Michelle becomes a Reider!

On labor day weekend, one of my dearest childhood & high school friends, Michelle, was married to the wonderful Jonathan. It was a fun wedding for me because I actually got to be a guest!! Besides bringing in my emergency kit and cutting the hanger loops off of Michelle's dress, I did not have to do a thing but enjoy.

Michelle looked beautiful and it was an incredibly heartfelt ceremony (Jonathan's dad, who is a pastor, married the two). The reception was a blast as well.

Here are some photos by Tammy at Red Loft Studios (I love these girls!):


They did such a great job of capturing Michelle's bubbly personality- I love these shots!




Some details:


Michelle & Jonathan: You are so special to me and it was so amazing to share in your wedding day with you. Thanks for letting me just be a guest! Many times it is hard for me to not be coordinating a friend's wedding because I love to be able to help, but it was such a gift for me to be able to take in every moment of your beautiful day. I love you guys and pray that God will bless your marriage greatly!

2 years ago today...

I married the man of my dreams.


On a hill overlooking the city and beaches of San Clemente, we joined our two lives together as one and every day since then our love has only grown stronger and stronger.


I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband.


All photos by Laura Kleinhenz of Docuvitae.

Hot days, swollen feet, happy weddings, almost there

6 1/2 weeks left until baby! These hot days have been no fun for my pregnant body and elephant sized ankles but I have been enjoying a little bit of rest now that my schedule has died down.

I had my last full-wedding weekend August 24th-25th with two incredible weddings. The first was the wedding of our good friends, Garret & Karyn at Casa Romantica. What a beautiful thing to be a part of! It was an interesting one as I was both in the wedding and planning it, not to mention being pregnant, and my husband was also the best man. So, it was a very meaningful wedding to us but also was on the exhausting side for my body :)

Here are a few pictures of Garret & Karyn, by the amazing Amy Squires. This was our first time working together and I was very excited about it as I have admired her work for a while now. She is so sweet & does an incredible job. Make sure to check out her blog. I was also stoked to work with the wonderful ladies of Flair once again. Everything was beautiful!

I especially love this first shot:




I will post detail shots once I receive them. Who knows? You might even get to see a pic of prego Courtney in a bridesmaid dress!

A bit thank you to Jordan, Darcie & Shannon for helping the day go smoothly. I would have been a mess without you guys!

The next day, Darcie and I headed up to The Island Hotel in Newport for the wedding of Carrie & Arnold. The Island used to be the 4 Seasons and had not seen the property since it had been renovated until this wedding. It is beautiful! One of the best catering staffs I have worked with as well. I will post photos and more details about the wedding once I get my hands on the photos.

So, what's my plan? I have one wedding at the end of September that Shannon is helping me with. I am very excited about it- it will be a fun one at Aliso Creek Inn. Other than that, I am still working, but am taking a break from weddings. Darcie will be picking up some weddings through the late fall and winter and then I will be back into action with an incredible wedding at Rancho Las Lomas in February. I'm not disappearing though- I am still booking for 2008 and am available for meetings. And you can always leave me a note or email to say hello!

A Splash of a Wedding

On August 18th, a beautiful thing happened in the backyard of Mindy & Dave. They shared vows and joined their lives together in the place most personal to them: their home. They envisioned having an elegant dinner with all of their friends and family at one long table around their pool to celebrate their big day and it turned out to be a beautiful and intimate evening.

The day was full of personal details: The caterer, La Betolla (in Fullerton), was a family friend and the couple also had their first date at the restaurant. Marianne of Studio Lozano, who took the incredible photos below, got some incredible photos at the spot where Dave proposed. A family friend officiated and guests were encouraged to bring their children and the reception turned into a large pool party after dinner.

This was a fun night for us as well as Jordan, one of our associates, did an incredible job at her first solo event. Way to go Jordan!

We had such a great time working with Mindy & Dave- they are such a sweet couple and we wish them a lifetime of happiness together! It is such an honor to be a part of a celebration so personal. Thank you for allowing us to help you bring it to life.

Here are some glimpses of their celebration:

The bride & groom:


Megan of Classic Party Rentals is a rockstar and did an incredible job helping us put this wedding together. Here are some photos of the table set-up:



Flowers by Alyssa's Flowers. Mindy purchased the table runners at Pottery barn. All other rentals provided by Classic. Staffing by Olson Bartending.

Alyssa also did a beautiful job of decorating the area of the backyard where Dave & Mindy were married. Simple & elegant: I love it! Dave worked very hard to light up their backyard- he spent days hanging lights over the pool and weaving them through their landscaping. It turned out beautifully!


The beautiful cake by Great Dane Baking Co:

And the super fun groom's cake, also by Great Dane:


You can check out more photos on Marianne's blog.

Free Wedding Photography!

My good friend, Jenetta Lea Penner, is an amazing San Diego photographer and is currently giving away free wedding photography!

The contest ends on September 30th, so if you are interested, please be sure to check out the information on her blog. It doesn't get much better than free, incredible wedding photos from an amazing woman!

Things I love

Things I am loving right now:

• Frozen grapes (yum!!)
• Hugs from my nieces and nephews
• Feeling my little man dance around to music inside of my belly
• Swimming- at the pool or beach
• Laguna Beach sunsets
• Spending time with my incredible mom & sisters
• My newest nephew Silas

• Ice Cream (this is nothing new)
  
• The way my husband kisses my big prego belly and then smiles

• Getting to be a part of an incredible wedding for an amazing couple!

A few weeks ago, Sandy & Jesse were married at the Aliso Creek Inn & Golf Course. It was an incredibly beautiful day. Sandy & Jesse live in New York, so we had been working on their wedding from opposite sides of the coast for the past 6 months and it was so fun to see all of the ideas, excitement and joy come to life.

As always, I love working with Jasmine Star. Here are some of her gorgeous pictures from the day:

The beautiful Bride:

The ceremony & view:
Some detail shots of the tables:

Flowers by M's Flowers. One fun detail that we don't have a picture of yet is the Table numbers. Each table was a subway line- Sandy made round colorful numbers and letters to represent the subway signs from New York City. It was a fun way to tie the city where they met and live into their wedding decor.

Yum:

Amazing cupcakes by Sprinkles. (My favorite are the red velvet) They also had a small sweetheart cake to cut from Cinderella Cakes. We also had a few jars of their favorite candy on the cupcake table. We provided the cake stands which is fun- I love the look of varying sizes and shapes of ceramic cake stands, as opposed to a large plastic stand. Looking at these pictures makes me wish I had a Sprinkles cupcake right now!

The first dance & a view of the reception site:

We hung curtains in the walkways (so cheap but makes a big difference- Sandy bought the curtains from Ikea and we hung them with push pins and tied clusters of marbles to the bottom to hold them in place). Lighting by Art for Joyful Weddings & Events. We strung market lights and also hung a chandelier from the tree closest to the dance floor. I loved this! It made such a big impact for a very low cost (purchased from Lowes). And, Jesse & Sandy will get to keep in in their home now. Here's a closer look at the chandelier:


I love this succession of photos of their first dance:

For more photos or to see a slideshow, check out Jasmine's blog.

The staff at Aliso was wonderful! The DJ was Nahchey from Dash DJ's and he did an incredible job getting the dance floor moving. Ceremony music by Angelica Strings.

Free tickets to a great bridal show!

I was contacting by the organizer of this event and I can get free tickets for any of my brides who are interested. For more info on the show, check out their website: www.weddingsalon.com. If you would like to go, let me know and I will get you on the list. You can reply to this post or email me directly. It looks like a really fun show!

Martha, you are a couple of years too late

So, a few months back I shared how excited I was that Martha Stewart had created a line at Michaels. Well, it seems that the queen of everything decided she needed to hit up another retail ally and her products have landed at Macy's.

I love love them! Simple, clean and white. Just my style. However, I am a bit sad and bitter that these weren't out when I had my bridal registry at Macy's a couple of years back... does anyone want to buy my baby boy a cake stand as a shower gift?




Thanks to the Hostess with the Mostess blog for the tip & photos.

Adrienne & James

In the beginning of July, we had the pleasure of seeing James & Adrienne's wedding come to life at the Hyatt in Long Beach. These two are so sweet- Adrienne always has a smile on her face and they are so comfortable and fun to be around. We had been working with them on design & florals for a while so it was a ton of fun to see everything come together.

Adrienne & James are quite the dancers! They had an incredible band- the Susie Hansen Latin Band and the dance floor was full all night, with the couple of the day right in the middle. It was a blast to watch!

We had the pleasure of working with Red Loft- one of my favorite photography companies. Here are a few of Andrea's shots:









More detail photos to come!

The rest of the incredible team of vendors:
Flowers by Shannon Rojas for Joyful Weddings (my sis)
Videography by Chrissie at Mise en Seen
Slideshow by Today's the Day videography

Back in action!

Hello hello...

I am back from my vacation up the California & Oregon coast. It was an amazingly beautiful trip filled with great food, great bonding and a ton of great pictures (a few of which should make an appearance on the blog sometime in the next week). Now it's back to weddings! I'll be posting some photos from recent weddings soon- I promise!

You can imagine my joy when I returned home to more problems with my server... (GoDaddy is on my bad list right now!) So- if your email gets bounced back to you saying that it could not be delivered due to spam or virus content, don't worry- you don't have a virus. Please just resend to the following email address: joyfulweddingsandevents@gmail.com. Thanks so much! Sorry for any inconvenience.

Happy (& a little sad) to be back,

Courtney