Taryn & Matt's Little Beach Lovers Soiree Wedding!

Coordinator:  Maria Tripaldi

Staff Photographer:  Sokos
Villa:  Villa Yardena, Soliman Bay, Riviera Maya

Villa We Stayed At:  Sol de La Playa

Villa Agents:  Vacation Playa

Airline:  Interjet

You know how you have this defining moments in your life when something happens and you're like "wa-la"?!  Well, thanks to Taryn & Matt, their wedding design and creation was PRECISELY that to me and my crew as we trekked out to Cancun to make Taryn & Matt's dream wedding a reality!  I learned SOOO much on this trip (Soliman Bay is WINDIER than Chicago, oh yes it is!) and had a fantastic time designing something thousands of miles away only to see it become a reality months later.  I will never, ever, forget this experience and it's all thanks to these two beautiful people!

Before I get yakkety yakking I wanted to thank Maria Tripaldi for all her hard work and help on our trip - she made things a lot easier for us and allowed us to simply walk in and get started right away, as though we had been there forever and have been doing this for a gazillion years, instead of our first time :).

Also Villa Yardena was amazing to work with - their staff was super helpful and caring and the villa itself was beautiful!  I highly recommend!

Taryn actually first came to me to have me design some maracas for her - a couple of emails in, when she casually mentioned that she had considered changing locations just so we could design her wedding I said, "Well, we could go to YOU, if you would like" and there you have it!  On our way!  Taryn's description of what she wanted was "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Sparkling lights and fairytale like."  She also wanted bright, vibrant colors ... so her design board was born.... 

THE CEREMONY

Taryn had seen a very simple set-up we had done back a while ago for Britt & Aaron and she wanted something similar.  After seeing photos of the beach at Villa Yardena and how the water and the beach just stretched out, well, FOREVER I agreed with Taryn that the best back drop for the ceremony was the most simple one.  (signs painted by Israel - awesome!)

I fall in love with every wedding we do, but will readily admit to having a huge crush on this bouquet!  Orange and yellow ranunculus paired with orange and yellow oncidium orchids and a touch of yellow and orange calla lillies just shouts "romantic beach".  Each of the bridesmaids carried one color and one kind of bouquet - yellow or orange calla lillies and orange or yellow ranunculus.  

We matched the maracas to the invites (great job Omar!) and then Taryn surprised me with some ceremony programs which combined exactly with everything!  We worked a bit on parasols for everyone, getting the color tones just right - in the end nobody used them except for pictures but they looked amazing both laid out and I can't wait to see the photographer's pictures with the bridal party.

We were going to have a rose petal aisle with circus roses but the wind was sooo strong in Soliman Bay that, had we laid down the petal aisle, it would have blown away long before Taryn ever got to see it - so Maria went in front of the bride and laid out the petals as she walked down the aisle :).

THE COCKTAIL

I knew I wanted bright, vibrant colors on the upper deck and white bowls but the idea of putting rich, yummy chocolate into them came to me later.  We put the escort cards on ribbon with bead collar necklaces for each guest to take as a memento.  Bright colorful pillows were laid out on the built-in sofas - I didn't get to try any of the food because I was busy busy but it looked good :).

THE RECEPTION

When I first saw all the palm trees at the villa I knew we just had to have the tables interspersed in-between.  I wanted to have turquoise blue chiffon fabric with white vases on top and colorful orange, yellow calla lillies, freesia and ranunculus inside.  I'm very happy that Maria warned us about the wind, so we found some frosted glass candles and filled them with battery tea lights and they looked marvelous!  Mirrors were painted with white numbers and a bit of floral decor served as table markers.

I found this picture of napkins and wanted some just like it but thought my chances were slim - until I found some fabric and Gaby made some napkin magic!  Woohoo!  We matched the place cards to the napkins and the table was complete!  I had wanted a different kind of chair but Maria searched high and low and couldn't find it but these white washed tiffany chairs were perfect and I was sooo happy with them!

LITTLE DETAILS

White floating lanterns with floral cut-outs and turquoise blue, orange and yellow chiffon inside floated in the pool (combination effort!).  We built a little cupcake tower (rock on yazmine!) and used one of the lines from Taryn & Matt's first dance, Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, reflected in the middle level (all that I am, all that I ever was, is here in your perfect eyes).  I stumbled upon a fantastic artist who created talavera shot glasses just for Taryn & Matt- unique, one of a kind, never to be found again - which also matched the napkins - heart smoosh and swooshing going on!  We had colored light bulbs in turquoise blue, orange and yellow hanging above the dinner tables and Chinese lanterns in various shades of turquoise blue, orange and yellow over the dance floor - which turned on just as they started their first dance (see "fairytale like" up above ;).  I absolutely HEART HEART the photobooth with the colorful orange fabric, the vintage looking frames and the glasses, eyes and mustache props ALONG with chalkboard frames for writing - which honestly didn't get used much (you can never tell with a crowd what will get them going ;) but I am sure a future bride will want it too - just too fun!

I loved working on this wedding and with Taryn and would do it again in a heart beat!  Of course, all work and no play wouldn't do ANYONE a bit of good so the day after the wedding, my family (aka "the rest of the work force" ;) and I went to Cozumel, rented a bug and spent some time in the beautiful water!  Can't say enough good things about Cozumel and look forward to going back :).

Side Note:  We stayed at Sol de la Playa in Playa del Car and I cannot rave ENOUGH about our stay there - fantastic!  If you need a villa to stay in, in that area, we hands down recommend this villa.  And the awesome, wonderful people who helped us with our stay was all the folks at Vacation Playa - they helped us to get a great deal, as well as with various questions and issues we had before arriving - since we had never been there before, I had a lot of questions :).  The ONLY thing I would have changed about this portion of our trip, is I would have ordered groceries and had them delivered - by the time we got off the plane, rented the rental cars and got to Playa del Car it was close to midnight and too late to go grocery shopping or cook anything nutritional. :)

I also give Interjet 5 HEARTS for super comfortable airline seats and amazing service - beats any other airline I've been on in the last EIGHT years HANDS DOWN without blinking! ;)

Next up ... Lili & Kieran's romantic Chacala wedding and oodles of maraca shout-outs and congratulations!

Kim & Lanny's Elemental Love Wedding!

Man, where do I start? :) Kim & Lanny were one of those couples who just oozed love from the moment I met them - not the gooey kind of love ;), but more a steady, easy, here we are kindof love. They met in high school and had been together ever since, so maybe that was part of it. They tied the knot this past April 12th in Dreams PV and this is what it looked like...

INSPIRATION BOARD

They really wanted to incorporate being married by the ocean and an acknowledgment of their native ancestry into the wedding - it was a lot of fun to go back to some beachy roots - although we live in a very popular wedding area by the beach, we don't often do a lot of weddings which incorporate beach elements :).

THE CEREMONY

I had a lot of fun with this ceremony. I decided to do her bouquet out of green hydrangae, circus roses and orange tulips with a beautiful turquoise necklace as an accent piece for the wrap. The groom's bout were little tulips. I wanted the orange colors to really pop, so I decided to go for a more natural palette so that the strung roses on the chairs would stand out more and the chuppah with flowing sand, champagne and white chiffon fabric. We incorporated a seashell blessing ceremony into the ceremony itself, and the guests were invited to choose a seashell, to bless the couple with their well wishes and then they all went down to the ocean and threw their shells back. Since we had decided to incorporate the elements (wind, air, fire, water and we added "alma" or "soul" as a 5th element) to the entire wedding, Antonio designed these amazing hand-crafted wooden fans with Aztec and Mayan symbols representing the elements drawn on them on one side and the word "love" on the other.

THE RECEPTION

They had decided to skip the cocktail, so guests went back to their rooms for a little break, while the bride and groom continued to take pictures with their photographer. For the reception, I wanted the color to be vibrant and completely in tune with the natural beach surroundings. So, we had turquoise chiffon overlays and apothecary glass jars (which I actually brought down in a suitcase from the states!) filled with orange tulips, sand and a white pillar candle and seashells and floating circus roses. We surrounded the reception area with tall bamboo poles and hanging lanterns with candles!

The escort cards were polished rocks with each guest name and table seating painted on and table markers were large rocks placed in the middle of the table with the names painted on for each of the elements. Maracas also were painted with the elemental symbols in the bride's wedding colors of orange, sand and turquoise. Napkins were a natural sand manta and place cards had a photo of the bride and groom on one side and a fun pictionary game (the bride and groom's favorite game!) on the other side, based on the bride and groom ;). Each table also had paper and pencils so they could play the game during the reception, if they wanted :). The bride and groom provided turquoise jelly bellies as a sweet favor which we placed on each chair.

THE DANCE FLOOR

I wanted something simple but that would really look beautiful at night. I told the boys I wanted a lantern with three poles overhanging and beautiful large Chinese lanterns. I loved it! One of my absolute favorite things happened this night ... we had swapped out the bride's IPOD for our own to play "Great Balls of Fire" and I thought the song that would follow was of a similar nature so I told the boys to keep the IPOD running. But to my surprise the William Tell Overture came on - but the bride's guests, already in a circle on the dance floor, did not miss a beat and started galloping across the dance floor - each person from an opposite side galloping to meet each other in the middle and end-up on the other side. It was one of the funniest, funnest most spontaneous things I've ever seen at a wedding and looked completely choreographed - which I knew it wasn't ;). I thought they would get tired half-way through but they danced the entire song - it was awesome!

THE CAKE/REMEMBRANCE TABLE

Both the bride and groom had people very close to them pass away and they wanted their presence at the wedding. So we put their photos on the cake table with a remembrance candle for each one with the cake in the middle. The cake was, of course, from Memo and he did an amazing job of combining one of the bride's favorite design cakes with the elemental symbols we had been using through-out the event. Gorgeous!

The bride, groom and all their guests were so amazingly kind, generous and sweet - it was a true honor to be part of their beautiful day!

Coming up Kris & Luke's wedding blog, followed closely by Rose & Miguel! :)