Wedding Blog

Woohoo - we finally get to use our awesome Real Weddings icon!  (thanks Irene!) 

Today we bring you the gorgeous Hollywood glamour inspired wedding of Nicole and Kent.  They had a whirlwind romance getting married only six months after they met, and I’m so glad that they’ve shared their sweet story with us…

Venue: Island Club, Coronado Island (San Diego), California
Wedding Date: January 20, 2007
Bridal Gown/BM Dresses: Julius Bridal (NY)
Florist/Coordinator: Mary Bowerman
Photographer: James Walters (Walters & Walters, NC)
Videographer: Jaime Hobert
Cake: Villa Nueva Bakery
Honeymoon: Oahu and Kauai, Hawaii

The Story

Our theme was Old Hollywood Glamour (basically vintage black and white) and, at least for San Diego, it was extremely formal. The groom, groomsmen, and dads all wore white tie with tails, top hats and white gloves; the bridesmaids all wore black satin one-shouldered gowns with trains, white opera length gloves and white satin wraps. Probably the most unique thing about our wedding was our dress code for the guests - all guests wore black and white and no other colors, and all male guests wore tuxedos (neckties were banned).

We met online (ChristianCafe.com) - but we got to know each other in person. On our very first date, we knew it was going to be serious. Exactly four days after that first date, we had the DTR (defining the relationship) talk and Kent told me he wanted to pursue me toward marriage. Two and a half months after that we were engaged, and about three and a half months after that we were married. And I took the California bar exam during that six months! Talk about whirlwind!

Our photographer loved shooting infrared.

DIY programs with embossed custom monogram tied with double-faced satin ribbon. We bought a custom embosser with interchangeable plates from Wilshire Graphic Press. Great product, great customer service, speedy delivery! We got one with our monogram which we used for the front of the programs and also to make thank you cards from plain cardstock. We got another plate with our name and address which we used to emboss our envelopes for thank you notes.

I also bought three 50-yard spools of this awesome double-faced satin ribbon (I wanted the real fabric kind, not plastic or paper) for a great price from a discount place in LA and then used it for everything - programs, table cakes, our fancy cake, dress straps for Brianna, our beautiful program passer-outer (see below).

Custom Cathedral-length veil with beaded French Alencon lace headdress and scallop applique at the end. My aunt sewed this veil for me. I had the hardest time finding Alencon lace at regular fabric stores and had to go to a specialty bridal fabric store in La Jolla - I guess there isn’t much of a market for lace that’s $100 a yard!! It’s a good thing I didn’t need too much. 

Our first kiss was really our first kiss. Our closest friends and family couldn’t believe that we didn’t kiss while we were dating or during our engagement. We just didn’t want that temptation. Also, it helped that for most of our engagement, we lived on opposite coasts and only saw each other for weekends twice a month. 

At the reception, we used rectangular tables instead of rounds (three rows of ten banquet tables end-on-end with overlapping tablecloths). This was a real hassle to orchestrate with our reception site, but in the end we achieved the intimate, vintage setting we were going for. 

For centerpieces, we started with plain black table napkins laid on the diagonal (in a diamond pattern down the middle of the table) to start the Art Deco look. Then, we used vintage-style, crystal candle lamps and six different flavors of table cakes. We saved lots of money by not having floral centerpieces. We used the plain white cakes, tied with black double-faced satin ribbon on crystal cake stands, for table numbers with the numbers printed on vellum over black and white Old Hollywood famous couple movie stills. I made the cake stands for about $1 each. I just bought desert dishes and plates at Marshall’s and glued them together. Viola! 

Our cake was HUGE, five layers with a custom-painted bride & groom topper that looked just like us - right down to the medals and gold brocade on my husband’s Navy uniform. We love our topper! We wanted to avoid our caterer’s cake cutting fee, so we did the table cakes with their own cake cutters/servers on the tables; for our cake, we bought styrofoam cake dummies, had our cake baker frost the layers, and then he put in just one real layer for our cake cutting ceremony. This also allowed us to keep the cake stable since we wanted it so tall, and it was CHEAP. I let the cake baker talk me out of fondant but I wish I’d stuck to my guns because fondant is so much smoother - and who cares about the taste since nobody’s eating the Styrofoam! 

 
We love chocolate - we had three chocolate fountains (dark choc, milk choc and white choc) and a candy buffet!

 
For the candy buffet, we had about 8 or 9 crystal dishes of candy on a table with boxes under the tablecloth to give dimension. I just love the DIY signage on the candy buffet. We just printed them on the computer and used the same satin ribbon and the leftover black cardstock that we used for the programs, escort cards and place cards. 

 
DIY escort cards that matched the place cards.

No modern music - our big band played only 30’s and 40’s period music. We thought people wouldn’t dance, but the dance floor was packed all night long!

My little brother and our most excellent ring bearer!

 
Our guests loved the photobooth guestbook! Guests make a scrapbook page with greetings, designs, etc and a space for a picture from the photobooth. Then guests step into the booth, accessorize with vintage goodies like feather boas and top hats, and take the pic which is later printed out and added to the page.

This was the most fun!! In this pic you can see the homemade backdrop (faux velvet on sale during the holidays), the digital camera on the tripod, and a few of the props we set out for the guests to accessorize their portraits. Behind the camera is Kristen; she and her sister Katie were responsible for supervising the whole guest book operation and taking all the pictures. They did SUCH a great job and they had a good time, too.

Action shots of guests working on the other part of the guest book . . . I set out scrapbook paper (blacks, whites, and reds) for them to assemble the page their portrait would go in after the wedding. We precut rectangles just a bit bigger than the pictures would be printed out to be used as frames and to show me where to glue the final pic. We elected to print the pics later (ritzpix.com) rather than using polaroid because of price. Polaroid film costs about $1 per picture. Since we had about 200 guests, I just didn’t want to spend that much on the guest book. We absolutely love our guest book all assembled and we are SO glad we did it, since so many of our guests didn’t make it into our album.

  
Last but not least, our sparkler getaway. Not exactly unique, but it cost us about $12 for the sparklers and it made the coolest pictures!

Coming up, Part II: Vendor Reviews and much more!

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