I love a wedding that speaks straight to the couple’s personalities, and this California duo made sure to do just that. “It was important that every single element of our wedding felt like “Cyd and Trey,” so keeping true to our taste and style was a theme throughout the planning.” They brought on an A-team including Kathy Higgins, TEAM Hair and Makeup, Elysium Productions + Sylvie Gil, and I say – mission accomplished. More right here in the gallery.
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From The Bride…Trey and I met in Dallas at the bookstore during December of 2008 while we were both in graduate school at SMU. Later that night, I told my roommate (and future bridesmaid) Kelly about the cute guy I met in the bookstore and that I hoped I would see him around again. When grad school started back up in January, it turned out we had a class together and I looked forward to Professor Shaw’s class more than ever. At the end of that semester, Trey asked me out for drinks to celebrate the end of finals… the rest is pretty much history.
We dated for almost five years before we got engaged, so we both knew that we wanted a destination wedding. Trey is from Georgia and I am from Texas, so to us, it just made sense to begin our life together in Napa Valley where we had built so many memories. In fact, one of the first questions I asked him after he proposed at a vineyard in Napa was – can we get married here?? The answer was of course, yes and our planning began almost immediately.
We knew we wanted a romantic garden party in an incredible venue to showcase to our friends and family what we love so much about the Napa Valley. With family and friends traveling across the country to celebrate with us, we wanted to make sure each guest felt loved and had a wonderful time throughout the weekend. That beautiful September weekend started on Thursday with a huge welcome bag (even our planner commented, “Wow, everything really is bigger in Texas!”) that included lots of our favorite treats and information to set the tone for a relaxing weekend in wine country.
It was important that every single element of our wedding felt like “Cyd and Trey”, so keeping true to our taste and style was a theme throughout the planning. The florals created by Polly at Valley Flora in a palette of my favorite colors were lush, romantic and beyond everything I had dreamed of. During cocktail hour, we had a shucker from Hog Island Oyster Co., where Trey and I had shared many dates over the years. Trey carefully sourced every wine we opened for our guests through his friends in wine country and he even bottled his own port with his groomsmen at Turnbull Cellars in lieu of a groom’s cake! We opted for a seated first course and action stations during dinner that incorporated our favorite southern foods. We had shrimp and grits using Trey’s family recipe that Elaine Bell executed to perfection. We also had fried chicken, greens, corn pudding and honey biscuits like my family in Texas makes and then a fresh veggie centric California meal. To this day, our guests are still raving about the food and wine at our wedding!
We were so privileged to work with some of the most talented vendors in the business. Each and every one went above and beyond to create a perfect weekend for us and I am so grateful! Any event is truly only as wonderful as the team you work with and we could not have chosen a better one! The first stop in our planning journey was selecting our lovely planner Kathy Higgins, who led us to our incredible photographer, Sylvie Gil. Aside from being incredibly gifted, Sylvie is just so much fun to work with (and her lovely French accent keeps all the boys in line)! She and her team did a magnificent job capturing our wedding day. Sometimes it is hard to believe that the fairy tale Sylvie Gil and Elysium Productions (our videographer) captured was actually our wedding! My advice to all the brides out there is to soak up and enjoy every single moment of the planning process with those who love you most and when the weekend of the wedding rolls around, the only people you should worry about making happy is you and your groom! Everyone else will figure it out!
Photography: Sylvie Gil Photography | Videography: Elysium Productions | Planner : Kathy Higgins Weddings | Florals: Valley Flora | Cake: Perfect Endings | Bride's shoes: Jimmy Choo | Bridesmaids Dresses: Monique Lhuillier | Catering: Elaine Bell Catering | Hair and Make Up: TEAM Hair and Makeup | Calligraphy : Tara Jones Calligraphy | Lighting : Illusions Lighting | Groomsmen's Attire: Jos. A. Bank | Ceremony Music: Eloquence String Quartet | Venue: Black Swan Lake | Bride's gown : Vera Wang | Groom's shoes: Salvatore Ferragamo | Grooms' suits: Custom Men | Linens: BBJ La Tavola | Paper Goods: Chips And Salsa Designs | Rentals: Classic Party Rentals