Nah to Lasagna

Hi ESB,

I am just beginning the process of wedding planning and I am stuck on finding a venue (duh, right?) Anyway, I am torn between picking a venue that has an all-inclusive package type deal or a venue that will require me to piece-meal shit together. So far, the one all-inclusive I have looked at seems a little janky and like we might have to be like "uh we don't want your weird lasagna tho" and then they'll be like "well fine but it's like $2000 extra then, guys." 

Any thoughts on pros and cons of the two different situations? I want the whole thing to be as simple as possible, really, but I also don't want it to be gross.

Thank you,
Nah To Lasagna

*****

Pick Any Two:

[  ] As simple as possible

[  ] As cheap as possible

[  ] Good



Rachel Rutt By Bec Lorrimer For Yen (November 2011) via Le Fashion — Anyone know who did the collage?

George + Lysa's Rad San Diego wedding

If you look closely, this whole shebang is PERFECTLY COLOR COORDINATED. And yet it's totally Brooklyn-meets-San-Diego cool and supremely unfussy....

George and I been together for 10 years and when we finally decided to make it official, we knew that we wanted 3 things: Mexican food, to have it be a fun & casual affair and for it to take place in San Diego, California (where I grew up and where we met).

With that said, the important things for this bride were:

Wedding Photography

Luckily, it was through a recommendation that we found Rad + In Love. I loved Jamie and Michelle’s photojournalistic approach and the command they had of the medium. They were on the ball in getting our "must have" photos as well as sneaking us away to snap us in the perfect light.

Wedding Invitations

My talented friend, Shiva King is the one who is responsible for these insanely beautiful invites. Since our venue had elements of mid century architecture, Shiva used Illustrator to impart a clean look that is characteristic of mid century design while adding a feminine touch with the bold florals and/or color. She designed the map, flowers, our caricatures and screen printed our cat Gustave Minda onto tote bags.

[Ahem, please note how beautifully Lysa's bouquet matches the save-the-dates.]

Wedding Dress + Shoes

I saw an image of a 1930s Nina Ricci dress and automatically knew that was going to be my wedding dress if I could help it. I scoured ebay, etsy, all the vintage stores in SD, LA and NY for similar styles if not the exact one but to no avail. So with the help of a friend, I decided to design my own dress, using design elements from the vintage one and giving it a modern spin.

I design shoes as a profession and am starting my own line called Aralêzano (stay tuned!) so it’s a no brainer to design my own pair. I collaborated with my friend Juniper Rose on the embellishment, and one of the factories I worked with was kind enough to make my wedding shoes.

And so after our must-haves were squared away, everything else fell into place. We got married at the San Diego Rowing Club on a summer solstice evening. It overlooked Mission Bay, which made for an interesting backdrop with bikini-clad kayakers, a John Mayer blaring boater and a jet packer aerialist.

I walked down the aisle to Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and we walked out as a couple to Tusk by Fleetwood Mac, all performed instrumentally by Red Pony Clock. After the ceremony, the band continued playing during cocktail hour and we recorded the entire set list as a keepsake. The recording is our most favorite thing from the wedding. This party friendly 8-piece band is awesome and if you are getting married in the LA/SD area, book them!!

After cocktails, the wedding party gave their toasts and this was also another great memory. It was funny, sweet and emotional. No matter how many times I told myself not to cry, I did. Dinner was catered by Ortega’s -- delicious vegetarian enchiladas, fish tacos, chicken tacos, beans, rice, etc; and to cut down on costs, we ditched the wedding cake and bought Julian apple pies instead for dessert.

And from the dance floor, here are three of my favorite moments:

1st dance to The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen. We were opposed to first dances, but my mother insisted and she knows best. My uncle was kind enough to choreograph and teach us the moves the day before.

The same uncle surprised us with a flash mob Gangnam Style dance, which had my cousins, my mom and George’s parents on the dance floor.

And thanks to Red Pony Clock, they got me on a chair to do the hora and I’m not even Jewish. I told you RPC is party friendly!!

Some advice: the day will go by fast, you will be pulled for every free moment you have for photo ops, you will not get to spend enough time with everyone at the wedding, and you will suffer some sort of post-wedding depression after all is said and done.

Planning a California wedding from Brooklyn wouldn’t have been possible without help and advice from our friends. Everything came recommended to us and every recommendation was perfect.

Especially, thank you to our friend Chris Wojdak, who was our coordinator & florist. She made sure we were on budget, DIYed a few things to do so, and created the most beautiful bouquet I have ever seen. She is truly Wonder Woman (It’s true! She planned the wedding while pregnant and on the day of the wedding, was running around with little Jack strapped to her).

So it’s really our friends that made this wedding all the more awesome, besides marrying my best friend.

Xx
Lysa

Your uncle is RAD.

So is that dress.

And the shoes!!! look even better on.

Basically you killed it, lady.

(Photos by Rad + In Love. Go see more over on their blog!)

Dear ESB: Do we have to serve MEAT?

I love your work, and am hoping for one of your famous pointed answers to my very first world problem. My parents and future father in law are paying for our wedding and being very generous in general. My minor dilemma is I have been vegetarian for 15 years for a variety of reasons, and vegan for many of them. I consider it part of who I am and my future moving forward. 

I understand that not everyone is cool with eating vegetables for dinner, so I thought offering chicken was great alternative (fiancé isn’t vegan, but doesn’t eat red meat). However, my future father in law is pretty adamant about having both steak and chicken in addition to a vegan entrée. I get a very uneasy feeling every time I think of beef being served, but don’t want to appear to be ungrateful/disrespectful and deny my FIL’s request. 

Yes or no to filet mignon?

- Hippie at Heart

*****

If your FFIL is putting up money for the wedding, that makes him one of the hosts. He gets to have a say in what is served for dinner.

How bout you insist on ethically raised beef? (And offer to make up the difference in price.)

Meat by Mal Jones

Antlers, and pom poms, and xerographica! Oh my!

You guys, I'm posting more details than usual on this one because GAAAAAAAAH. 

Here's what Kelly had to say about her cool-ass California wedding:

Mike and I are both very untraditional, so from the beginning we knew we wanted our wedding to be unique, whimsical, and just a freaking good time. We were both so excited to be able to have all of our family and friends in one room for the first time ever. Being both midwest transplants, Mike and I wanted to give our family and friends a true California experience to show them why we fell so in love with it out here. 

After months of searching for the perfect outdoor venue, we stumbled upon the Carondelet House. When we walked in, there was no discussion, we knew this was the place. It had history (was actually the old Otis building), amazing architecture, and also had amazing outdoor areas. The space itself was so beautiful that we did not have to do much to it. Once we found the venue, everything else just fell into place.

Mike and I wanted the decor to reflect the fact that this was a celebration and we wanted to bring the fun. We knew we wanted things to be festive and modern since the venue was really rustic. Gold was a must. We worked with Jihan Zencirli from Gironomo Balloons as well as Confetti System for the rest of the gold decorations. All of my friends helped with the planting, making of terrariums, and setting up the day of. 

I designed my dress myself and had it made by an amazing dressmaker in Koreatown. [Dets to follow in a separate post.] My best friend, Jeff Millbern of Banner Year, made a wood, crystal, and pyrite brooch for my dress as well as wood bracelets and pins for each of the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Mike and I chose wood to go along with our wooden wedding rings which were made by Gustav Reyes of Simply Wood Rings. 

With my background in visual merchandising and costume design, and Mike's background in graphic design, we were able to do pretty much everything ourselves...no wedding planner needed! Had we not have had 125 people, I would have wanted to do the food as well! [Kelly has a food blog on the side.] For food, we ended up using Tres LA to do the catering. We kept the menu simple with a cheese and cocktail reception, tacos for the main event, and late night appetizers that included sliders, burrata grilled cheese, fried mac and cheese balls, buffalo style cauliflower, and most importantly, a full bar. 

Our cake was a gift from Mike's employer, the LA Weekly, and was from Rosebud Bakery. We also served red velvet cupcakes from Lark Cake Shop and Earl Grey Macarons from Bottega Louie for dessert. We ordered the invitations from 2 Be U Design on Etsy, and Mike was able to make the programs and menus to correspond with them. The ex-cheerleader in me had to have pom poms and I found some from Spiritline that we used as favors. 

Neither Mike and I are big fans of flowers, so we decided to use airplants and lots of potted succulents as at home, we love to be surrounded by plants. Each bridesmaid held a large xerographica. We purchased everything from the flower market downtown and because we used so many plants, we were able to prep everything weeks earlier. 

Our amazing photographers, Rad and In Love, helped us to set up our photo booth and I can say that was definitely a crowd pleaser. We were married by one of our best friends and walked down the aisle to Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. My favorite part was the swaying of my bridesmaids to this song as I came down the aisle. Our DJ was the amazing Bennett Schmid from Ameoba and he played all old school 80s, 90s, and hip hop.  People are still talking about how great the music was.

Overall, the day was absolutely perfect, but everything went by so quickly... wish we could do it all again! We could not have made it so perfect without all of our amazing friends and family who helped us put it all together. It was definitely a collaboration and celebration of love. We will remember it always.

Photos by Rad + In Love. Check out tons more from Kelly + Mike's wedding over on the Rad + In Love blog!

Badass California Mountain Wedding

Jamie asked me if I would do the honor of featuring one of Rad + In Love's very first wedding shoots, and when I saw that there was a HORSE MASK involved, I was like, "Yeah, okay. Twist my arm."

Here's what the adorable Katie had to say about her wedding:

Jeremy and I got married on a grey November day in our hometown of Santa Ynez, California. We rented out the Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse for several days before the wedding and had our wedding party stay with us. In the evenings we drank wine and our friends played music while the wind whipped through the mountain range and the rain pelted the window panes. During the days, it was a circus of planning, cooking, crafting, and, in general, TCB-ing.

We already felt pretty damn lucky having such talented friends helping us out but then when we won the awesome Rad + In Love ladies, well, we felt like our wedding was totally charmed.

As our guests arrived, a friend strolled around the farmhouse, playing songs on his banjo, which set the mood perfectly. Moments before the ceremony, when there was an issue with the sound equipment and we couldn’t play our processional song, he stepped in and provided some sweet music as we all headed down the aisle. It turned out way better than we ever could have planned.

Jeremy’s friend (and his best man’s father) was our officiator and I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find a more bad-ass looking Reverend.  After presenting us as husband and wife, he picked up a guitar and sang Darlin’ Companion by The Lovin’ Spoonful while we walked back down the aisle.

My dress was made by my incredibly talented friend Nichole Lumpkin who – I should add- created my dream dress in just two weeks leading up the wedding date after I, in true procrastinator fashion, freaked out about not finding anything I liked. 

My bridesmaid Molly, from Ballard Canyon Farms, began growing the flowers pretty much as soon as I told her Jeremy had proposed. She used plants native to Figueroa Mountain and created the bouquets, gorgeous floral arrangements, and my flower crown (and a teeny tiny crown for our cake topper girl). I called upon my stylist friends for makeup and hair, asking for a 60’s country vibe, and they knocked it out of the park.

We didn’t want a super matchy-matchy look for our wedding party so Jeremy’s boys all wore different Rockmount shirts and my girls ran with the suggestion of something, “floral and folky.” 

When Jeremy and I booked the farmhouse 8-months prior we knew there might be a chance of rain but we basically lived in denial of it until a week before when every weather website said, “It is going to rain on your wedding day,” and our friends texted us, “It is going to rain on your wedding day,” and our day-of-planner emailed us, “It is going to rain on your wedding day. Get. A. Tent.” We tried to fight it and I’d be lying if I said we weren’t bummed but you know what? It was totally fine. Nobody cares if you’re in a tent or in a field surrounded by horses grazing on grass while a movie is projected on a wall behind you. It’s not a wedding without some hiccups and you just roll with it.

Danny Douglas catered, serving grilled Tri-Tip, Chicken, and a veggie risotto that made me wish he was my personal chef. Our friend, Graham Palmer, from Sforzando, made the incredible wines and Jeremy selected all of the craft beers from his store, The Oaks Gourmet. We had a couple cakes – one from Flore and one from the Madonna Inn (as a nod to the place where we got engaged). Jeremy’s friend, Genevieve, from Delilah Bakery made us an incredible bourbon banana bread pudding.

We wanted a stagecoach-stop/roadside-dive-bar feel for the reception and our pals that dj’d and played live music really pulled it off. We weren’t going to do a first dance or a bouquet toss BUT as 2AM rolled around, we were dancing to I’m Your Man by Richard Hell and I found myself tossing the bouquet out to the 10+ ladies that were in it for the long haul.

It’s no surprise that when you get married to your best friend, you’re feeling pretty much head over heels in love but, after all was said and done, I think Jeremy and I both had major crushes on all of our friends and family that helped create this incredible day for us.

Editor's Note: Is it inappropriate that I sort of have a crush on the guy with the mohawk? Okay, inappropriate.

Check out the Rad + In Love blog for tons more photos of the magical mayhem. And.... Special bonus.... Jamie + Michelle have another wedding up on 100 Layer Cake today. It's ALL RAD, ALL DAY LONG.