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An Unconventional Japanese Beach Wedding: Chaco & John

September 14, 2011 in Wedding by Kat | 6 comments

I love Japan. It’s one of my favourite places in the world (we had out honeymoon in Tokyo) and I hope to go back again someday. So when I spied Chaco & John’s wedding at Riviera Zushi Marina in Kamakura and reception at Zushi Beach, I emailed their photographer Chennergy immediately and asked to feature it.

John proposed at the worlds busiest road crossing, right in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo. Check out the video here – it’s the cutest!

“My inspiration for our wedding theme was my Dad loving Rock n Roll and since both our names are John, or Johnny I thought it would be appropriate to rock to Johnny B Goode,” John explained. “I also am a big fan of the youtube video JK wedding, and the scene in Back to the Future where Michael J Fox rocks out to Johnny B Goode at the prom scene. We also had an 80′s feel, since we both love the 80′s. The 80′s sunglasses and recession song being “Nothing’s Gonna Stop us now” by Starship.”

The shack where their reception was held is only constructed for the summer months, so just like the proposal I guess, the couple had to coordinate and plan the wedding a long time in advance “We booked the venue a year in advance,” John continued. “The floor was sand and was just a great feeling to have a party there.”

“Instead of having a traditional reception, which is a bit costly and boring, we went straight to the after party at the beach. We changed our outfits to a Hawaiian theme. I wore an all white Hawaiian wedding aloha shirt, with a fresh Maile lei brought over by my older brother who lives in Hawaii. I also bought Hawaiian accessories (shark bone necklace) online. Chaco wore a white BCBG lace and a simple leaf and white plumeria flower head lei.”

“Our decorator sewed the table cloths and decorated the tables with herbs and wild flowers, she learned how to create a table setting just for us, because she teaches children for a living and was just a friend who had never done anything like this before. All of our friends pitched in with their skills and talents to make the wedding a reality! We had blues, aquas and yellow wild flowers. Yellow for full of life and blues for tranquil and peaceful ocean. The sea was a big part of our theme since we had our wedding in a glass chapel on the sea, with blue carpet isle lined with seashells.”

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A Wedding Inspired by the Ocean

September 8, 2011 in Wedding by Kat | 5 comments

The inspiration behind this beautiful Californian wedding, sent over to me by Jerry Yoon Photography, was the ocean. The couple, who met through a mutual friend in Philadelphia and them moved to California, had visited The Monterey Bay Aquarium during their first year living together. “I loved it,” the bride told me ” the intense blues and greens when you looked down in the water, to the contrasting sand and beaten rocks. I love the ocean and anything relating to it. During that visit, I took a bunch of Polaroid photos at the museum and our walks around Monterey and Pacific Grove. Years later, when we were looking for a location for our wedding, I came across those original Polaroids of Lovers Point Park, and I instantly knew this is where we were getting married.”

The couple decided on a small intimate wedding with a guest list of just 50 people. “Although it sounds very small, it was a lot of work to hand make custom Save the Dates and invitations,” the bride continued. “It was definitely fun and keeping it intimate, we were able to give a lot of attention to each guest. We really didn’t have a conventional beach-y theme with shells, but more so a play of the colors. We held our ceremony under the large cypress tree at Lovers Point Park, and that too played into the theme of our wedding.”

The colours of the sand and ocean played a major role in the influence of the bride’s wedding dress and the groom’s suit. The bride’s dress was custom made by Wai Ching and the groom’s seersucker suit came from Black Fleece. “Inititally, I didn’t think the dress mattered all that much and ended up buying a cheap-o dress without much thought. Afterwards, I found a blog post featuring a dress by Wai Ching (Chrissy Leung). I immediately fell in love with the dress (and the hastily-purchased dress was promptly returned). I emailed her immediately and collaborated with her to create the true dress of my dreams. Everything was done via email: measurements, tons of photos for inspiration and descriptions. I finally flew up to Seattle for one final fitting, made some adjustments and it was a done deal. I love the dress. I still break it out every now and then and wear it around the house! It’s such a fun dress.”

“I assumed my husband wouldn’t care much about what he would wear for the wedding but he proved every every bit involved and wanted to look special. He had no idea what my dress looked like aside from some decidedly vague color descriptions by yours truly. After many stores, we finally found this suit at Black Fleece. After he tried it on, I turned to him and said, ‘We are going to look great!’ He had to take my word of course, as he wouldn’t see my dress until the day of our wedding.”

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A Retro Wedding with a Contemporary Twist: Reyna & Michael

September 6, 2011 in Wedding by Kat | 11 comments

Reyna & Michael’s intimate wedding had a 1950′s and 60′s vibe but with a contemporary and romantic twist. “Our general inspiration was our favorite era, mid-century and everything that comes with it: Themusic, the films, the design and architecture, but in a subtle way,” the bride told me. “Also, the addition of the birds idea was Michael’s because he knows how much I love them.”

The couple were very keen to make sure that all their favourite things were included in the day. “It is amazing how much you can learn from your partner’s taste and personality, when you make this a fun labor of love project,” Reyna continued. “Our biggest challenge was having to make it all come together all the way to the wedding from Canada, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!”

The outside ceremony took place Shelter Island Shoreline Park, San Diego and the bride walked down the aisle to ‘Moon River’ by Henry Mancini. Then followed by a laid-back reception at JRDN Restaurant at Tower 23 Hotel. “My mother-in-law made the table runners for us, and my mother made my fresh-flower bouquet and boutonnieres,” the bride continued. “Everything that involved ink and paper and was designed by us. I made a second bouquet with vintage flower pins and our cake topper was inspired by a picture we took together on 6th Avenue in Downtown Manhattan.

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A Laid-Back Beach Wedding at Camber Sands: Fiona & Rob

August 11, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding by Kat | 5 comments

Fiona & Rob were hitched right by the beach at The Gallivant in Camber Sands (formally called The Place). The style of the beautiful hotel suited their beach theme perfectly. “I was quite keen for it not to look too wedding’y – or formal or too orchestrated” newlywed Fiona told me.

“We didn’t consciously go with a theme but it kind of happened!  We live on a beach and both my husband and I are kitesurfers so it had to feature strongly and in the end it made it easier to have a focus shaping our creative decisions!  I think always try and make stuff, not only to save money but to make it more personal and make your loved ones feel involved.”

“Many of the homemade elements were made with thanks to my Mum who worked hard on all this stuff. We made our own table displays.  We bought glass bowls from Argos and filled them with stones, seaweed and shells form our local beach. We all now have one in our houses as nice ornaments!  We made shell garlands, buying large shells from a seaside tourist shop and drilling holes in them to then thread onto thick string. These were hung up around the venue – adding to the beach theme!”

“Finally, we collected large pebbles from our local beach, wrote names on them using liquid craft pens and used them as place names.  We also put together kids packs including a colouring book, plastic bangles & bucket and spade.  Rather than having ‘favours’ we had big bowls of hairdo and love heart sweets dotted around.”

The bright sunflowers were also really important to the couple as they added some sunshine to their day, “It was all about sunflowers being my favourite flower and perfect for a sunny beach wedding,” Fiona said. “My parents and in-laws all grew some in their gardens over the summer which we used as extras in a few ceramic jugs and vases around the venue (which were all bought from Ikea.)  We then ordered a few tall glass displays from brilliant flower shop in Rye near to the venue called Cafe Des Fleurs. They also provided smaller sunflowers to put in small glass vases on the tables (bought from Ikea again), the little flowers for my hair & the button holes and finally my absolutely beautiful bouquet. We all had sunflowers in our houses for weeks afterwards!  The little flower girls also had baskets of yellow petals which they spread down the aisle as I walked in – very cute!”

The bride wore an informal tunic style dress from Phillip Lim. “I always imagined my wedding style to be a bit 60′s hippy love child – no idea why…I literally searched online for ‘short cream tunic dress’ and found it! The lace just made it look more delicate and special although I had to have a new under layer made as the previous one was a bit see through! I was nervous about the length but it wasn’t a church wedding and I am so happy I went with it as it looks awesome with our venue and theme.”

The couple certainly didn’t take themselves or their wedding too seriously which was reflected in the fact that after dinner they had organised a salsa class as entertainment for their guests! “It was very funny, not everyone loved it but we did which is the main thing!” continued Fiona. “We also asked my husband’s brother and wife to sing ‘All I Want is You’ by Barry Louis Polisar during our ceremony to a backing track, placing a song sheet on everyone seats to join in.  It was funny as they’re not professional singers (!) but its small things like this that make it way more personal and much less formal than a reading.”

The next day all the guests were invited back for a celebration BBQ on the beach.

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A British Beach-Inspired, DIY Wedding: Emma & Matt

August 1, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding by Kat | 4 comments

I teased a photo of Emma in her amazing short short wedding dress on twitter as soon as photographer David McNeil sent over this wedding to me. Whoaaa, I literally had to share it with someone (well 12,000 someone’s) right away! I. Die.

“We got married in Bardsea (on the bay of Morecambe)” Emma told me. “It’s my parent’s village which is just such a gorgeous place near the moors and the beach. Even though we live in Camden and love it – we’re both down to earth and love being outdoors and away from the city, so it was a natural choice. We got married at Eden Lodge, on the outskirts of the village, which has recently been converted from a Edwardian home to a small, minimalist hotel in some AMAZING grounds. We got married in the hotel itself and then the reception was in a marquee in the grounds. It was the hotel’s first wedding and they were AMAZING. We can’t sing their praises enough. The staff were EXCEPTIONAL and really went above and beyond to make our day perfect.”

Emma’s amazing dress was a custom-made Suzanne Neville number. She explains, “I never thought Matt and I would get married. I knew we’d be together forever but we weren’t really the ‘marrying kind’. As soon as he proposed, I knew my dress would be something that reflected my character. I’m not a girly girl and I usually dress in biker boots and short skirts – so short was what I wanted. I wanted to feel like ME on the day not a BRIDE. I scooted through some websites looking for a short wedding dress and found one designed by Suzanne Neville. I fell in love but hunted for something cheaper that I loved as much. Anyway I didn’t. The dress was custom made for me at a crazy price. But it was the only one for me!  I’ve been taking some millinery courses so I wanted to make something for me to wear. Obviously our wedding was near the royal wedding, so as a joke I designed and made a crown out of silk and fresh water pearls to wear. In the end I chickened out of wearing it as I was already so tall in my platforms but you can see me holding it in this photo.”

The inspiration for the wedding came from the proposal and the things Emma & Matt love in ‘real life’. ”When Matt proposed we were camping in Dartmoor and driving back to London took about 7 hours. In these hours we talked through everything we wanted from our wedding. How we wanted it to reflect us and not be a cookie cutter wedding. We focused on the things that we love and most of all wanted the wedding to be fun. We decided that we would use things that meant a lot to us and reflected our life together. Basically, we tried to reflect the things we loved and tried to steer clear of doing things conventionally wedding like.”

“Matt proposed in a river by a rocky outcrop and as a keepsake I took one of the grey pebbles from where we’d been standing. I used this as inspiration for the wedding, i.e. grey and round. Once we had decided on the theme I started buying wedding props straight away – collecting them up for the big day. The sooner you do this the better as it saves money and really adds the little touches to the wedding. For example, I bought lots of Christmas decorations (white china bells and hearts) in the sales after Christmas and used these in the trees at the wedding. I like little details, so I also bought lots of wedding words and signs. Again, I got a lot of these in the sales (www.sheerluxe.com has a wedding section and does lots of money off offers. Also I found wedding magazines usually have a special offer on each issue, so I used these.)”

“I collected pebbles from the local beach and used these for the centrepieces and the name places. My dad also used grey slate to make the stands for the tables numbers which were bought from an online hobbycraft website really cheaply and spray painted by my dad. I also used the dress as inspiration and tried to reflect the poofyness of the dress in the choice of round chinese lanterns in the gardens, 3ft round balloons in the gardens, my round bouquet and the round “afro” like vases of gypsophilia.”

Beautiful, classy, stylish and personal. I love it! Although, Emma damn you for introducing me to Tina Lilienthal jewellery. I now need to own the whole ‘Skulls & Strawberries’ range.

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