Dreamy textures, lush greenery, and soft blues came together to create today’s stunning Spring wedding planned by Simply Lovely Events. Personalized details were sprinkled throughout the decor, from the wedding favors to the desserts, all captured by the ever so talented Lauren Fair Photography. When the bride spoke to Nicole Ha Design about the flowers for their day, she offered some of the best advice… “Forget the images that you see online. Let’s create something that you’ll truly love” – so simple yet so incredibly important to remember! We hope this gorgeous day leaves you feeling inspired, head on over to the full gallery to see all the magic unfold.
What did you envision your wedding being prior to planning?
Before imagining what our wedding would look like, I focused on how we wanted to feel. The vision was to capture the essence of our love, so the inspiration was focused around how we wanted to feel before proceeding with the overall aesthetic. At its core, our relationship is simple, organic, natural, and romantic–all of which we wanted to have reflected throughout the big day!
What was your color palette and your style vision?
Our color palette consisted of soft blue, grey, and cream/beige hues. The natural landscape of the Colorado Mountains and Great Sand Dunes National Park offered us a dream engagement photoshoot, with a breathtaking combination of sand, blue skies, clouds, and mountains blending in the background. The gorgeous surroundings truly enhanced our experience and made expressing our love more effortless. This palette and rustic theme aligned perfectly with the emotions and decor that we wanted to include on our wedding day.
What unique elements or DIY details did you include?
We wanted to showcase the beauty of living in Northern California, which is well known for its golden rolling hills, wineries, and rich history. Nella Terra Cellars, nestled within the valley of Sunol, California, was the perfect representation of that. The reception was held in a soft elegant tent, centered perfectly in the middle of a lush vineyard. It offered a romantic escape from the Bay Area without having to travel too far from our home. Additionally, it was located only mere miles away from our ceremony location at Mission San Jose–a historic, Spanish influenced church from the 1700’s, and which also happened to be one of our favorite churches.
We relied on the details of our relationship to help paint the story of our love onto the decor and every detail. With the help of the talented Lorin Baeta from Letterly @letterly.signsandlettering, we created a timeline of our love, personalized names of our guests on agate stone, and a custom hand painted escort wall that greeted our guests. Our incredible graphic designer and personal close friend of ours, Sang Nguyen @sangleet, designed our wedding monogram and invitation suite. We were fortunate enough to win a contest on instagram hosted by Wedding Sparrow @weddingsparrow for gorgeous wax seals by Heirloom Seals @heirloomseals to incorporate with our monogram throughout our invitation suite and dinner menus.
Our floral designer, Nicole Ha, added floral arrangements that transformed our wedding into a dreamy fairytale with the perfect balance of soft textures and greenery.
What was your favorite moment? Your favorite crafted detail?
Favorite moment? I will never forget the moment I entered the church and how my eyes instantly met my husband’s. I was lost in his eyes in a room full of our loved ones and truly felt like I was walking into heaven with each step I took towards him. At that moment, my soul finally felt complete.
There are so many crafted details that we love! Each detail was an important puzzle piece needed to complete our overall vision. The best feeling was walking into the reception and seeing all of our ideas come to life. Our wedding planner, Simply Lovely Events, made our dreams into reality and it felt so rewarding to see the final product.
Tell us about your flowers, your gown, your favors, your cake, etc.
We were highly selective with each of our vendors. They were not only exceptionally talented beyond measure, but also connected with us as a couple. Having that genuine connection with everyone made our day so much more enjoyable and carefree, as they all felt like our friends and it was an honor to celebrate our special day with them.
Flowers – Nicole Ha @nicolehadesign. Nicole surprised us by thinking outside of the box, rather than relying on using Pinterest and images found online for inspiration. She told us, “Forget the images that you see online. Let’s create something that you’ll truly love.” Those are the words of a true artist. It was liberating to create something that was truly unique instead of imitating a photo.
My bouquet consisted of a lush, highly textured and romantic composition of garden roses, lisianthus, silver dollars, sweet peas, and seasonal flowers in ivory that were beautifully draped over foliage. Nicole took special care and drew inspiration from my wedding gown and bridesmaids’ dresses. She added height and texture throughout the reception tent with tall horizontal floral arrangements in towering metal stands and hanging glass bubbles to each structure. She alternated tables using floating candles in varying heights and greenery. It gave us that breathtaking wow factor, while exuding simplicity and elegance.
Gown – I instantly connected with Galia Lahav’s gowns. Her gowns were frequently favorited during my wedding research, and her GALA collection, in particular, had the modern/fashionable look with intricate details that I was looking for.
I brought the three most important women in my life – my mom, my 93 year-old grandmother, and my cousin to a Galia Lahav trunk show hosted by Kinsley James Couture Bridal in Walnut Creek, CA. Kinsley James provided such a wonderful experience for me and my family. It made selecting the gown into such a memorable day.
The gown I chose was GALA 1004 from Galia Lahav GALA Collection No. 5. It surprisingly fit me like a glove (minus the length), and I knew it was the one when I felt and heard the last snap of the button hook. When I walked out of the fitting room, the whole boutique felt my emotions – even the other brides and their guests felt like crying!
Once I said “yes to the dress,” my family (yes, including my grandma) shared a celebratory champagne toast to relish in the moment.
Signage and Favors – We used our love story to design the unique details to share with our guests. Lorin Baeta from Letterly customized everything from our escort wall, signage, and favors. Her signs consisted of cute and quirky sayings such as “Oh snap, there’s an app!” to instruct guests on how to use our file sharing app, a dessert table sign with “Suga, Suga how you get so fly” inspired from my husband’s favorite song in high school (over 12 years ago, wow), and a love journey timeline consisting of 6 pivotal milestones and dates in our relationship.
Outside of our reception tent, guests were drawn to a beautiful 12 foot, hand painted escort wall. It incorporated soft blue hues and our unique monogram in gold. Our guests’ names were handwritten on the acrylic signs and displayed against the towering backdrop. Nicole Ha placed a gorgeous array of flowers to tie in the romantic feeling.
Each of our guests were greeted with their names personalized in calligraphy on agate stone at their seats. The name plates also doubled as a party favor for them to take home. Lorin also wrote the lyrics of “At Last” by Etta James in calligraphy on tracing paper to use in the details shot for our wedding rings. My husband and I surprised our guests and serenaded them with the same song during our thank you speech.
Cake and Dessert Table – Our cake and dessert tables were designed by our friend Cindy Ngar @cindyslittlecakery. We gave her the creative freedom to design a cake based off of our color palette and theme. Our cake had soft blues, greys, and whites to create a luxurious marble finish in burnt almond flavor. Nicole Ha complimented our cake with flowers on top and around our cake table. We kept the cake small for ceremonial cutting and felt that our guests would enjoy the selection of an open dessert table.
Desserts were an array of favorites that my husband and I loved from Cindy: lavender, green tea cream puffs, and mango and strawberry mousse cups. Cookies were made by my friend Cathy @chloescookiebar, which we strongly believe are the best cookies on earth.
We also have an addiction to boba and knew that we wanted to share that with our guests. We chose Happy Lemon for our boba station and provided a selection of boba milk teas. The dessert and boba tables were devoured instantly. To this very day, I regret not saving a cookie for myself at the end of the night. Haha.
Photographers – We had the opportunity to have the amazing Lauren and Tim Fair @laurenfair capture our engagement and wedding. Our photographers and their eye for natural beauty inspired us to find the beauty of our surroundings. On our wedding day, they discovered a magical fairytale-like olive grove at the back of our church that was closed off from the public. With permission of the owners, we were able enter and capture some of our favorite moments of the day, frolicking within the forest. Lauren also captured the gorgeous sunset and golden glow of the hills during our reception. They are such a down to earth, genuine couple and it was easy to feel like ourselves in front of them while they captured all of our important moments and details. The dreamy, airy, ethereal photos were an extension of how we felt that day. We are immediately transported back to the immense love we felt on that day and cannot believe how lucky we are to have photos that evoke those exact feelings. They were incredible to work with.
Event Planner – Simply Lovely Events @simplylovely_events helped tie all the details together. They had a clear understanding of our vision and offered many resources and vendors to achieve our dream. Walking into our reception was like entering a fairy tale. We are still in disbelief that it was actually our own wedding – it was truly everything we dreamed of and so much more.
What is one piece of advice that you could give brides-to-be?
At the end of the day, being married to the love of your life is the absolute dream. While all the details of your wedding is an added bonus, it’s truly about you and your partner. The beauty in that surpasses everything else.
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Cinematography: REB6studios | Floral Design: Nicole Ha Design | Wedding Dress: Galia Lahav | Cake: Cindys Little Cakery | Invitations: Sang Nguyen | Rings: Neil Dahl Jewelers Of California | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Jenny Yoo | Catering: On The Vine Catering | Makeup Artist: Huong Vo | DJ: DJ Eternal | Groom's Attire: Suit Supply | Groomsmen's Attire: The Black Tux | Bridal Robes: La Tercera | Calligraphy/Signage: Letterly Signs and Lettering | Hairstylist: Linda Lealao | Jazz Band: The ILLiance | Lauren Fair Photography: Lauren Fair Photography | Nella Terra Cellars : Nella Terra Cellars | Old Mission San Jose: Ceremony | Rentals: Theoni Collection | Rentals: Pleasanton Rentals | Ring Box : The Mrs Box | Runners: Party Crush Studio | Simply Lovely Events LLC: Simply Lovely Events | Wax Seals: Heirloom Seals
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