Let me tell you, no one needs pretty inspiration more than me this morning! A dreary day and a sick grandma have me bummed out. But today’s San Clemente wedding is providing just the pick me up, I needed. Justin Battenfield has captured the essence of this Cali cool wedding perfectly. There’s something wonderfully earthy about the entire day. The succulents, the net where the seating cards hung, the beachy images….all amazingly natural and charming. I REALLY dig the centerpieces. And guess what friends, totally DIY. Amazing! Here’s our bride, Victoria with her story from the wedding:
We are pretty low key people who enjoy spending time outdoors with the people we love, they just tend to live over the place so this wedding was really a privilege for us to have an amazing dinner party with all of our lovely friends and family. We wanted to share the So-Cal experience with our out of town friends and family which were most of the guests so this venue was perfect and also needed little work. So we kept it simple and within the color scheme of the surroundings. I really liked the mismatching bridesmaid dresses for this reason; there are so many color greens in the cliffs next to the beach. When people ask, it’s hard to describe our theme, but I would say So-Cal with the succulents and the colors.
Planning was pretty fun for us and laid back. We did a two-year engagement primarily because we were planning it and I had my big exams last September (I am a Doctoral Student). Overall planning a wedding as a bride is a little tough when you are in grad school, but it was a great distraction during my down time. I also found making the centerpieces very rewarding and a good activity for study breaks. Closer to the event we felt like we could make some more decisions so once we were 3-4 months out things got rolling and then there was some hiccups, like a major power outage in the area the day our families arrived, but we figured that hiccups are definitely a part of it too.
The centerpieces were the big DIY project, Paul constructed most of them and I filled them in. We used some of the frames to create mini-chalkboards to tell people about the day of schedule and other important things like shuttle times. I had a great time working on the site layout and a million other details with Ashleigh, It was also fun to talk to my parents about what they were going to wear. They both looked great, my mom wore a big red hat (they are British so I was happy to have that tradition at the wedding too and it was a sunny day so was appropriate. The bouquet and boutonniere making was an afternoon activity that was fun, we wired some succulents and scored at the local farmers market and went to work with a couple laptops and you tube videos on how to make a hand tied bouquet and wire succulents. We did these the day before the wedding and I did not have time to do my own, but used the time to scope the hidden talent and asked a friend to do it the morning of the wedding while I was getting my make up down. We stayed at a surfer motel called the Inn at Calafia, which was great because there was a little courtyard where we did the rehearsal dinner, hung out around a firepit at night and was the basic meeting place. The wedding party and family stayed here. Our friends who have a foodtruck in Denver, called CrockSpot came out for the wedding and they catered the rehearsal dinner, which was delicious and made it all a little more intimate and provided another chance for people to hang out and get to know one another. One of my bridesmaids also organized a cocktail hour the night before so people were getting to know each other right away, which was great! Lastly, we also brewed a bunch of beer for the rehearsal dinner, it was our first batch ever but supervised at BrewBakers in Huntington Beach, they help you or basically do it for you, but we plan to continue doing this now on our own. We created a label from the poster we ordered from etsy for people to sign at the wedding (defineddesign11 on etsy). We met in Scotland so the poster was a map of Scotland and California with a heart in Glasgow and on in San Clemente connected with a dotted line – so cute!
The day went great – I have to say that I was not nervous at all, just excited to see Paul. Paul on the other hand was nervous but it was sweet. Things did go wrong of course like how the lights were not delivered (you have to bring everything into this site), but a day-of-coordinator and a credit card solved that problem by the time the cocktail hour was over. Word to the wise, if you don’t have a wedding planner, you are responsible for the triple check! Wish we had more time to dance but it’s quiet time in State parks at 10, but as my brother in law described it, it was a dancing blitz – literally everyone was on the dance floor the entire time! We left the reception first and walked down to the lookout over the beach to have some downtime before returning to the inn to hang out more. This was a good idea gave us some time just for us. Paul’s favorite thing about the day the food and the slideshow — it was amazing! Everyone was raving about it – Old Vine is my favorite restaurant, it is the type of place you talk about the morning after having dinner there, and to have them come to us and have dinner was amazing. The wine was also delicious. Paul’s dad also created a slide show that played during dinner that was going to be just background but everyone was watching it – it was so fun to see and share it with everyone. I loved the ceremony too, we wrote it because we were having our cousin marrying us, but it represented all the things that were important to us and was so personalized. The only thing was we did not do was practice our vows out loud – that provided some comic relief when many including both of us were on the brink of tears!
Day of Coordinator: Chrissy Gray, GRNevents | Venue: San Clemente Historic Cottage, San Clemente State Park | Wedding Dress: Family Friend from Connecticut, Kim Fyffe | Shoes: Seychelles | Wedding Hair: Aja at Salon Bleu in San Clemente | Wedding Makeup: Dana Gray, Girl on the Go | Bridesmaid Dress: their choice of green dress – J Crew and Ann Taylor Loft | Menswear: Groom suit from Nordstrom, tie – ties that rock on etsy | Groomsmen – Dockers and ties from etsy | Caterer: Old Vine Restaurant | Invitations: backward prints from laguna beach – plantable invites and thank yous www.backwardprints.com | Entertainment: Jesse at DJ Tasos | Bridal Veil: Tessa Kim | Bridal Jewelry: All things tinsel | Photography: Justin Battenfield
