This Ivy Manor Editorial Is the Garden Wedding You Can Actually Pull Off

The couple in this Ivy Manor editorial is a real one, and that’s a big part of why we love it. Clarisse and Steph said yes to the shoot because the styling is the kind they could actually see at a real wedding: a satin gown, a great brown suit, and dinner for 10 under a velvet lamp.

Photographer Gabriel Conover shot it at Ivy Manor in Temecula, California, a house covered in two full stories of ivy. Moon Realm planned and designed the day, with The Occupied Vase on florals, Macks Beauty Bridal on hair and makeup, and Clarisse and Steph in front of the camera.

Their story starts with a spare ticket. Clarisse was traveling in the Bay Area with an extra seat to a concert, opened Bumble, and invited her very first match. That match was Steph. “And the rest is history,” says Gabriel. “They were both drawn to modeling for this shoot for the queer representation they could bring to it, along with its unconventional yet attainable styling, the kind they could actually see at a real wedding.”

The Palette, Set on Paper

The invitation suite from Isidore & Augustine is olive, forest green, burgundy, sage, and cream, with a liner printed to look like marbled stone. Those same colors carry through the bouquet, the bar, and the table, with a little blush let in along the way.

The Looks

The gown is Christina Sfez, and it’s all about proportion: a satin slip, quiet and close, under sheer organza sleeves with real volume. A column below the shoulder, cloud above it. The sleeves are a separate piece worn over the slip, which sets up the outfit change after dark. Macks Beauty Bridal kept everything else to a chin-length wave and a red lip.

Gabriel shot the indoor frames in hard afternoon light through the manor’s mullioned windows. Most wedding photography chases soft light; here the vine shadows do the work of a backdrop, and the burgundy stair runner is the only color in the room.

The suit is brown, dark enough to pass for charcoal, cut with a wide leg and a close jacket. The styling makes it personal: a cream blouse with a high ruffled neck, lace cuffs, and a bow at the collar, plus round tortoiseshell glasses, two-tone penny loafers over grey ribbed socks, and silver rings on most fingers. Both looks have ruffles, organza at the shoulder on the gown and cream at the throat on the suit, so the two read as a pair without matching.

A ruffled high-neck blouse under a plain suit changes the whole outfit, and it’s a swap anyone with a suit already in the closet can make the week of the wedding.

The Occupied Vase built the bouquet green first, with one red thing: serrated leaves, stems of berries still turning from green to raspberry, curling tendrils, and a single burgundy-and-cream orchid at the center, tied with torn-edge white ribbon. The boutonniere is the same idea in miniature. The unripe berries are what make it feel like a garden instead of a flower shop, and against white satin the whole bouquet looks like something picked on the walk over.

On the Lawn

There is no arch, no draping, and no aisle runner. The ceremony florals sit on the grass, fern mounds studded with red on either side of the aisle and a low arrangement of amaranthus, allium, and red plumes in front of the first row. Moon Realm kept everything below eye level, so the ivy is the backdrop in every frame and the cypress is the only thing standing tall.

Cocktail Hour

The cocktail-hour accessories are easy to picture on a real guest: a pleated sage-green fan with a tassel, oval dark sunglasses, and two watches stacked on one wrist.

Mixology by Melissa poured two drinks: tall glasses layered with cucumber and herbs on a silver tray, and pale pink coupes each finished with one small red rose. The bar florals are the one place the day lets loose, red gerberas and pink astilbe and chartreuse amaranthus pouring down the front of a white cabinet beside the Signature Cocktails card.

The Estate From Above

From the drone, Ivy Manor is a formal hedge maze, a long reflecting pool, a pergola, and an open courtyard with a checkerboard painted at its center, and that courtyard is where dinner is set.

The Dinner Table

Dinner is one table for 10 in the open courtyard, a pale wood top with chrome chairs and white boucle seats, set against a wall of rounded river stone. Over the center, hung from a black arc floor lamp, is a green velvet drum shade with a long dark fringe.

The lamp is a living-room piece carried outdoors, and it does what a tent or a ceiling would do with far less: it tells you where the room is. Under its circle of light you are inside, even with the garden on every side. And because it’s a floor lamp, the whole setup still looks like somebody’s home.

Each setting is a white plate on a pale green scalloped glass charger with a single burgundy orchid laid on top, and nothing else. No menu card, no favor, no place card. Down the center are low bowls of fern, dusty pink astilbe, and the same curling stems from the bouquet. The white linen napkins are from BBJ La Tavola.

The orchid on the charger works just as well at a backyard dinner for eight: one bloom per seat, laid on the plate instead of arranged, in whatever flower fits your palette. It’s the first thing your guests touch when they sit down.

From above, the table is one composition: two rows of five chairs, the lamp’s arc coming in from the right, and the courtyard left open on every side. With no second table and no dance floor, it feels less like a reception and more like a dinner party.

After Dark

The second look is a cropped bolero in pleated gold metallic, open at the front, with ruffled puff sleeves even bigger than the organza ones, over the same satin slip. The proportions match the first look: column below and volume at the shoulder, this time in gold.

The suit’s second act is a sheer brown jacket embroidered with florals and strung with pearl beads.

A spare concert ticket and a first match on Bumble led Clarisse and Steph here, to a wall of ivy and a dinner table you could set yourself. If you’ve spent years scrolling for a wedding that looks like yours, we hope this one does. Thank you to Clarisse and Steph for bringing their real love story to the day. We are so charmed by this lush, layered, lamp-lit shoot! And we cannot wait to see the garden celebrations it inspires!