Deb and Beau dreamt of a fun party and that’s exactly what they got: a wild and warm-hearted French country wedding in the wild open spaces of Las Virgines with lots of friend-ly helpers. It was certainly wonderful, creative and certainly wild. The is the wedding story of an amazing and unique couple, so huggable it’s simply wow. And it’s the story of how high spirited DIY is a lot of fun but makes a wedding planner hunt for her extra dose of Vit B.
They already had a big celebration in Deb’s hometown overseas; a more traditional Chinese affair. This was an ode to their fun loving life and all the friends who are part of it. We came up with the idea to create an Asian “temple” to honor Deb’s heritage. We transformed the room in the middle of the farm house, which everybody would pass going through to the ceremony space in the back with red lanterns, celebratory robes and pictures on the walls and masks displayed for the photo booth. Decor like lacquered baskets and hand made candles added to the exotic feel.
And there was hiccup No 1: the venue had promised us a beautiful huge conference table for the reception table; for displays, gifts, place cards, guest book… and suddenly, now, today, they refused for us to move the table into the the Asian room. The whole idea of the room depended on this table, please!! I fought with the venue manager, who didn’t budge. The rental company had no extras in their truck.. What to do? I couldn’t “steal” a table from the outside kitchen set up. I called around, inspected the venue’s storage room – nada. I then thought: man power, we’ll orchestrate a kick butt rapido re-set. We dismantled the second bar, used that table for the reception displays and, after the ceremony, as Ninja-like as possible. we moved the third, the welcome bar from the ceremony area behind the house to the reception in the front.
The bars were clad in hand sewn covers made from coffee bags. Beau is the absolute espresso aficionado with hand roasting his own beans and all. Coffee bags were a must to express his passion not just a fab fad. Of course we had a Barrista from one of his favorite coffee shops, neighborhood grinds, and one of our meetings took place in the Conservatory for coffee in LA. While the bars were literally covered, the reception table was not. Instead of polished beauty we now had a banquet table to deal with, and they are ugly. Luckily and just in case I had stashed a couple sandal wood 85’s in the trunk of my car, phew. And there we are at linens.
While the Asian room was organized a driver was rushing down to Beau and Deb’s house in LA in the heat of the packed highways on a Saturday afternoon. Why?
As it goes with free spirited people, emotions sometimes win over structure. No 2: When Beau realized that he had left all hand sewn linens in their house an hour away, I played the most convincing Zen card I had, pretending that this wasn’t a problem: we can wing this. Don’t worry. And then I ran to the bathroom mirror: You can do this. Breathe.
Curtis, who was still with Classic Party Rentals at this time, had done another one of his great jobs by setting the long, square and round tables up to our complicated floor plan. The bare tables baked in the sun. We just had to wait… do everything else… have everything ready to go right there…. ten minutes before the first guests arrived, an hour early, we placed the mix of blue striped and yellow Ginham linens on their designated spots, plus flowers, table numbers and a bunch of decor and the regular table settings. I always have second and third outfits with me, so I could jump from a soaked dress into a fresh one-piece jump suit later.
One of my florists, Giedra and her team from GD, did an amazing creative job with the wedding structure: they placed romantic vases with lavender and white flowers on the steps of the vintage ladders ordered from a specialty shop online. As much I know Beau actually managed to sell the huge ladders to a happy hipster couple for their wedding a few months later.
Our color scheme was French vintage, pale blue and vintage champagne, light yellow and different tones of purple and violet inspired by the lavender fields of the South of France. We also borrowed from the charm of French markets: oranges and sunflowers in vintage veggie crates, found in thrift stores, were placed randomly over the whole venue. DIY was big: Deb and Beau grew some of the lavender in their garden and Deb designed her own dress, sewn by a seamstress in LA. The (from all of us) collected not bought mason jars were hand painted by Deb and when she ran out of time she finished the remaining glasses with a rustic ribbon/burlap design. Most of the hand painted jars were hung in the ancient oak trees with LED lighting. The programs on fans were designed after Beau’s family crest, which they also stamped onto the hand made flower boxes, some of them were up-cycled wine crates.
Because of the venue’s time restrictions and expensive overtime fines we had maximized the party time and only counted with regular set up time, which already had been tight not counting with missing linens. I made sure that the first guests were guided to the back ceremony area and not, as they were inclined to, jump the bars in the front; the big barrels with glass tops under the beautiful old trees just screamed cocktail party. The bartenders needed to still remove the last boxes not serve guests. I imagine they didn’t like me much kicking their butts. My own team knows how to speed up and handle tight spots fast and furiously, but if dealing with a caterer’s team a lot of pushing is often needed. If you make 15 bucks an hour you’re often not inclined to feel the extra love needed for breaking the rut.
Deb and Beau brought in their own alcohol whereas the caterer, Auntie M’s from Echo Park, provided the edibles: a farm fresh buffet matching the French market idea, cute desserts and – a full blown wedding cake disaster. No 3: I was close to a heart attack when I opened the fridge with the crashed cake, which somebody unsuccessfully tried to save with some sad lavender decor… As a wedding professional we know these moments: everything freezes for a sec and then we think solution. We got a guy to thunder down the mountains to find a white cake and managed to get a small coconut cake from a bakery in town. Luckily I had ordered a bunch of fresh, big delicious cookies from the Corner Bakery in Calabasas and picked them up on the way to the set up. They were meant for a late night bite with espresso before tipsy guests left the place and now saved the improvised cake display. I still can’t believe Deb and Beau were – laughing! Most brides would have flipped and couples would sew… Not these two. As one of the guest book entries says: ” you are something else, guys…”
Like water we rushed over the obstacles and all that remained was beauty. You get what you deserve: the super sweet, fun, easy going and creative Deb and Beau got their wild and wonderful party – a unique, emotional, happy bash. An out of the box wedding any spirited couple would dream of. I wish that the lavender plants from their wedding will grace their garden forever and remind them of how amazing everything started.
Lauren + Michael from “a guy & a girl” photography captured the high powered happiness just perfectly.
