Dayna and Aaron Got Married!

The last few weeks have been a total whirlwind with vacation, work and a wedding, but things are finally settling down a bit and I'm ready to start sharing all my adventures with you.  Today I want to show you some of the highlights from Dayna and Aaron's wedding.

First, I just have to say that helping with weddings is something that truly fills my cup.  What I mean by that is I always view my life as a cup.  Sometimes my cup is very, very full and sometimes the cup has a huge hole in it and becomes completely drained.  Well, helping with a wedding usually fills my cup to the brim with joy and happiness.  The wedding I helped with last weekend did just that!

Dayna and Aaron (the bride and groom) first met with me about 8 months ago.  Aaron is the son of my sorority pledge mom and she introduced us.  They had already chose a venue and caterer, but everything else was still up for discussion.  I asked Dayna to pin some things she liked so I could start getting an idea of what her dream wedding would look like.  Through this process, I learned that her favorite color was green and she wanted things to be very natural looking.  I also knew they wanted their wedding to be fun for the guests and have a few elements that were not necessarily traditional.

The location of the wedding and reception was Silver Oaks Chateau.  Talk about a fabulous venue -- OH.MY.GOODNESS!  This place is gorgeous and I was so excited to get to do a wedding there.  Dayna and Aaron also took my advice and used two of my all time favorite vendors - Carol Genteman Floral Designs for the flowers and Turner Creative Photography as their photographer.  The dream team was assembled and we got to work.  The end result was breathtaking!  If you are looking for a florist or photographer, I can't recommend these two highly enough.

Rounding out the crew were my friends, TW and Linda, and my husband, Eric.  Big shout out to Linda and TW - they were helping me out of the goodness of their hearts.  Eric was too, but he has to live with me so he kind of didn't really have a choice.  The three of them helped keep me sane and focused.

Now let me share some pictures from the day ~

Dayna made a gorgeous bride!  And believe me, she is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the out.  She was magnificent to work with from start to finish.

The wedding was held outside in front of a grand stone fireplace.  Eight months ago when we first started talking about the venue, we were thinking the wedding would be on a nice, cool day and we might even have a fire in the fireplace during the ceremony.  In reality, the temperature was in the 90s and the last thing we needed was additional heat from a fire!  Regardless, the fireplace served as a beautiful backdrop.  And the day was sunny with no rain so it was definitely a win in my book!

Guests were directed to seat themselves.  At each chair, a program, bottle of water and tube of bubbles waited.

When the reception began, guests were directed to their table by the escort cards they picked up upon entering.  I've used this concept at several of the weddings I've coordinated and it always works well.

The tables were adorned with a lantern perched on top of a wood slice surrounded by eucalyptus.  My dad cut all the wood slices for me and they were perfect!  We had made the table numbers to match the escort cards, place cards and menus.

 

The newlyweds sat at a sweetheart table and were able to be seen by all the guests.  I love when the bride and groom are visible!

A menu was placed on the charger so guests knew what to expect at the three food stations placed around the room.  Ces & Judy's catered and their food was amazing!

In place of a traditional wedding cake, the couple chose to serve their guests bundtinis in four difference flavors from Nothing Bundt Cakes.  Everyone raved about the dessert choice!  Dayna and Aaron had small cakes to cut and serve each other.  Dayna loves Harry Potter and Aaron is a huge Chiefs fan (can you tell).

The night was capped off with lots and lots of dancing.  I think it's safe to say that everyone had the time of their lives and Dayna and Aaron had the wedding they dreamed of!

I'm sure today won't be the last time I share things about this wedding -- there were far too many fascinating elements to put them all in one post.  If you missed the post on their hotel welcome bags, you can catch it HERE.

Congratulations to Dayna and Aaron.  Thank you for letting me be a part of your amazing wedding!  I'll leave you with a couple sneak peek pictures from Erica, the photographer ~