• Real Weddings

In case you haven't noticed, we kinda love a good barnyard wedding, especially if it is at the Holland Ranch in San Luis Obispo, California. This fun little wedding was shared with us by one of our favorite central coast wedding florists, April Flowers. As you see from this barn wedding, all of the wedding flowers were made with super love. Be sure to read more on the wedding planning process from the bride below.
Be sure to see all of the wedding details by CLICKING HERE.

Flowers: April Flowers

From the bride:
We had such a great time planning our wedding and meeting so many wonderful people throughout the process. We live in Santa Monica and knew we didn't want to get married in the LA area. We are both from out of state (Dave- Minnesota and Dana- Texas) so we thought we would show our families and friends another area of California - our favorite area, the Central Coast. We first saw Holland Ranch when we returned from our trip to Europe where we were engaged last year and went shopping for a new computer. Our salesperson had been married at Holland Ranch that year and showed us his website. When we went to check it out and meet Jamie Holland Strand, we knew it was a magical place and where we wanted to get married.
The inspiration of our wedding was really just to spend quality time with family and friends, eat good food (which is a given if Dave has anything to do with it!), and get to know Dave and I just a little bit better. We had so much fun adding personal touches to our special day and every step of the way our goal was to make sure our family and friends had fun!
Since we were on a tight budget and we appreciate the thoughtfulness and love put into home made things, we did a lot of DIY projects and kept things as simple as we could while putting our own creativity into everything. We also tapped into the talents of our friends and family members.
We wanted to create things that weren't wasteful, that we could repurpose and use again and again, like our centerpieces. We used fresh herbs with garden markers that sat on a lazy susan which held cheese, crackers, olives and other munchies for our guests to snack on before dinner. The herbs have now been planted at Dave's restaurant, which he cooks with daily and the garden markers will be used in our garden one day.
Obviously, food was a major inspiration. We LOVE food and food is such a major part of our lives and always has been so one of my favorite projects I did was to reach out to our families for favorite recipes. We were so overjoyed to get so many recipes that brought back many great memories of celebration and family coming together to create a great meal. I used the recipes as the escort cards which were also our take-aways and it was so much fun figuring out who would want which recipes.
Since we wanted everyone to have a great time while celebrating with us, we tried to think of things that set a warm, playful tone like having a San Francisco style trolley transport our guests from the hotel to the ranch and having a picnic style pre-ceremony cocktail. And then of course, a family-style dinner followed by the most fun party I have been to: complete with a photo booth, silly napkins that look like ties when you tuck them in, old fashioned lollipops and funny nose-cups.
Everything and everyone came together so seamlessly, we had no problem finding our ideal wedding team, down to the local family-owned vineyard that provided awesome wine for the wedding. Since Dave is a chef, we understand how great it is to have the creative freedom to express your talents and we hoped we allowed everyone we worked with to do just that: April blew us away with her amazing floral designs, Jen captured every detail and moment in a beautiful way, Jamie did an awesome job setting up the barn, Melinda turned me into a princess and Matt and the band rocked their hearts out so we could party the night away Photographer: Jen Rodriguez Venue: Holland Ranch Makeup: Luna Bella Makeup Hair: Luna Bella Makeup Caterer: The Groom!
DJ: Matt Cross and the One Night Band Dress Designer: Jim Hjelm's designer Tara Keely Floral Design: April Flowers Jewelry: Esty Shop: Denise Jewelry Designs Shoe Designer: Michael Kors Stationery: Hello, lucky Veil or Hair Accessories: Etsy Shop: KAJE design