A Beachy St Patty's Day Wedding

On a beautiful St. Patrick's Day, Stacie & Dana became husband & wife. It was a fun day filled with laughs and lots of beachy touches. They were married at St. Simon & Jude and had their reception at the Hilton Waterfront in Huntington Beach. Both the church coordinator & the site coordinator were great! So nice & easy to work with. That always makes my job 10 times easier and more enjoyable!

Stacie & Dana join a couple of our other recent pairs who were lucky enough to meet online! They are such a fun couple- very easy going with an evident love of life. The wedding was beautiful with a lot of personal touches. Stacie decided to go with a classic black & white color scheme, with touches of sage green. There were a few fun St Paddy's day surprises thrown in at the end of the night, including ridiculous hats & emerald green boas paraded around the dance floor.

Now, I have to give a big high-five to Stacie. She was one of the most organized and prepared brides I have ever worked with. She made pretty much everything herself, including the centerpieces, placecards and even the flower pens used to sign the guest book & photo matte. Not only did she do an incredible job making these things, they were done weeks, even months before the wedding! Everything was boxed up and labeled for me. She even put the adorable starfish placecards into ordered individual bags broken up into letters of the alphabet. When someone is as organized as I am, if not more, it always makes me smile & sigh with relief at the same time!

Below are some of the wonderful photos taken by Rene' and Jay of The Storykeeper Photographer. Not only are the pictures beautiful, but they were a pleasure to work with! Check out their website to see some more of their work.






These placecards are so cute! Take a tip from Stacie: If you are making your placecards, be sure to design them in such a way that you can get most of the work done prior to knowing the table assignments. She made the tags using a square of cardstock, and then gluing on a small strip of green paper with the guest's name along with another strip of green paper with the table assignment below. She was able to get the placecards done weeks ahead of time, and then just glued on the table assignments once the rsvp's were in and the table assignments had been done. It will save you a lot of stress in those final weeks!


The beautiful and tasty cake was made by the Great Dane Bakery. One of my favorites!


The favors were king-sized Hershey bars, wrapped in various styles of paper, all in the color scheme. Stacie got the paper from one of my favorite stores, Paper Source. Brides- this is an amazing resource. They have the most incredible paper, as well as favor boxes, idea kits, and more than you can imagine. They also have colored labels, which are great for customizing favors, such as Stacie's above.





A great guestbook idea! Shutterfly can make photo guest books with pages filled with blank lines for your guests to leave notes. You can use engagement photos or fun photos that span your relationship. Much more fun and memorable than a normal guest book.



I included this photo because it makes me laugh. This is a photo of the Groom's parents. They were adorable! First of all- the mother's hat is amazing. At the end of the night, she kept asking the photographer to get some photos of the two of them. She especially liked this pose. Now- look closely. Who can you see in the mirror? Me- ruining the mother of the groom's idyllic photo. Way to go Courtney!

Another touch that Stacie included, which I love, is displaying wedding photos of the parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents. She made labeled cards explaining who was who. The guests loved it! It is a special way to include your family heritage into your day.

Other vendors (all of them get an A+ in my book):

So Cal DJ's
Today's the Day Weddings (videography)
The Spiraled Stem (florist)
Carina Lindgreen (make-up)
Natalie Buketov (hair)
White Rose Limo