Searching around the internet today, I found this cute beach themed wedding done by L.A. Botanicals in May 2008. What is especially surprising and original is I don’t see the beach anywhere in sight. In fact, the area itself almost lends itself to more of a garden theme, but the decor was done in such a great beach themed way. I absolutely love the starfish hanging from the greenery altar. Here are our 2 favorite pics, to see more, you can visit L.A. Botanicals blog:
Cheryl & Dave were looking for the simply elegant beach wedding. Big, over the top centerpieces weren’t their thing. They were looking for the simple beauty that can only be found in nature and more specifically the nature we call our own here in San Diego – The Beach.
We designed a fresh theme with lavender and chartreuse along with custom table numbers and centerpieces.
The couple wanted to make sure their guests had a great time dancing the night away, and after a delicious meal catered by Martino’s Catering, they danced and partied till the bitter end.
The designers and planners at Circle City Planners Weekenders division are a talented lot to be sure. Circle City Planners’ weddings are often glamorous and high-end. Chaslyn & Jason’s wedding proves that the CCP Weekenders Division delivers on that same discerning taste. We at YourLifEvents are proud to post this little tasty morsel from Chaslyn & Jason’s wedding. The colors chosen and the location of the Crowne Plaza Hotel make for an awe-inspiring wedding and reception.
Chaslyn & Jason
04.24.10
Immanuel United Church of Christ
Historic Union Station & Crowne Plaza Hotel
Indianapolis, IN
The first wedding of the season for the CCP Weekenders went off without a hitch! Chaslyn & Jason had a beautiful ceremony in Lafayette with some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. Chaslyn looked just gorgeous in her one of a kind dress! After the ceremony we traveled to downtown Indianapolis to the Historic Union Station & Crowne Plaza Hotel. The rain fortunately held out for most of the day and Dave Mason from ISPhotographic was able to get some great shots of the happy couple. As we entered the Grand Ball Room, Chaslyn & Jason were just in awe of how fabulous it looked thanks to my team of Laurenne & Kelly who helped put the finishing touches around the room. Chaslyn just couldn’t stop looking at all the gold details around the room and commenting on how perfect it looked. There is nothing like seeing the bride smile! The evening’s festivities started with an amazing dance by the bride and groom as they were introduced as Mr. & Mrs. Jason DeVault and ended with what Chaslyn & Jason called the Newlywed Game.
Here are some fun ways this bride & groom personalized their wedding (this is our favorite part):
- The couple had all things created with trains: menus cards, seating board, and table names with railroad names. Chaslyn’s father worked for the railroad industry and even had an office in Union Station many years ago when it was up and running.
- The Newlywed Game was a series of questions the bride and groom were asked by the DJ that had to deal with them and their relationship together. They were sitting back to back on the dance floor and had to raise a champagne glass if the answer was the bride or a bug mug if the answer was the groom. So cute!
- The couple also shared a special dance. They choreographed a tango to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.
- The bride wore a blue garter that had locket of a picture of the horse she owns, Fly Baby.
-The bride’s dress was handmade just for her in Chicago.
Thanks to everyone that made this wedding come together!
Katie & Megan from the Crowne Plaza
A Classic for the beautiful linens
Jill from Westwood Paper
Scott Evans for the amazing lighting
Dave Mason from ISPhotographic
Gary Higgins, Heavenly Sweets
Our Backyard Flowers
Bob Foresman from Velocity Sound
Shutter Booth for capturing all of the guests in their photo booth!
Chaslyn & Jason promised to bring back the sunshine from Maui! Enjoy your honeymoon!
Randi L. Neukam
Circle City Weekenders
randi@circlecityplanners.com
317.473.5418
Holly & Dave
Ceremony: Seagrove Park, Del Mar, CA
Reception: L’Auberge, Del Mar
Holly and Dave wanted a ceremony on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Despite their ceremony day getting completely fogged in, the harpist having to cut out early lest her harp strings get ruined, and a brother who passed out (caught by the ever-aware photographer’s assistant), the ceremony turned out beautifully. As they say, something unexpected will always occur, it’s how you handle it that matters most. The couple and the guests handled everything in stride and now have a funny little story to tell their kids someday. As you can see, weather and fainting aside, the photos turned out amazing.
They chose to have their dinner reception on the patio at Del Mar’s L’Auberge Resort. The dinner reception was designed with gorgeous flower arrangements by Suzan M. Florals, silver table linens with fuschia table runners and pretty ‘diamond’ bling. The Bride made her own table numbers by printing numbers onto vellum paper and wrapping them around cylindrical vases that were lit with a candle. The Bride also created cute escort cards using small frames and inserting a card with the guest’s name and table number.
For their reception the couple wanted to kick it up a notch both in color and energy and so a plan was created to provide them with a Miami-vibe club lounge. The party reception was held in a banquet room and designed as a space where their guests could really kick off their shoes and dance as well as relax on the swanky Miami-vibe club lounge furniture.
LifEvents by Shauna Henry (by the way, that was us in our coordinating hey day) instituted the services of Concepts Event Design and together we devised a floor plan with lounge furniture, draped walls, a padded white lit bar and fuschia pink uplighting all around the room. The room also had a great patio where guests could go to cool off from all that dancing and we didn’t want them to feel like they had left the Miami club, so we put these great lit-up wall cubes around the perimeter of the patio.
After their grand entrance to the party reception with the guests blowing bubbles onto them, the couple and the guests enjoyed a night of dancing and drinking the signature cocktail, Mojitos (of course) with color changing ice cubes. It was the best party in the house that night for sure!
Wedding Planners: LifEvents by Shauna Henry
Floral Designer: Suzan M. Florals
Photographer: Tim Otto Photography
Disc Jockey: Avant Garde DJ Entertainment
Rentals: Concepts Event Design
Kevin and Eric were one of many of the wonderful, committed couples who wanted to legalize their union before Proposition 8 was instituted. While this is a very heated and passionate issue for many, for YourLifEvents.com it comes down to basic human love and we believe that their is nothing more pure than committing yourself to the person you love. Therefore, we believe all people have the right to be recognized as a married couple with complete and total equal rights as all other citizens.
Kevin & Eric are great friends of ours who wanted nothing more than to celebrate this union with their family & friends in their backyard. We were more than happy to accommodate their wishes.
Yes, this is my wedding. We know that the proverbial “they” say it’s not good to add your own wedding to your website, but I say, “why not? I planned it, I did all the flowers for it, I baked all the cupcakes, I designed every last inch of it, why wouldn’t I add it to my website?”
Chris & I decided to have a non-traditional wedding reception. No DJ, no garter toss, none of the usual things that people say are ‘required’. We love wine, we love our family and our friends and decided we wanted to all of these elements to come together. We love Wine Steals and chose it for our reception location where we tasted over 12 wines and champagne, ate meat and cheese boards, pizza and salad. We had a great time and after a ‘wait period’ of 1 week (we needed to gather ourselves after all that planning), we spent an amazing honeymoon in Italy where we tasted many more amazing wines.
The groom’s mother had recently passed away, so we decided to honor her by utilizing her favorite phrase, “Live, Love, Laugh” throughout the entire wedding – from invitations to favors to decor. We also found old photos of the groom’s parents at their wedding and placed them on the cake table with the phrase, “Live, Love Laugh” at the top of each frame. It was a nice way to honor his Mom and have the entire family together.
The Question posed:
Shauna,
My Fiance and I are getting married this September 25th and we were contemplating having the reception on a harbor cruise boat and having it be a “classy pirate theme” haha, if such a theme could exist. My fiance is a Captain in the Marine Corps so we thought that it would be clever (and probably dorky but who cares) since he is a captain and I will be his 1st mate?!
We thought we would provide a “treasure chest” of dress up items such as hats, swords and eye patches to add a little fun for pictures etc. However I was wondering if you have any ideas as far as how we should style our invitations , and decorate the reception area to go along with the theme but not make it look like a party store raided the boat.
Let me know what you think, any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks so much-
Vanessa
YLE Answer:
Without knowing things like colors you’ve chosen or more specific criteria, we’ve come up with an array of thoughts and ideas for you to ponder on as well as an inspiration board to start you off. This inspiration board is a jumping off point and should be more narrowed down once you’ve more developed your theme.
Based on your question above, we started off with using the compass as our main thematic element and the nautical rope as our second thematic element and went from there choosing invitations with a compass and a small rope (etsy ExQuisiteInvitation). Our advice is to use these thematic elements or your own to help you create a cohesive look to your wedding. You won’t need to do much actual decorating of the boat (nor will they probably allow you to) in order to get your message across to your guests. We absolutely LOVED the compass escort cards from Etsy designer LH Calligraphy and think these are a MUST to really take your wedding to the next level.
To continue with the theme we’ve chosen, we found a couple of cake designs with a compass on them and really like the idea of either using the rope for the cake to sit on top of or even a nautical map.
As for centerpieces, you don’t want to hit your guests over the head, or like you said, make it look like you raided a party store. We love the tall cylindrical vases with the bases wrapped in the nautical rope. The idea of using various designs of one vase with just colored water and the rope, one vase with submerged orchids and the rope and other vases with a small amount of colored water and a candle is not only beautiful and sophisticated but will also bring down your costs. Other options for centerpieces are simple vases filled with sand, shells and beach grass or even a large cluster of shells.
Another cute decor option is to find fishing net and use it either as overlays or as placemats (see lower left picture in inspiration board). Again, this will tie into your theme, look nice and will bring down your costs of ordering really fancy table linens. We also like the idea of tie’ing each napkin with the nautical rope.
Because you are setting out a chest with costumes for your guests to dress up (a fun and whimsical thing to do, I Love it!) I would suggest creating a small ‘photo op’ area with these costumes. Perhaps buy a large captain’s wheel from Toys R’ Us that people can pose with and leave out a polaroid camera for people to take pictures along with lots of extra film and an Adesso photo book for everyone to slip in their picture and sign your guest book. Create a cute sign (with the compass motif – JL Mould on Etsy has a great stamp) telling your guests to take 2 pictures – one for you and one for them to take home as a parting gift.
Speaking of parting gifts, it is my belief that edible favors are always great ones to receive – especially at the end of the night after drinking;) And, I am all about personalization. Do you have a cookie or bar recipe you are famous for? Anything passed down through you or your fiance’s family? Gather your girls, your Mom, your Mom-in-law and have a day of baking. Put the cookies or bars in clear plastic baggies (papermart.com) and seal with the cute nautical stickers shown on the upper left corner of the inspiration board (from Etsy designer, DetailsDelights). On the front of the bag, add another sticker that says Thank You and your names and wedding date. Perhaps DetailsDelights would be delighted to create a personalized one for you that includes a smaller version of the compass.
Hope this helps. Remember, if the compass isn’t quite what you’re going for, that’s okay. Just find one or two items that are within your theme and let those be your, well, compass to guide you;) And, here’s a cute little saying that you could include throughout your wedding if you so choose: Love is the Compass of Life.
Oh, and as for you being the 1st Mate and your Fiance being the Captain, I suggest making cute signs for the backs of your chairs that say exactly that.
Initial Inspiration Board for Maritime Theme
This wedding was in 1999, but the style was all 1930. The Bride’s grandfather played with the big bands in the ‘good ol’ days’ and after heart problems, we was unable to play any longer, so she wanted to honor him with an amazing Big Band and wanted a simple black and white themed 1930′s style wedding.
The wedding was at The Marston House’s Rose Garden and the Reception was at beautiful The Abbey in San Diego. Simple color scheme, and simple centerpieces, but the music was the true centerpiece and the whole family ‘cut a rug’ the till the wee hours of the morning.
Claudia and Mike chose The Lodge because they loved the craftsman feel with the 5 diamond service. They wanted their guests to experience a fabulous party with a cozy feel where their every need was catered to. Mike & Claudia wanted a chic look where their guests still felt like they were at an intimate wedding.
While The Lodge lends itself to a romantic fall wedding with the colors to boot, Claudia & Mike wanted to make sure we brought in the colors of summer as well. To this end, we worked closely with Kathy Wright & Co. to design amazing centerpieces with pops of green and orange.
The night was perfect…
All photos courtesy of Tim Otto Photography
Florist & Rentals: Kathy Wright & Co.
We love this couple! They wanted to be offbeat in their own personal way. Both loved science, both wanted to incorporate their family & friends. Neither wanted a typical first dance, so we choreographed a fun/old timey dance to a Smashing Pumpkins song. Neither wanted a lot of dancing, so a ‘steampunk’ band was found at Balboa Park to provide some very fun & offbeat entertainment. The fact that they totally committed (and so did some of their guests) to the theme they picked was awesome for us. We were able to create centerpieces that could have been found in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and they were totally up for it. Check out some of the cool photos (and hopefully more will be on our website soon):
San Diego Family Hotels 
