Mindi & Morgan's Candlelit Wedding

Photo Courtesy of Paulina Ulloa

Mindi & Morgan were married on a GREAT day to get married, October 23rd (which just happens to be my birthday!) ... in spite of a few hotel glitches, everything went off without a hitch - the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome and the guests all ready to get down and celebrate! With an extra added bonus that the iffy weather the week before coroporated and was beautiful beautiful!

Both Mindi & Morgan just wanted a more relaxed, elegant feel and, as they started sending me photos of the things they liked, it became apparent to me that they were more into a zen, simplistic, naturalistic feel with oodles of candles! This was Mindi's invite which I just loved!!

So, after talking a bit more with them, this was their design board....


Their requests were quite simple - colors of chocolate brown, green touch touches of fuschia, elegant, candlelit, .... The original idea was for calla lillies but we ended-up going with cymbidium and dendrobium orchids and grasses and I'm so glad we did! I loved Mindi's bouquet - we added a touch of green buttons with the grass from her invite painted onto them - a slight twist from the bouquet she loved with raffia and buttons. The one tricky aspect of this bouquet was that she wanted a hand-held look and not a holder - so, we did a little creative thinking and the before and after photos of the bouquet can be seen here.


They wanted their ceremony to be very naturalistic but, at the same time, have some sort of a romantic touch to it .... and, wa-la....




I chose mums and grasses to line the ceremony aisle and Mindi really wanted a rose petal aisle but it wasn't quite in the budget - I did some refiguring so we could surprise her with it when she walked down the aisle! I love the fuschia touched fans Omar painted as the pop of color on the chairs (and, yes, sortof insisted on the fans - but it was hot! plus they looked so pretty :) ....

After the ceremony, everyone walked up to the Seaside Restaurant to enjoy a cocktail (or two!) ... we chose to leave the sofas in the cocktail area and fill-it with hand-painted pillows and candles and oodles of orchids ....

Now it was time to start the reception - we decided to take advantage of the sunset and the view when you could really enjoy it, and placed everyone along the edge of the restaurant - it was truly breathtaking!

As I was in Canada this past summer, I came across the most amazing chocolate brown, green detailed fabric and brought some of it down for their napkins ... the centerpieces were hand-painted vases with the green leaf design from their invites, along with some grasses, floating candles and sumerged orchids - I wish I could take credit for the entirey of their creation, but Tamara and Patti of Incredible Weddings came in at the last minute when we were having a few little difficultites with timing with the hotel and gave us a lending hand! Good job ladies (and the deepest gratitude). We also had little vases with floating cymbdium orchids....

Some of the other details we had on the tables were place cards with the grass detail from the invite on the front and the leaves from the invite on the back, grass detailed hand-painted maracas and a sand dollar charm attached to the wine glasses. Mindi had told me that, when Morgan had proposed to her on a beach, she had found her first sand dollar as well as one of her favorite gifts from Morgan had been a charm he gave her when they moved-in together - so I thought it would be a great touch to combine the two things!

Still following along the theme with the sand dollars, we hand-painted some sand dollars we brought from the U.S. and accented the cake (done by Charme) with them (along with a few beautiful cymbidiums, of course!).

This Photo Courtesy of Paulina Ulloa

I would love to take credit for the sunset, as it was beautiful that day ... but, alas, am not nearly that great of a designer.... Although this is a perfect place to acknowledge our detail photographer, Soco, who took amazing pictures of this event for us!

The cocktail area didn't have oodles of candles for nothing - over 40 candle vases with sumberged dendrobiums were hung up above and later on the area became the dance/party area really lighting-up the night and ending the party in a romantic glow....

Next week we will have photos of Jennifer & Matthew's Old World Rustic Charm wedding in chocolate browns, reds and greens and detailed to the hilt!