Chic Wedding at Malibu’s Spanish Style Adamson House

David + Heron met on the set of a documentary where they traveled to 15 countries over the course of a year (they’ve been to 35 countries together in total!). They were friends for a few years before finally starting to date and when they did, it was pretty clear what would come next. D+H turned to their travels to inspire the day’s design, zeroing in on some seriously fun south-of-the-border flare! Here’s the scoop from Heron:

We wanted our wedding to really feel like us. Our venue, the Adamson House, was chosen because David could always see it from the water while surfing Malibu Point. We love that it is a museum so we can always come back and bring our kids there in the future. Our own house is a small Spanish bungalow, so the style of the venue felt like a much grander version of our home.

David proposed to me with a Mariachi band on the streets in Venice, CA and early on we decided we had to have them as the welcome music. That kind of set a tone for a loose Mexican theme. We also love Tacos so that was a no brainer. We ended up taking our honeymoon to Mexico City and Oaxaca so that rounded out the Mexican vibes of the wedding.

Burlap & Rose brought in the design + planning expertise, while the amazing Hannah Costello captured the photos! Vámonos!

Heron had custom dressing gowns made in the same color palette as the bridesmaids dresses as a getting ready gift! Love that idea!

The Dress

Are you not in LOVE?! We have a feeling Heron’s absolutely stunning Suzanne Harward dress is going to inspire a LOT of brides. She told us the totally meant-to-be story behind the dress!

This was one of the aspects of the wedding I was most excited for and also most daunted by! I didn’t really know what I wanted but I knew strongly what I didn’t like. I was hoping I’d find my dress from LOHO Bride, owned by my dear friend Christie, but she encouraged me to try dresses elsewhere, as well. By the end of the first day I had a few in mind from her store and one from another, but I wasn’t totally sold on them.

Before leaving LOHO that night, I asked her about a dress our mutual friend had tried on in the SF store. She hadn’t picked it in the end, but I remember LOVING it in the photos I saw. We set up a follow up appointment a few weeks later, when my mom would be in town for a visit, and Christie was going to have that dress brought down. Sure enough, as soon as I put the dress on I was smitten. It was the first dress that felt truly like me. The exact balance of edgy and different but it still felt like a proper wedding dress. It had that WOW factor that I wanted! 

Almost equally as stunning are those Kathleen Whitaker earrings! Before you run off to Google, we pulled a few pieces to get Heron’s chic bridal look:

The Bridal Party

Peach, pink, texture…gang’s all here!

You know the story behind Heron’s dress…now here’s the scoop on David’s tux!

Anyone who knows David well knows that he has AMAZING luck. We call him The Golden Boy because things often just work out in his favor! Such was the case with his tux. After going to some department stores and getting a sense of what he wanted, he decided to check Guilt Group. As his luck would have it, the same Yves Saint Laurent tux that he was loving was on there for $500—retailed at $3,000! But he still got his splurge moment with his Christian Louboutin shoes :) Its fair to say he spent 10x more on his wedding shoes than I did.

The Ceremony

If you driven through Malibi on the PCH, chances are you’ve spotted the Adamson House. The house was built in 1928 and purchased by the state of California in 1968. The property is full of beautiful vignettes, including this otherworldly tree!

So gorgeous!!

One of H+D’s favorite parts of the day:

The music! We had a lot of different types of music which helped create different vibes for each part of the wedding. A Mariachi band welcomed guests and led the procession from the cocktail area into the ceremony area. Our friend played an acoustic Beatles song, “I Will,” as I walked down the aisle. This was a surprise for David. We had a very cool band called The Summer Twins during cocktail hour—their sweet, surf rock vibe definitely fit the venue. During dinner we had a playlist created by our dear friend, Eric, and last but not least our friend, Luiza, slayed the music for dancing!

Burlap & Rose designed all the fun florals for the day, throwing in eucalyptus for David’s Australian heritage.

The Reception

It was important for us to have a lot of thoughtful details that made the wedding truly feel like us. A few of my favorites were the guest’s gifts. Shortly after our engagement, before we even had a date or venue, we were traveling through India and decided to try to find gifts there. In The Thieves Market we found a man who collected and sold antique brass items. We quickly zoned in on his amazing collection of vintage brass bottle openers and I knew this had to be it! I spent about 2 hours haggling over the price and we finally walked away with 135 and about 75 lbs of brass bottle openers. After polishing them all, we sorted through them and chose who would get which ones based which made them feel personalized to our guests.

In addition to the Mariachi band, H+D hired a fruit cart, hung papel picado, served tacos + Mezcal cocktails, and Its-It ice cream sandwiches from an ice cream cart for their loosely-Mexican themed day. Sounds like such a blast!

Major congrats to Heron + David from all of us at GWS!

photography: Hannah Costello // venue name: Adamson House , Malibu, California, USA // planning: Burlap & Rose // florals: Burlap & Rose // wedding dress: Suzanne Harward // wedding dress boutique: LOHO Bride // hair stylist: Bridesmaid and Friend, Frances Rhodes // makeup artist: Bridesmaid and Friend, Frances Rhodes // groom attire: Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford // groom's shoes: Christian Louboutin // catering: Macheen // tabletop rentals: Otis & Pearl Vintage Rentals // music: The Summer Twins // earrings: Kathleen Whitaker