Ashley & Dave's Chic Colors of Mexico Wedding!

I couldn't have ended the 2009/2010 wedding season with a more gracious couple - seriously I feel like I was absolutely BLESSED this year with THE most amazing couples - I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for being such wonderful, amazing, in-love brides/grooms and, if I could do this season all over again, I would do your weddings over again with an abundance of joy!

Ashley & Dave tied the knot May 22nd, 2010 in San Pancho (also known down here as San Francisco) ... a truly sleepy fishing village just a few minutes north of Sayulita and about an hour north of Vallarta. This all took place in the quaint hotel of Costa Azul, whose amazing coordinator Eliza and the recepionist, whose name escapes me at the moment (but you were awesome!), made working there such a joy! Thank you! Naef did the catering and the food was absolutely nummy!! And all the pictures down below that are awesome were donated by the bride's photographer, Jillian Mitchell - a righteous photographer who is funner than anything to work with. And, um, all the amateur pictures were taken by me. But I'm fun too ;).

We just had a couple of months to put Ashley & Dave's design together - but Ashley was pretty laid back and very open-minded and engaging - so it wasn't the push it could have been :). She just wanted something "festive and fun, not too fancy" with the colors of Mexico. At first I think there was some surprise that we were going to do everything catered specifically for her - no cookie-cutting going on ;), but after that, ideas just took off!

This was my inspiration board....

But, honestly, this picture and Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms were my main inspirations....

The Bouquets & Bouts

I have no idea how this idea came to me - I've done variations of this on other bouquets - but nothing quite like this before. Normally, I am not a fan of stargazers in a bouquet - they are hard to work with and make them look balanced - but this bouquet turned out even better than what I had planned in my head - and it smelled great! Since the bridesmaid's dresses were going to be so colorful I wanted their bouquets to be white so that the flowers didn't get lost with the color of their dresses, but would stand out - the same thing going for the groom and groomsmen ... and, of course, for Ashley I wanted the same thing - for her bouquet to stand out - which it did ... and what amazing photos Jillian took of these bouquets!

The Ceremony

I always loved how photographers in Guanajuato or San Miguel had these amazing blue doors and colorful painted buildings to take their photographs and then the thought occurred to me that we could simply recreate that feeling! I know I keep saying this, but, okay, THIS is my favorite chuppah EVER. I also love the bright blue bowls with floating orange mums which lined the ceremony aisle.

The stained glass in the chuppah was made specifically for Ashley & Dave - Ashley told me that Dave would buy her replicas of paintings that they saw together, one of which had a lot of meaning to them was Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms .... so we recreated that painting but with a Mexican twist and had it in touches through-out the wedding ... starting with the hand-crafted wooden fans ....

and carried through to the stained glass in the chuppah (which Omar painted and we gave to them to keep)....

The maracas were also based on that same painting - I love how they turned out. And, as far as I know, I was the original creator of the phrase "shake me at the kiss" for our maracas. So, I wanted to do something a bit different for this original, bohemian couple .... I like it!

The Cocktail

We covered the cocktail tables with bright fuschia fabric and blue talavera pots. The escort cards were photos of the couple in various locations (as they both love love to travel!) that Ashley had given to me and represented which table each guest would be seated at. At first, I was going to make them like little flower cards but then realized they would look cooler if they were done like international flags - so there was touches of each country's flag on the border of the photographs ;).

The Reception

We covered the tables with bright orange fabric (a sunburst orange for the bride/groom table) and I found these amazing orange/blue talavera vases downtown (only one place in town sells this particular pattern!) and filled each one with various fuschia flowers. Each table had its own flowers except for the bridal table which had a bouquet of all of them surrounded by hand-made candle shades which were the exact same pattern as the candles we hung-up in the cocktail area.

The table markers, as mentioned before, were photos of the bride and groom at their favorite locations around the globe.

Napkins in a bright cobalt blue sewed by my very talented sister-in-law, Gaby, and the menu cards were actually done by Ashley's aunt! We sent her the graphic (also based on Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms - of course!) and she worked with us on the design but really it was mostly her idea! I think they turned out awesome!

We put a sprig of colorful flower at the bottom of each wine glass to represent who was eating what and I do think that's one of my favorite touches (thanks Pierre for pushing my ideas!)

The placecards rock - seriously ;). Ashley & Dave love to cook, so I thought it would be fitting to have a recipe card with a recipe common to each of the areas they traveled. Fish and Chips for London, Chili Burger for Mammoth, Apple Strudel for Munich, Smazeny Pyr (fried cheese) for Prague and Mexican Shrimp Cocktail for Santa Barbara. There were the most adorable kids at the wedding and, as you will see, their recipe place cards were a wee bit different....

The Cake

Ashley had chosen 3 different cake designs as her favorite which were all super different from each other - but we combined the best part of each of those cakes, as well as adding-in the accent on the bottom layer which was the same pattern as the cocktail candles and the reception candle screens. Memo, of course, rocked the design and holy cow the chocolate cake Naef did was literally TO DIE FOR. YUMMMMY.

Nightscapes

Dance floor was just gorgeous with the beautiful paper lanterns we had shipped-in from Hawaii and my husband shot this really pretty sunset shot of the chuppah which made a nice backdrop to watch while sipping a margarita ;).

I loved Costa Azul and their staff and would love to do a wedding there again, but would be remiss to not admit that we did have one tiny incident at the end of the evening which marred things somewhat - unfortunately, someone walked into the bridal suite and stole a few things from our bride and groom, including a couple of passports. Booooo!!! Ashley & Dave (and the few of their guests who were also affected) took it all in stride and in good humor and with a lot of grace - a good reminder to any of you who travel to not keep your passports in your purse and, perhaps, not such a bad idea to use the hotel safe for the passports, anyway. But just a suggestion! Eliza, the coordinator at Costa Azul, did her absolute best to help the bride, groom and guests to rectify the situation and all ended well ...

We have more maracas going-out and shout-outs coming-up so I will be back sooner rather than later .... can't wait for the next wedding season and am loving all my wonderful, amazing brides-to-be! You guys rock!

Before and After - Ashley & Dave's Video Montage....

Working away on the blog but made a little diddy video about jack and diane ... I mean Ashley & Dave :). Check it out on Facebook......

A Tale of Two Maracas....

A big shout out goes to Laura who was married at Dreams Riviera Cancun Feb 26th and Carina who was also married at Dreams Riviera Cancun Feb 27th!
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Laura asked us if we could possible do a design like "white flowers" but with starfish like her logo. I said, "of course we can!" This time it was my BIL who rocked the design, Israel! You'll be seeing more of his designs in the future....

Carina loved both white flowers and lacy romance and couldn't decide between the two - so she did one of each, in her colors of pink and orange. I really like how the names/dates are in the same font, but a located a little differently on the maraca, according to the design.









SHIPPING


Now for the story .... we receive so many orders that I don't really pay attention to the shipping address until we are ready to ship the maracas. So, this was why I didn't realize that we were sending both of these beautiful brides' maracas to the same hotel. I'd been reading a few complaints about the cost of our shipping but down here, we don't have a good local postal system and it is very important to me that the maracas arrive on time and in good condition - in order to do that, we have to use reliable shipping companies. One mishap is enough for me to never use that shipping company again - you are important to me!

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We shipped Carina's maracas Feb 16th - unbeknownst to me until it was done, one of our staff chose to send her maracas via a shipping company I do not like to use (and I think you will see why!) - Estafeta. I shipped Laura's maracas nearly 6 days later via DHL.

To cut a long story short - Laura's maracas arrived the day after we sent them. Carina's maracas, however, were put on the wrong truck and got stuck somewhere in Cancun. Even though it was the shipping company's mistake, they refused to deliver the maracas before the day of the wedding - not only that but we had to fight with them to get them to even put the maracas somewhere where the coordinator could get to them - we argued with them for TWO FULL DAYS until they finally located the maracas and did what we asked.


Needless to say, Carina did finally receive her maracas the day of the wedding (at least according to the tracking information - I have yet to hear if that really did happen) - and the check is in the mail to return nearly all the money she paid for shipping. I know for sure that, even though using other shipping companies might a lot less expensive, it is definitely not worth the stress and I'm pretty sure the bride will say the same.


So, from now on, no experimenting with shipping companies we aren't 100% certain are reliable and, if do make a mistake, will correct their mistake ASAP! Which, I'm afraid, means that, for now, the shipping costs will remain the same.

Up next .... papel picado and a design in a box.....

Real Wedding - Lindsay's Celebration...

I received a real treat today - just when I needed it, as I had a long day arguing with a shipping company - which I will talk about later....

Amy from Fiestas Los Cabos sent me a picture today of what Lindsay's maracas looked like on her reception table - the photographer was Spencer Combs .... I think the table looks amazing and the photo is beautiful!

Then Lindsay sent me some IRL photos of her wedding and, after seeing them, I wish I had been there because it looked like a lot of fun!

Thank you ladies for sharing!! It's not often we get to see how it all comes together, so this was awesome! (heart heart!)

More favors coming your way....stay tuned.....

Sara & Nick's Chic Sayulita Wedding!!

All photos courtesy of Paulina Ulloa

Where do I begin with this wedding?!! Kerry, from Sayulita Wave Weddings, (thank you Kerry & Enrique!!) asked me towards the end of November if we were open for a January wedding - she made it sound so enticing I said "sure" and I am soooo glad we did! From the very start Sara was easy to work with (thank you Sara!!), so funny and completely laid back ... she sent me a slurry of picture boards and some great descriptions of what she was looking for - "Overall, we like earth tones or white with a pop of color. simplicity, romantic, chic, natural - style , not ornate - style, no sea shells or day of the dead, but like the vibrant colors of Mexican textiles."
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One simple romantic vibrant chic wedding coming-up! :)
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The Bouquet, Bout & Corsages

I knew from the very beginning, with magenta being Sara's preferred color for the wedding, that I wanted to use some unusual flowers - something more wild and beach-looking ... Sara's bouquet was made-up of silver dollar leaves, white anemones, pink wax flowers and kangaroo paw! We also used the anemone for the groom's bout and interspersed those same flowers in the other bridal party flowers .... I kept mainly to a purple/pink color palette and used orange as a bright pop of color. I LOVE this bouquet - one of my favorites ever!

The Ceremony

This beach was beautiful. I knew that Sara felt like the ceremony decor was really about the beauty of the ocean ... so we went with bamboo chuppah and chairs (don't those chairs ROCK?!!) and I decided to hand-paint some very colorful wooden fans (with the help of Omar who made the fans and the family of course!) in various florals to give it an artistic feel yet not detract from the scenery.


The chuppah was surrounded at the base with silver dollar leaves and purple flowers while the top of the chuppah was enveloped with pink and orange wax flowers and some purple statice. I heard it looked great against Sara's vintage looking dress but I will have to wait for pictures!

The Cocktail

I knew that Sara really wanted some embroidered and hand-crafted pillows but those are pricey here in Vallarta - but the look just wouldn't be complete without them! So, we used a little ingenuity and came-up with these knock-offs (I might have designed them but my sister-in-law Gaby sewed them - she rocks!)! I'm not going to tell you how we managed to do these embroidered pillows, but the other pillows were made from shopping bags! As it turns out, unbeknownst to me, Sara had given her guests the same mesh material shopping bags as welcome bags - we thought it was strange when the guests were showing up with their shopping bags to the wedding - like "how did they know?" haha!

We wanted some Moroccan lanterns but they were soooo expensive - so we found some inexpensive material and my husband cut-out all 40 of these beautiful lamp shades - wait 'til you see what they looked like at night!

The Papel Picado

We actually had more papel picado that we weren't able to put up - the wind was sooo strong the day of the wedding and was blowing our poor little papel picado everywhere! But we were able to put up 3 different pieces ... based on phrases that were special to the bride and groom.

The Escort Cards

These were soooo hard to do but I was soooo happy I did them when I saw the end-result. Inside each escort card was a bronze heart favor.


The heart tequila bottles on the table have a story to them - back last summer when Vallarta was struggling one of our favorite Mexican singers, Alejandro Fernandez, got his friends together and came out to Vallarta and gave a free concert. To thank his friends for coming, he ordered these unique bottles of tequila to be given to them, along with a few extras. I thought that this story was awesome and perfect to display at this wedding - a love story about a country to grace the love story of Sara & Nick - perfect!

The Placecards, Napkins & Accents

We drew a replica of an accent from Sara & Nick's wedding website, but added a little heart flair to it, since "love" and "hearts" were a small side theme to the wedding. The napkins were made out of a natural white manta fabric and accented with some awesome cream vintage lace! The wine glasses had colored natural twine wrapped around the stems to tell the waiters who was eating what. Sweet!

The Table Markers

Sara & Nick LOVE to travel and have several favorite spots. We used these names for the table markers - carved into wooden boxes which hung suspended over the middle of the tables and lit-up at night with candles (Omar rocks!)! Looked so amazing!!

The Centerpieces

Since Nick wanted something beachy but not too beachy, we gave just a nod to the beach and filled the middle of the tables with sand. And, then, drawing into the chic/artistic nature of Mexico, we used tin cans and filled them with wax flowers, kangaroo paw, statice, purple flowers and the list goes on! Interspersed were candles and it really did look beautiful during the day as well as at nighttime.

Paper Stars

Sara had mentioned wanting stars ... I searched high and low for paper stars - we even looked into making them but talk about a project! I finally found these - in Hawaii!! Absolutely amazing - one of the most beautiful dance floors ever!

Nightscapes

Just a few pictures taken at night to give you a feeling for how the evening progressed. I'll let you fill in the blank ... these night photos are ...... ;)




More maraca photos on the way as well as some design inspiration boards - busy month in February although not working on an event per se :). Now that I have a camera again (hurray!) look for more before and afters and other goodies on facebook....