I love designing the food and beverage as much as the tablescape (it must be those 5 years working for catering companies and creating menus!).

SBB Catering was kind enough to create a geranium lemonade and lavender iced tea which would be awesome for welcome drinks.

I found these paper straws online and I fell in love with them. They’re so cool and vintage!

I found this wood Coca Cola crate at a vintage salvage store. I absolutely love the texture of the wood and the old metal brackets.

Who wouldn’t want a cold coke on a hot day?

I love this adorable photo with the flower girls! How cute are they!?!

Photos: Kirsten Ellis of Beaux Arts Photographie

Catering: SBB Catering

Design: Kelly Oshiro Events

There was this great rusted fence at Stow House and I thought it was the perfect place for the seating cards. Betsy Dunlap did the calligraphy and I clipped the little cards to the fence with mini clothespins.

Instead of making up faux guest names, I used some of my favorite authors as “guests” for at my Anthropologie wedding. I love George Eliot and Betsy’s calligraphy makes her name so pretty (and its an awesome keepsake for my office!).

For the invitation design I gave Megan of Nutmeg Press, three sources of inspiration: I wanted an aqua  fade with the couples names in white and to use the pattern and color of the napkin fabric for the design inspiration. And this what this what she created:

The blue fade is so pretty and subtle and the copper dashes tie in perfectly with the napkin pattern.

The menu cards were little booklets the size of a business card with all the courses on each page. It was bound with copper thread. I was so in love with the invitations and Betsy calligraphy they are definitely getting framed and hung somewhere in my office!

Photos: Kirsten Ellis of Beaux Arts Photography

Invitations: Nutmeg Press

Calligraphy: Betsy Dunlap

Design: Kelly Oshiro Events

Location: Stow House

For this month’s Pretty Posey, I wanted to create a very Edwardian/Victorian look. I used white Scabiosa and Ranunculus as the main flowers, and mixed in Dusty Miller, Misty Linolium, and Baby’s Breath.

After the center of the bouquet was completed, I circled the outer edge with sprigs of– baby’s breath. I know baby’s breath gets a bad wrap, but I think that’s just because it looks hideous paired with red roses. In a huge bunch, it looks very pretty and delicate. Then I layered the dusty miller (the silver leaves) around the ring of baby breath to ground the softness of little blooms and provide a contrast in texture.

I wanted the texture of the bouquet to feel like antique lace. I envision the bride who would carry this bouquet would wear an heirloom lace gown, the groom would wear a morning suit, and they would get married in a quaint stone chapel like you’d see in a small village in England.

A special thanks to Tim Halberg for photographing the bouquet!

Floral Design & Styling by me.

The lovely Christine of .cevd. {custom invitation studio} just got married and wore these lovelies down the aisle. Shoes by JCrew and the photo is by the super talented Parker J Pfister. Pop over to Christine’s blog for a few more images from her wedding.

It’s raining here in Santa Barbara and days like this just make me want to curl up with a good cup of tea.

A tea party can be the perfect theme for a bridal shower or even a morning wedding affair.

Here a white tea service is filled with lilies of the valley, so pretty and feminine.

One pink peony would be beautiful as well.

Images: 1. & 4. Sandra Lane 2. Polly Wreford 3. The Velvet Garden

To me, there is nothing more romantic than a candlelit wedding reception. Today I’ve found some images that I hope will inspire you to put your own twist on candlelight.

I love the use of colored egg shells in lieu of traditional glass votive holders. How pretty would these be for a spa-inspired wedding?

I found these cute blackboard candles on Design*Sponge. They would work for table numbers, spelling out “welcome” on the guest book table, on the cake table with your initials, I could go on, but you get the idea.

Trees and candlelight  are two of my favorite things. These always look pretty in the ceremony area or in key areas in the reception like above the cake table.

I love this stunningly simple table-scape. It’s perfect for the bride who’s not big on flowers but still wants something pretty on the table.

I like how these candles are mismatched and imperfectly arranged.

I love using candles to define walkways in a wedding. It sets the right mood and leads your guests gracefully to the cocktail area, dinner, or even, the after party.

Images are from: 1. Gemma Comas 2. Design Sponge via Delight 3. Jo Tyler via Sarah Kaye 4. Absolutley Beautiful Things 5. Sandra Lane via Sarah Kaye 6. Portland Mitchell via Sarah Kaye

I found these chic mini ottomans over at Absolutely Beautiful Things. I think they we work great either as a box for envelopes on the present table or you could leave out 5″ x 5″ cards for guests to write their best wishes for the couple.They come in three colors, tidepool, poppy, and moss.

These would be particularly cute at a Morrocan-ish wedding, don’t you think?

I was flipping through the latest Domino magazine and saw an ad for My Deco File. I went online to check it out and I’m pretty sure this little puppy is going to change everything.

Basically its a place online to collect your favorite images, put them into books and share with friends. But that’s not the best part, you can save any image on the web and the ease with which you can do it is freaking awesome.

Basically, you just add a bookmark to your browser and any time you like an image click on your bookmark.

A square will pop up which follows your cursor. Click on the image you want to save and then you will automatically be taken to your decor file.

Save and file the image however you wish (it also remembers where you got the image, handy if you plan on making inspiration boards and crediting your source).

Then click “I’m done” and it takes you back to where ever you were on the web. So simple, so easy, and I think I have a new hobby and business tool.

From Angelina:

When Kelly invited me to contribute to her blog, I wondered how my experience might help other brides. At 35, my vision of my perfect wedding day had changed quite dramatically from what I had always dreamed it would be.  I grew up in a close-knit cultural community where weddings of up to 15 bridesmaids and 500 guests, including everyone you knew, were considered the norm. It was a celebration after all! So as you can imagine, I felt some pressure to uphold traditions that were passed down from generations for no other reason than, that’s how it had always been done. I was also fearful it might hurt my parent’s feelings.  Over the years, propriety for propriety’s sake began to make no sense to me. Finding my soul mate to share all of life’s adventures with meant infinitely more.  Our collective vision for our BIG day would reflect the best of both of us, our values, and our love for one another. So, I took a different road when it came to planning my not so big, fat Serbian wedding.

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I’m so excited, Katie Moos just sent me photos from a wedding I planned and did event design for, and now I can share them with you!

First up, the lovely couple have been together for 22 years, and with the recent ruling legalizing gay marriage in California it was full steam ahead for these two. With only six weeks to plan we had to pull together our team of vendors, the time line, and the event design very, very fast.

The knew that they wanted a beach themed wedding and they knew that they wanted dark and light pink, so I ran with it. They also wanted to make sure that the children (all 18 of them) would be entertained and so we brought in a bounce house. I added pink and white beach balls for them to play with and put them in pink bins with a sign saying “Have a ball!”

For this wedding, since our time frame was so short I made the centerpieces using what was suppose to be for the bottom of a plant container. They were made of plastic and cost a whopping $4 each. I hot glued sea shells onto the rim and filled them with white rocks, pink beach glass, pink cymbidium orchids, tons of sea shells, and oh yes, starfish.

I also tucked in pink LED lights underneath the seashells so at night, the centerpieces glowed.

For the ceremony, they didn’t want a traditional aisle and processional. Instead, they walked towards each other to the center where the officiant married them. I decorated the aisle with sea shell wreaths hung from shepherd’s hooks.

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