The modern Groom: creative, cool, playful...

Girls naturally savor beauty, design, fashion. It is a pleasure to see guys stepping up to the cool'n cute and playing with handsomeness.

From smart and sexy to country cool and expressing your life style and lineage in organic cotton or kilts, it's just fun to be a guy and love what you see in the mirror.

This jacket from Manuel is certainly unique. When the bride fulfills her princess dreams, why not follow your heart to manly handsomeness...

 

 Don't forget: Shoes can tell a whole story...

Cool accessories anybody?

 More styles to check out:

 

 

 

It's your stage to love who you are...

 Photos: Tec Petaja, Nashville, Josh Goleman, Brooklyn, Amy Caroll, Erin Hearts Court, Los Angeles, Megan Beth, Maryland, Austin Gros, Nashville,  Jagger

Green Wedding somehow

Feathers, flowers, fun... There's always something not so eco at every "green" wedding. It's the nature of the beasty beauty: when we invite 500 guests or must have the dress from designer X or can't live without the cake from that famous bakery, our DIY or organic or redefined luxury wedding will be always just green-ish.
And then there are couples like Daralyn and Joe, who got married yesterday, on July 10, in their own home. They love the planet but they are not labeled green. They hired me as their "day of" wedding planner not because they are so eco but because they naturally vibe with fair and good stuff.

Meaning, Daralyn wanted it all super beautiful but economic and her decisions were in several areas simply naturally eco-friendly: flowers were bought locally and arranged by her bridesmaids: no extra gasoline wasted, no formaldehyde floral foam used and the vases will be re-used for years to come. The local rental company, Smart Party, doesn't care much about recycling so we took care of it ourselves.
Not everybody has the luxury to fit 100 guests into their back yard but them using their own home as the wedding venue gave them another green point: no stoves or kitchen equipment needed to be rented, house decor could be integrated into the design and the DJ didn't need the bio diesel generator.

Their sweet and creative caterer Julie Coomes from just around the corner, provided local goodies in her amazingly tasty buffet, where the huge veggie display was passionately frequented by non-vegetarians and vegetarians alike. I helped serving it, as Daralyn saved on servers, so I know. No red meat, more of an economic decision, totally fit the green bill.
There were barely any left overs, kudos to that!

The marshmallow frosted cake was cute but unfortunately neither tasty not eco, how much do you need to hug a bride whose baker disappoints her? But Daralyn also had sweet bites,  there were so yummy that they were gone in 10 seconds,  so she took the cake disaster the way she is: with a brave smile. (Honestly, I wouldn't have)
My I phone photos will be followed by Cari Hollis professional wedding pics, but then don't these photographers always take sooo long?
Daralyn and Joe are now on their flight to some far away romantic island - I bet they'll find many new ways to be accidentally green.

Green Weddings are universal?

I had a couple of meetings on Saturday, showing prospective couples the Inn of the Seventh Ray as a possible wedding site, when I saw these cute center pieces by Kelly: a variety of tiny flower pots surrounding a candle tree. The flowers land in gardens and on balconies of 180 happy guests and there we are = green with ease.

Green Rock'n Roll Wedding

Amee and Benji celebrated their Rockn' Roll wedding in Topanga, CA on April 30, 2010.

The design was funky yet classy, innovative and vintage, DIY and luxurious: the amazing ecclecticism which is born when artists, musicians and fun loving "regular" folks come together to party.

Stephanie from eco friendly Seed Floral design, Los Angeles, created the Bohemian florals. Angelica Weihs Events gave structure to spontaneity and Tiffany Koury's photography style could not have fit better. Food and wine were organic...

Read more...

Green Wedding Pomanders

Cute idea for green brides: use colorful magazine pages to create your pomanders for rose petal or lavender toss. For additional decor in tents and other structures Brown Fox offers cute Pomander balls. A creative DIY girl will easily figure out how to integrate LED lights to make this a unique lighting option.

Vegetables center pieces for your green wedding

Center pieces with real veggies are amazing for country style weddings, like Blake and Stephen's 500 guest Bel Air wedding on May 30, 2010. As they wanted to be as green as possible the veggies were meant to be used afterwards and were donated. We had the fun of our lives planning and producing their unique event and just had a peek of first pictures from their professional photographers... oh, it will be so cool to post those.
See more....

Garden Wedding in OC

--> --> Jamie and Zac got married at the South Botanical Gardens in Orange County on Saturday, June 12, 2010. They wanted it unconventional but still honoring their Jewish culture.

Rabbi Laura Owens fit perfectly into the picture keeping the ceremony easy going yet sacred, humorous yet meaningful, with contemporary wording and Hebrew blessings. When Zac read his vows he promised Jamie to be open to her believes, murmuring: vegan...

Michael Franks of Melange, a friend of Jamie's dad and more on the traditional side of culinary culture, won the catering bid over Eco Caters. To make Jamie happy, he ventured into experimenting with vegan cuisine aside from offering various vegetarian options for the four different food stations, a catering trend my company promotes over the traditional sit down dinner or buffet, when it fits to the theme.  I tried Michael's melon mint gazpacho, potato samosas and the sweet potato/red curry quinoa cake, all delicious indeed. Jamie had to give up on some of our green ideas, like serving water in big jars rather than bottled but then Michael Franks made the extra effort and promised to recycle the bottles.

Their 145 guests loved the setting and decor, which was kept at casual  elegance. Some recycled materials, like reclaimed wood for the table numbers were used to create a vintage feel. The antique-white clay flower pots were re-used as in becoming gifts for the guests.

Many of the gorgeous girls wore high heels and the grass seemed to do them well. The brides maids in chocolate brown cocktail dresses though flip flopped them after the ceremony.

Jamie's mom Debbie created the gift box on the right and hand painted the beautiful cloth for the Chuppah below.

Jamie patiently collected and assembled the corks for the place card holders. Favors were donations to ASPA in the name of every guest.

Debbie's hand-painted Chuppah was decorated by Rebecca from Lily Pad, who created - very Jamie-like - delicate center pieces integrating succulents and whimsical flowers. The vegan cup cakes came from Jamaica's cakes.

 

I was glad that I arrived early enough to add some female touch to the general set up aside of my decor duties like re-arranging the ceremony seating, which had the isle ending in a dirt patch rather than in green grass... but in all Anza's crew did a really great job setting everything up in a small time window, their last minute balancing act on high ladders to fit the last strings of twinkle lights was rather Cirque du Soleil.

 

Unfortunately the rental company does not seem to care about anything eco-friendly and does not even recycle their enormous amounts of plastic trash. In honor of Jamie who hired me as an eco-friendly event planner and to calm my aching heart, thinking of those plastic islands in the oceans, I stuffed a bunch of plastic linen bags into my car and then into a recycling bin by my office. 

Of course there was that cute 2 year old who trotted behind the flower girl: "wait up, wait up"...

.... and otherwise curiously explored the premises.

Jamie's dad Moe encouraged the guests to party hard:" I don't want to take all this booze home" and  the three police guys who hung out in the staff parking lot for a bit, swinging with the rhythm of DJ Allan Carson, seemed rather tempted to try a vodka-triple sec- spiked lemonade...

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And the groom is a drummer

Gemma and Marcus got married in Topanga, CA on Friday, April 9 and added their very personal touch. Starting with groom Marcus drumming for his guests with his famous friends who last played for Oprah.

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Marcus walking to the ceremony area was the sign for us to start the processional: two fuchsia junior brides maids stepped down the stairs with two black royal poodles who had the actual wedding rings around their necks.

Guests were guided to the reception area, where more drumming and dancing went on in the lounge, while organic hors d'oeuvres were served.

Gemma's mom brought the home made marzipan frosted cake all the way from England, where she had fed it with alcohol for six months!
It was indeed a swinging event with a trance dance first dance.