Krista & Craig's Los Angeles River Center and Gardens Wedding

Krista email me some photos recently and had a great story about how important the fingerprint tree we made for her was to their wedding. I just had to share:

"I'm not sure you can see it from the small pics but our tree is actually full of little birds, butterfly's and hearts.  We didn't mean for it to be that way at all!  To quickly recap - our wedding items were all stored at my husbands apartment while we were engaged.  The morning of the wedding all of our helpers arrived to transport everything to the wedding location and they cleared out the bedroom where I had been storing everything.  Trying to protect the tree until the big day it had been put in it's frame and stored in the empty closet.  Flash forward hours later when we had started taking our wedding photos before the ceremony and we walked past the tree/sign in table... that had everything but the framed tree on it... It didn't take us more than a few seconds to realize that it was back in our apartment, in a closet, and we were an hour and a half away at the wedding site with the only keys to the place.

Our wedding coordinator/friend called one of her friends that lived near us but that we had never met before to see if she would be willing to go and get it for us.  Not only did she break one of our windows with a brick and find the tree in the apartment but she drove it out to the wedding location in L.A. an hour and a half from where our apartment is.

By the time the tree was set up and ready to go the wedding was well under way.  Our guests were able to put their finger prints on the tree at the reception but with our ladies who were welcoming people absent by that time - there was no one to explain that the bride and groom were the only birds on the tree and that they were making leaves!  We now have a very artistic tree filled with personalized birds that are so cute!  We wouldn't change a thing. 

The tree was such a big success at our wedding and everyone loved it.  Thanks so much for helping personalize our day!"

-Krista and Craig

Photos of their big day via Kristi Fontamillis Photography:

Set in the lovely Los Angeles River Center and Gardens (a hidden gem in LA), Krista & Craig's wedding was full of beautiful vintage-inspired details, white lights, candles, italian sodas, hand-carved fruit, delicious little desserts and frozen yogurt (thank-you, Pinkberry!). 

Krista's beautiful sisters

Her father married them. So special :-) 

First wedding I've been to where they've had Pinkberry serve some of their delicious swirly goodness! Fabulous idea!

Krista found an artist on Etsy who makes these beautiful tree drawings. Instead of  signing a traditional guestbook, all the guests left their fingerprints on the tree, so it was filled with little "birds" and "leaves." Such a fun idea. 

And they're off . . .

tree love

Via Snippet & Ink

Cristina and Joseph's Perfect Villa Wedding featured on Ruffled

Cristina was such a great client. She had Joseph had the most lovely California wedding. We did a twisted oak tree to act as the guest book and her intimate event. Rightfully so, the wedding was featured on Ruffled recently. Check it out!
Via Ruffled:
Cristina and Joseph chose it not just for its utter gorgeousness, but because Italy is part of both their past and their future: the bride has some Italian blood and it’s a place they’d both like to experience together someday. Stemming from the romantic venue, they chose soft and sweet colors to complement the grounds and stuck with super-feminine florals that add the perfect dash of drama to the tables. Don’t you want to dance away the night under that canopy of twinkly lights? And how much do you love Cristina’s short wedding dress? All the gorgeousness is happily captured by the talented duo behind Floataway Studios.

From the bride, Cristina. We wanted our wedding day to be about romance and simple elegance. I envisioned candles and flowers and warmth and a beautiful celebration that showed our love for each other and our families. Our wedding was romantic, sophisticated, with that old glamour feel but yet still modern. I wanted a color theme that would accent the venue and not take away from its natural beauty, so we stuck with tea rose, cream and gold.




We chose an Italian Villa nestled in the small community of Sierra Madre CA as our venue. I am Italian and our dream is to visit Italy..so we brought Italy to all our guests. The Villa is a replica of the Villa Collazzi in Florence, Italy. And my groom and I both grew up near Sierra Madre so we wanted to celebrate close to home. My husband loves architecture and design so this place was like to heaven to him because it had so much character.


My groom and I love coffee and we’ve been to a few weddings now that we knew what was a good giveaway and what fell short. So we decided coffee was it! I used ball jars and painted the tops with chalkboard paint, and hand wrote our names, the venue, and date and attached a simply thank you tag with ribbon and each guests’ name. It was a big hit! The coffee made the place smell terrific and our guests would be greeted with a gift that would help them recover in the morning.
 

View more wedding photos

Wedding Vendors (Sierra Madre, CA):
Ceremony and reception location(s): Villa Del Sol d’Oro / Florist: Ixora / Photographer: Floataway Studios / Short Wedding Dress: custom made by Beautiful Day Bridal Salon in Koreatown / Hairpiece: Jennifer Flores / Earrings: Kim Viramontes / Necklace: heirloom / Shoes: Badgley Mischkav / Makeup: Lynda Le / Hair: Alissa from Neil George Salon Beverly Hills / Bridesmaid Dresses: custom dresses by GadoGado Apparel / Groom’s suit: Friar Tux suits / Custom bow ties: TuxandTulle / DJ: Jose Lopez from JR Productions / Strings: Laurel McKenzie / Caterer: Santa Anita Gardens Catering / Cake, mini cupcakes, mini fruit tarts, mini cannolis: Merengue Bakery in Monrovia / French Macaroons: Europane Bakery in Pasadena / Cake pops: Just a Bite Cake Pops / Italian cookies: Claro’s Deli in Arcadia / Wedding Invitations: Bella Figura / Calligraphy: Bonnie Nelson / Videographer: Floataway Studios / Guestbook tree: Bleu de Toi

"Fly Away With Me", Balloon themed shower

How sweet is this balloon themed party with dessert bar? Yummy!
This hot air balloon inspired dessert station was featured on Amy Atlas Events from Sweets Indeed. They were kind enough to share images from their mouth water photo shoot.
The Pixel Studio photographed their dessert station, capturing all the details and placing a vintage feel to the photos. They used some fabulous pieces from Found Vintage Rentals.
They wanted this station to encompass the feeling that love is in the air, and we are all surrounded by it. Babies are being born, couples are falling in love, and there is always a reason to celebrate, inspired by vintage hot air balloon’s and summer travels and incorporated these into design elements.
For desserts they had peach parfaits, banana pudding dessert shots, vanilla bean whoopie pies, strawberry cookies, creme puffs, and white meringue clouds. Ummm, yum...
Wouldnt this been the perfect party for a balloon guest book?! Enjoy!

to see more visit the direct post from Sweet Indeed in California: http://sweetsindeed.com/blog/2010/09/01/fly-away-with-me-dessert-station/

Make it Fly!

I think there are few people who haven't caught the whimsy of Up! yet but if you haven't seen it, you should really check it out. We love this movie. It so beautifully captures and array of human emotion themes from true love and the spirit of adventure to human kindness and the belief that dreams really can come true with, with a little creativity. The emotion of this sweet graphic image of a house being floated by a bunch of balloons was our inspiration for BDT's line of guest book fingerprint balloon drawings. Just as each guest's fingerprint make our wedding trees blossom, each guest's thumbprint creates a balloon that makes this dream really fly. 

Just as Up! is a universally pleasing theme, the fingerprint balloons are perfect for baby showers and birthday parties as much as they are for weddings and anniversaries. 

 Read more about how some scientists made this dream come true and brought the Up! house to life!