Vintage Decor

I shared with you in my first post the misters and mines desire to infuse our wedding with some mid-century style but until now haven’t shared any of our decor plans. One of my favorite ways that we are incorporating our mid-century aesthetic into our wedding is with some of our current home décor accessories. Our house is sprinkled with a large number of thrifted and inherited collections and pieces that I hope to cart with us for our reception and cocktail décor.

First is J’s collection of vintage cameras. I’m thinking of using these to decorate our cocktail table instead of fresh flowers.

J and I are both huge readers and have amassed a small collection of vintage books. Some of the books in our collect are over a hundred years old.

The 2 pieces I’m most excited about are Mister Cotton Candy's late dad’s sewing machine and his mom’s tiffany blue type writer.

The typewriter was a gift to his mom from his grandma when they first emigrated from Mexico to the US. the misters grandma wanted his mom to land a job in an office and gave her a typewriter as a way for her to learn to type. The sewing machine also has a special meaning to J and his family. It was originally purchased by J’s father at a yard sale and was used by his dad to sew and mend his clothing.

Last is our Depression glass cake knife.

I purchased the knife one day when we were window shopping in downtown Pomona. The owner had it labeled as a butter and cheese knife but I really didn’t care; it was so cute and vintagy that size didn’t matter. We’re not planning to have a large formal cake so I’m confident that our little knife will be able to do the job.

I’m super excited to infuse our wedding with a little bit of our personal items. It also makes me happy to know that once our wedding is done and over with these items will sit in our home and serve as a reminder of the day we became man and wife.

Are you bringing in any of your current personal belongings to decorate your reception?

Flower Power

The first vendor we booked when we began planning our wedding was our florist. This isn't because I'm a flower obsessed bride or because we hired a super sought after florist (even though they are super talented and should be!). No, the reason why Mister Cotton Candy and I hired our florist so early was because she happens to be one of our closest friend. My good friend S has spent the last 5 years working as a florist at her mother flower shop in downtown Riverside. S and her mother are some of the most creative and gifted women I have ever met, the art that they can create with flowers is amazing.

Since I trust S and her mom I haven't spent much time looking for floral inspiration, so far all this is all I have for centerpiece inspiration.

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This was the first flower arrangement that really caught my eye. I love the vintage modern feel of this wedding and the combo of sleek modern containers and vintage milk glass bud vase is to die for!

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I love these white on white flower arrangements and those orchids are incredible.

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Again I love the white flowers used in this arrangement, this time the use of on single flower really make a bold statement. I'm also a big fan of the paper wrapped vase and think this may help extend our tiny budget.

J and I are scheduled to meet with S and her mom soon to discuss our flowers and I've been wondering if I should dig up some more inspiration pics. I love the pics I currently have and would be happy with any combination of the 3. What do you think should I keep looking and present my florist with more options or call it a day and give them only 3 pics?

We believe colors can't clash*

*Quote by Jonathan Adler, a man after my own heart.

Yes Jonathan Adler you are speaking my language! I'm a color freak I mix it with abandonment and live by the mantra that done right no color can clash. Being the color freak that I am I spent a long time finding our perfect color inspiration and it finally came in the form of this little print by artist Charley Harper.

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I love Charley Harper's prints, his amazing use of color and simplistic illustration make for a beautiful bold statement. I first came across the work of Charley Harper and the Blackburnian Warbler illustration in my beloved Handmade Modern book. I loved the bright punch of color the unexpected combination of pool, chartreuse and orange and knew that I wanted to incorporate his work and this print into our wedding. The obvious choice for me was to use the print as the bases for our color scheme. To mellow out the 3 colors and to add a bit of masculinity we added in a slate gray and ta-da we had our wedding pallet!

I love our color pallet. All four color are are present in our daily lives whether it be in our wardrobe or interior design. It makes me happy to know that the color pallet we've decided on is very us and representative our own personal style.

How did you land on a color pallet? Do you have one or are you flying by the seat of your pants?

Day of the Dead love

Las October the Misters and I on a whim found ourselves partaking in the Day of the Dead celebrations at Olvera Street in Downtown. For those who have never had the pleasure of spending some time at Olvera Street I highly encourage you to go. The street is not really that large, maybe a city block but it's jammed packed with vendors and yummy restaurants.

The Day of the Dead celebration was out of control incredible. The Mariachi bands playing were amazing and made me want to start revising our budget so we could afford hiring one and all over the plaza there were these amazing alters dedicated to passed loved ones.

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One of them even had a faux cake that was topped off with one of the best Day of the Dead cake toppers I have ever seen.

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I was hoping to find a similar topper while we were there but unfortunately we were only able to find ones that look like this, and I'm not to sure that my catholic mother would approve.

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Although I was unable to find a cake topper I didn't come home empty handed. This little guy is a print of Javier Ramos Lucano painting Juntos Hasta La Muerte ('till death do us part).

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Although the illustration doesn't fit with the style and theme of our wedding I would love to some how incorporate it into our wedding. Any suggestions I'm thinking maybe thank you cards?

A Work of Art- Our Venue

When the Mister and I first began searching for a venue we both were 100% certain that we wanted to focus our search in Downtown Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Unfortunately for us the first batch of potential venues turned out to be either way out of our price range or we're unwilling to work with a guest count as small as ours. A complete bummer which left us discourage and a little gun shy to continue searching.

After our first attempt left us doubting our choice to have our wedding in Los Angeles the misters and I regrouped and decided to come up with a more creative hunting strategy. We reasoned that with the overly inflated cost that typically accompany anything even remotely related to weddings that we would avoid any and all wedding related websites and magazines and instead choose to focus our search on city websites, craigslist and good old fashion driving around.

After a couple of weeks of searching the web and making note of any spaces for rent during our time in the city we had compiled a pretty hefty list of available locations that we whittle down to 2 top contenders.

The first one was the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. Located at the top of Baldwin Hills in Culver City the overlook is an amazing location with beautiful views of the city while still having a natural setting to plan your wedding around.

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My main concern regarding the Overlook was that at $2,400 for 4 hours the overlook was at the tippy top of our venue budget. The venue also had an extremely limited list of preferred vendors which had the potential to wreak havoc on our limited budget further down the road.

The second venue on our list actually lead us to our fabulous photographer who I discuss in a later post! The Rec Center Echo Park had everything we were looking for in an event space. Because the space is typically used as a photographer studio the owners allow for complete customization of the space including painting of walls and rearranging of any existing furniture.

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Our main concern was the location of the space, Echo Park is one of the areas in LA that although up an coming can be a little off putting to some of our guest that may not be accustom to spending time in Los Angeles like we are. Also the Rec Center offered no parking to our guests which meant that they would have to find parking in one of the metered lots located in the area.

After visiting the Rec Center the misters and I decided that although they were great spaces neither location offered us what we were looking for at a price that would make our wallets happy. At around the same time S my wonderful bridesmaid/ubber talented florist asked if we would ever consider having our wedding in Riverside were my family resides and were we grew up. She mentioned that she had assisted her mother in setting up several wedding at the Riverside Art Museum and that she was very impressed with the space.

Not one to pass up a possible venue lead I quickly emailed the museum coordinator and scheduled a site tour for the next week. Hive I have no words for the feeling I got when we viewed the location; it was simply perfect beautifully modern yet with a beauty that only older buildings have. Once we sat down with the museum coordinator to discuss pricing I almost died with joy.

To rent the whole 1st floor on the museum for 10 hours we would end up 200 bucks below our venue budget! I am beyond relieved to have found our perfect venue and cannot wait to party it up with our closest peeps in our little gem of a space. Without further ado I present to you our venue the Riverside Art Museum or RAM for short!

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Sorry for the sucky pics but we were so happy to find our venue that I think we forgot how to work our camera! Crappy pic aside adore or no?