Happy Monday everyone! I have such a sweet, fun wedding to share with you guys today! I love how creative Alison + Ryan were – and they had some of my favorite LA food trucks feed them :). Their motto was Eat, Drink, Live, Love, Laugh – so perfect. I’ll let Alison tell you more about their day…
When Ryan and I started planning our wedding we set out to throw a sweet party. While we were inspired by a gazillion different things, we knew that we wanted our wedding described as, “That’s so Ali and Ryan.” In attempts to reflect our personalities , we decided that we wanted a ceremony that encompassed the importance of family and friends followed by an fun activity filled reception. For our venue, we selected the Marrakesh House in Culver City. It was an amazing venue. The backdrop was perfect for a wedding and Laura, who manages the property, was so easy to work with! It is also an environmentally friendly location, which enabled us to keep “green” in our planning and resulted in some great inspirations.
The bridesmaid’s flowers and the boutonnieres were homemade from crepe paper and feathers. I made my bouquet from my Mom’s wedding dress. I took scissors to her dress (aak!) and then dyed it.
To create our ceremony, we started from scratch. We wrote the ceremony & vows (including the promise to root for each others respective football teams), had Ryan’s Dad marry us, and asked our Mother’s to be our ring bearers. The frame with circles doubled as our guestbook and ceremony backdrop. My friend Lisa and I made it with a little help from her Dad and his wood shop. The idea was to have the guest sign the circles and then their thoughts + wishes were with us as we getting married.
For the reception, we made sure we had some diverse food, good music, and fun custom details to ensure people had a great time, including a photo booth with crazy props, Arkeg Drink-n-Game machines (arcade game machine that pours beer!), build your own ice cream sandwich, glow in the dark glasses, etc. In the end our unofficial theme became Eat, Drink, Live, Love, Laugh, which were also our table names.
The Escort Cards were handi-snacks with a personalized sticker. The flowers on the table were are white linen dyed different colors and homemade The napkins are also made from linen, Ryan cut & stamped them. The forks for dinner are compost forks that were personalized by Ryan. The glass jars with candles are recycled glass we collected from our friends.
Dinner by the Kogi Taco truck + dessert from Cool Haus (Ice Cream Sandwich Truck). – Yum! Two of my favorite LA food trucks :)
The desserts on the dessert table were made by my Mom, while our Cake was baked by my friend, Lisa. I also made the illuminated letters and the plates came from Anthropologie or CB2.
We did a lot ourselves to make sure it remained a reflection of us and keep costs low. But we could not have done it by ourselves. Our family and friends were an amazing help. We even held craft parties so people could help us finish our projects. Amazingly, people came! It was one of the most rewarding things about planning. To see how much everyone cared and was willing to step out of their comfort zone to help us. And to see how their pride and ownership of their projects carried into the wedding day. It was awesome that so many people who attended could truly feel like they were part of the ceremony and reception.
Vendors:
Venue/Reception – Marrakesh House
Make-up/Hair – Bliss Make Up Artistry
Dress – Stephanie James Couture
Shoes – Betsey Johnson
Veil/hairpiece – I made my veil and hairpiece from vintage cage veiling, vintage feathers, lace from my Mom’s wedding dress, rhinestone trim and a vintage locket that held a memento from my grandparents that are no longer with us.
Bridesmaid Dress – Wore their own
Catering – Kogi Truck
Dessert – Cool Haus
Photography – Mark Brooke Photography
Thanks Mark + Candice for sharing this super fun wedding with us! Mark Brooke Photography is located in Orange County, CA and available for travel worldwide.
Hi Alison, can I ask you who made or where you got your RSVP “Mad Lib?” It is adorable. Beautiful wedding :)
Would love to see a DIY on the light-up letters! Fantastic idea!!
this wedding has so many gorgeous details! love the frame w/ floating circles/streamers! must diy it :)
i love the dress with the color underneath it. all of it sooo fun and inspiring. thanks for sharing!!!
don’t even know where to start! such a fun wedding with so many bright details!
Hi Megan,
We made our invitations. We did some research on Wedding Mad Libs, adapted it to what we liked and then printed it on postcard paper we got from Office Depot.
Wow! The photos are sooo lovely and I love all the colourful, playful details of the wedding. Congrats both on the wedding and the making of it!
This is a freaking fab celebration. Bookmarked! Done and done.
PLEASE PLEASE do a DIY project for those letters! That would be amazing!
I am in love with everything about this wedding!!!
Do you have a tutorial for the bridesmaids flowers? I LOVE them! Love all the fun details in your wedding, congrats!
Gorgeous party wedding! It looks like everyone had a rocking good time!
I love all the DIY details, particularly the bridesmaid’s flowers! Any chance this bride would share the pattern? Thanks again for sharing this :)
For those of you interested in the bridesmaid’s flowers, I got the pattern from marthastewart.com.
If you search crepe paper roses, you should be able to find it….
I am a huge fan of Green Wedding Shoes and was SO excited when I happened upon a wedding of someone I know and haven’t seen in years! Alison was in my brother, Travis’s, grade in school. What a gorgeous wedding Alison….Go Mustangs!
I’m working on financing my LA wedding, and I was wondering about how much did your wedding end up costing? I know no one likes talking money, but I really love your wedding ideas and was wondering how much the total cost was and for how many people. THANKS!!! :)
Amy,
If you give me a way to contact you, I’d be more than happy to tell you about the costs of my wedding…
Hi! your wedding looked like so much fun. I would like to ask also how much you spent for the whole thing & for how many people? Thanks!!
I love the crepe paper flowers and the Alison’s dress is adorable. Are those photos from your first dance? It looks like you had a great time dancing!
Hi Alison,
I’d love to ask you some questions about the logistics of doing a food truck for my wedding here in L.A. – Is there any way I can get in touch with you offline?
Hi Alison!
I’m also thinking about having the Kogi truck cater our wedding but I’m concerned as to how people are going to receive their food and what-not. I’d love your input as to how it all worked out at your wedding!!
:)
What a fabulous wedding! thanks for sharing it with all of us. I’m planning a wedding at Marrakesh and I was wondering how you set up your photobooth-did you hire someone, DIY? Any advice would be great!
Can you tell me how you did your paper chair decorations? I am trying to find something inexpensive to do for my ceremony.
After the ceremony and you are walking back down the aisle people were shooting streamers at you and your new husband. Where did you purchase your streamers?
Thanks,
K