Mariah & Adam's Nautical Mexican Wedding!

Well, the day has finally arrived! Mariah & Adam tied the knot at Hacienda Camino del Mar this last March 27, 2010! BTW, I absolutely, positively ADORE this villa - it's absolutely beautiful and the staff is amazing! 10 Stars, for sure! ;) If you want to see a on the fly video I did for Mariah to show her what it looked like before the wedding, you can check that out here.

Mariah wrote me back last May - super easy-going bride and we started out super simple and were just going to do a ceremony decor set-up and light touches here and there - but as we started really going through the process Mariah's mom wanted to kick it up a notch and away we went! Most of the time I don't get to meet any of my brides beforehand, but Mariah, Adam and her mom made a trip south - they were so laid back that the only thing we truly accomplished was to go visit the hair salon (Elle Hair Salon - which did a Fantastic job!) - haha! Mariah had chosen a dark navy blue color for her bridesmaid dresses and knew she wanted to do things with a nautical blue/white theme, slight touches of the ocean, but she also wanted a sparkly bouquet and accents of lime and tie this all into mexico .... of course I said!!!

Here's their inspiration board....

BOUQUET

Other than giving me these slight directions as to where they wanted to go, I was given a lot of freedom and everything from beginning to end with their wedding was super fun and easy-breezy - I would even go so far as to say "kismet" ;). I knew Mariah wanted white rose balls for her bridesmaids and she wanted a white bouquet with some crystals in it - I try hard not to be too enamored with one idea down here because, too often, I fall in love with an idea and then I can't find what it is I want and have to change everything - so I try to keep my design mind all open .... but, in this case, I found things I couldn't believe I was finding! Starting with the crystals for Mariah's bouquet and the accent for Adam's bout - those crystals were seriously the most amazing color of blue with a slight accent of .... LIME GREEN!! What are the odds, seriously? I absolutely HEART HEART HEART Mariah's bouquet....

CEREMONY

We were going to do the ceremony in all white but I couldn't resist adding a touch of navy blue color .... we tied sand dollars to the ceremony aisle chairs and strips of navy blue chiffon hung from the white chuppah. I think it was a perfect combination of "just right" .... I know the pictures are horrid but our staff photographer couldn't come and Paulina was busy running around taking pictures of, you know, THE BRIDE - let's see if you can tell which ones are hers - haha! ;)

CEREMONY DETAILS

Mariah wanted to represent her dad in some way, as he had passed on. Her mom brought me a cap he always wore and they told me a little bit about him - one thing was that he LOVED and adored Chili's Restaurant (what a coincidence - me too!) .... so we went out and found some red chilis to put underneath his hat and saved a chair for him at the ceremony.

I knew that the best gift Mariah ever gave Adam was a poker set (according to Adam!) and I knew they loved to play games. So, I decided to put touches of that into the wedding fans. These really are some of the neatest fans Omar has ever created! They folded down into an opening in the wooden handle to store and, to use them, you spread them out like playing cards - the front side had a king and queen in their wedding colors and a middle card with a heart and their names.

SIGNS

So no one would get lost, we had two different set of painted wooden signs pointing the way to the reception and to the beach - I wish we had better photos but trust me they were awesome! Probably my favorite detail of the wedding ... well, next to the glittery sand dollars!

COCKTAIL/DANCE AREA

This is one place I feel so sad we don't have any good photos because it was truly beautiful and my photos don't do it justice. We white glittered sand dollars and hung them up over the dance floor - it looked awesome during the day and amazing at night. For their first dance, the bridal party showered the couple with white flower petals - actually made me tear me up!! I just realized that one of Mariah's guests made a little video of it, so if you would like to see, check it out here: Mariah & Adam's First Dance. Off to the side of the pool, there was a small sitting area, which we covered with a navy blue fabric and threw-in some pillows - sweet!

RECEPTION

Playing with the nautical theme we made wooden nautical lamps and had them floating in the pool as well as scattered through-out the villa. I also placed metal nautical lanterns in the middle of the table and filled them with miniature white roses, white wax flowers, white ranunculus and white statice. In-between we had floating candles nestled inside scooped-out lime shells for the touch of lime! I absolutely ADORE the napkins - I found this amazing pattern (which Gaby, my SIL, sewed - I design - I do not sew! ;)) and alternated the patterned napkins with white napkins down the length of the table. In order to represent who was eating what, we put the letter of the food ("b" for beef, "s" for shrimp" and "c" for chicken) on the wine glasses to make it easier for the waiters to know whose plate was whose.

PLACECARDS

Something else Mariah & Adam adored is their dogs! So, I decided to make the place cards like playing cards and replaced the king/queen face graphic which was also on their fans with faces of their beloved puppies, Ali & Joe! Mariah & Adam both had a great sense of humor and I knew it would give them something to laugh about - which it did ;).

THE CAKE

Last but, of course, never least was the cake! Oh, memo memo memo - what an awesome job, right? He's so unbelievably talented and, yep, was YUMMY .... they chose an almond cake and memo filled it with a sweet nummy almond flavored cream.

BIG THANKS

Again, my girlfriend Tam from Incredible Weddings came to the rescue and showed-up to help me create the 20 floral centerpieces and to set details into place ... she created this amazing floral arrangement down below - couldn't have gotten it all finished without her and she rocks!

I've absolutely, positively been blessed this season - every bride I've had has reminded me of why I love doing what I do and why the long hours are completely worth it! And, then, the cherries on top of every event we've had is the wedding guests have been incredible people as well - sweet! And thank you!

Next up we have oodles of maracas so blogs will be flying up like crazy! And I am soooo looking forward to Ashley & Dave's wedding which will end our year the end of May - less than a month! It's going to be colorful, chic, beachy and "wowzers" so you aren't going to want to miss it ;).