California Handmade Wedding: Melissa + Johnny

Melissa + Johnny’s sweet wedding was a true labor of love. Their wedding was small (about 50 guests) and they were on a tight budget, but they had lots of help from friends + family. Melissa’s best friend did the day of coordinating, another close friend did the videography, another friend married them and they were even lucky to have their friend Emma as Honey Honey Photography photograph their day! There were also lots of sweet DIY details: from the favors, to the bouquet, to the wine and lots of the reception details. One of my favorite details is Melissa’s pretty floral crown created by Blooming Leopold (and if you love it too I think you’ll love the other features we have planned for today!) Thanks so much to Honey Honey Photography for the photos + congrats to Melissa + Johnny!

Isn’t Melissa’s dress just the sweetest?! It was made in Australia by Frances Baker, inspired by the prom dress worn in the movie “The Virgin Suicides”.

Melissa + Johnny are both huge readers (Johnny’s vows were even inspired from books they’ve read) so they wanted to incorporate their love of books + reading into their day with the centerpieces. Melissa made all the centerpieces using our succulent book planter DIY and then gave them to guests as favors – a win win in my book! :)

Another easy + cute DIY they did for their day were the glasses. They bought lots of mason jars and had chalkboard labels with the guests’ names on them for them to take home. I love that they also made their own wine! Yep, they not only designed the labels, but they made the actual wine which they bottled themselves with the help of friends + family from their engagement party at State Street Winery.

From Melissa, The first surprise song I sang to Johnny as my wedding present to him was Cat Power’s cover of Sea of Love, and then we went into Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Our roommate Nick and I practiced whenever Johnny wasn’t home and his niece’s came up and helped me sing it.

Oh, another thing to note from Emma (their photographer) was that it rained the entire day except the few hours of the ceremony and portrait session. From Emma, “Nearing the end of the reception while everyone was dancing, it felt as if the tent was going to collapse from the extreme downpour, but everyone still had huge smiles and laughter, and one moment on the dance floor with water leaking through the ceiling they jumped all together and screamed from excitement! That was a great moment!”