She gave me full authority to run with the theme – the best thing about it being that it is playful and not too feminine.”

from Victoria … “As for the polka dot theme, I just always loved them and I love anything that is that sort of rockabilly style. We wanted our wedding to reflect who we are as a couple. We are young and we wanted a kind of rock n’ roll edge to our theme. We thought, who do we know that has done a 50’s style wedding? We thought it would be original. We had to make sure we could capture that look without getting tacky!”

The wedding was held at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, CA. The beautiful flowers are by Elegant by Design.

Did you see the decadent cupcake tower from Little Black Book member, The Vanilla Bake Shop?

Our thanks to Samuel Lippke of Ira Lippke Studios for the great photos.

Stephanie Lairson is one of our LBB’s fabulous wedding consultants in Southern California. Take a look at her gallery for more of Matthew and Victoria’s delightful wedding!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 29 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Elegant by Design, Ira Lippke Studios, Polka Dots, Red Roses, Southern California, Stephanie Lairson, Vanilla Bake Shop
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Little Black Book Blog, Real Weddings, Wedding Planners & Designers, Whimsical

photographs by Lisa Franchot

From Lisa at Oh How Charming!

The draping that we chose for the dinner reception tent was such a beautiful shade of blue. It created the most serene atmosphere. We combined the soft beachy blue hues of the wedding with “beach chic” elements from Classic Party Rentals such as bamboo folding chairs, wicker chargers, bamboo flatware, and wood tables. I had Barker Decor add their amazing bamboo dance floor and stage, and my absolute favorite…7500 square feet of their sisal flooring in the tent. It was extraordinary!! The sisal mixed with the blue draping was such a gorgeous combo.

For the florals – we struggled a bit to really figure out what Courtney loved. Everything we came up with was pretty — but just didn’t have that “wow” factor. So — at the very last second — we collectively decided to change the florals (it was very exciting!) to ALL daisies. The amazingly talented Mindy Rice and I were SO excited that Courtney was daring enough to let us rock out the daisies. There were daisies everywhere! Mindy did beautifully aged galvanized buckets of daisies, and peppered in some super sweet hand tied bouquets of chamomile and feverfew. Mindy also painted all the weathered signs that we had throughout the wedding.

Carlos and Anna at Tabella did a fabulous combination of washed linen and delicate embroidered silk runners on the wood tables. They were stunning. Amy and Jeremy at Vanilla Bake Shop did yet another extraordinary dessert display and a spectacular cake!!! Everything was captured beautifully by the super talented Lisa Franchot. Aside from all the beautiful decor, the wedding was truly stunning because of Courtney and Andrew and their awesome families and friends. It was an event filled with a ton of love and laughter. We were delighted to be a part of it!

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Post tags: Barker Decor, Classic Party Rentals, Daisies, Lisa Franchot, Mindy Rice, Oh How Charming, Tabella Design, Table Settings, Vanilla Bake Shop
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Real Weddings

And, a few more details from Lisa…

Catering was provided by the fabulous team at Food Art Events. Their food not only tastes amazing – but it is styled beautifully as well. Their custom signature cocktails are also to die for! The linens were provided by Tabella. I designed three “tablescapes” – so we used a combination of white crinkle linen with chartreuse crinkle runners, chocolate brown pintuck linens, and white crinkle runners — depending on the table.

My other favorite elements of the night… Vanilla Bake Shop’s delicious dessert bar, the In-N-Out truck (we had the In-N-Out truck come to Vibiana — and my staff tray-passed the scrumptious burgers which were devoured!), the gorgeous Neb of champagne for the guest sign-in…and of course…Gillian’s chartreuse Christian Louboutin shoes! How perfect were those???

And last, but not least…the wedding was shot so beautifully by the very talented Cheri Pearl. She did such an amazing job capturing the emotion, the details, the people, the vibe. This was my first event with her, and I couldn’t be happier! Showtime filmed the preparation, installation, and execution of this wedding — so a very heartfelt thank you to the Bride and Groom for allowing the cameras in, and our extraordinary team of vendors who made the day so unbelievably special and beautiful.

Here are a few images of the catering, the dessert bar and the in and out burgers…too, too cute!

Thank you so much to Lisa and to all of the vendors who collaborated on this absolutely gorgeous wedding. Your thoughtful TLC came through in a beautiful way…in a way that I am sure will inspire so many of our brides!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cheri Pearl, Food Art Events, Oh How Charming, Vanilla Bake Shop
Post categories: All Real Weddings, Contemporary, Real Weddings, Wedding Planners & Designers