We are huge fans of Linda Chaja Photography, she is one of the few photographers that still shoots in film and truly understands the meaning of pretty. So, when I stumbled upon this soft and lovely wedding I immediately asked her to share it with us.
As you will see this wedding is bursting with beautiful details thanks to Katy, the gorgeous bride. Katy also happens to be a talented event planner in Los Angeles.
Her wedding planning story is below if you were looking for some insider tips on how to plan the perfect wedding read on to learn her story. Katy shares pretty much every fantastic detail of her wedding.
Katy's & Camron's Story:
Santa Barbara, CA is one of our absolute favorite places, and Camron proposed to me on the beach there, so it only made sense to bring all of our family and friends there for a Fourth of July destination wedding!
We chose Rincon Beach Club as our venue, which is located in the quaint town of Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara. Our ceremony was held on the beach just before sunset, underneath a custom-built bamboo arch with hanging floral arrangements and crystals that sparkled in the sun. We chose a decidedly un-beachy color palette of varying shades of moss and sage green with white, and our amazing florist used tons of different white flowers like dahlias, lisianthus, and my favorite, scabiosas, mixed in with succulents and many different kinds of greenery.
I have a wedding planning and design company, so the little details are very important to me. I am very much a do-it-yourselfer, so the months leading up to our wedding were spent making things like the hand-painted wooden sign that hung on the large driftwood "tree" at the entrance to the beach, and the petal cones that hung on the chairs filled with white rose petals for our guests to toss after the ceremony.
I recycled the border motif from our letterpressed RSVP cards that were returned by our guests to make the decorative top of the ceremony programs (which were lovingly assembled by my amazing bridesmaids!). I had a few custom rubber stamps made and used those to make embossed tags that were tied on pretty much everything, like the paper parasols for the ceremony and the flip-flops my mother-in-law bought for the guests to change into to walk on the beach.
Our guests were transported from the beach ceremony to the reception at the beach club by a traditional Santa Barbara trolley. I made moss-covered initials to hang on the large wood doors to the beach club, and our guests were greeted by champagne and a steel drum band as they entered the reception. The garden courtyard of the beach club had white paper lanterns strung overhead, and dinner was served there under the stars. My mother and I made moss green pin-tucked silk runners for the tables, and I used tons of silver mercury glass votive holders on the tables around low floral arrangements and wrought-iron centerpieces with hanging candleholders.
The food at Rincon Beach Club was wonderful, and our guests are still raving about the tri-tip! Our four-tiered cake (two tiers of coconut cake with fresh coconut cream filling and two tiers of chocolate cake with vanilla cream filling and fresh raspberries) topped with a Swarovski crystal monogram I made, was also a big hit with our guests.
In lieu of traditional favors, we chose to create a candy buffet, and our guests took home tons of green and white treats in white take-out containers tied with our embossed custom tags.
We had such an amazing time celebrating with so many family members and friends who traveled so far to be with us!
Photography: Linda Chaja Photography {A preferred member of The Wedding Chicks}
email: [email protected] Event Design: Katy Carrier Events Florist: Joey Molina of CANA Flowers Letterpress: Glidewell Press Cake: Christine of Dahl Pastries Wedding Dress: Maggie Sottero "Lavina"
Bridesmaids: Dessy Hair and Make-up: Spring Quintel, Seattle, WA Trolley: Santa Barbara Trolley Co. Music (guitarist, steel drum band and DJ): AMS Entertainment