Mariners Ballroom-Hyatt HB

I was looking very forward to this day. For one Christina is a beautiful girl, like my Indian brides with their beautiful eyes, Christina comes from a wonderful Phillipine background (boy I love my Phillipine mothers of the bride and groom, they laugh and laugh and keep the planning months a lot of fun and are just lovely lovely people) and I knew she was going to look stunning on her day, just like a model, beautiful, and those eyes, just gorgeous, and she had great taste when it came to the linens and what she wanted to do extra with chair finishes etc.  Plus I love Mariners, this is one time that I can understand picking a hotel that has ocean views but choosing to go to an enclosed room with no view, it is just a great space you can do so much with, I really do look forward to the day of the event and seeing the vision come to fruition.

They were getting married at the Mission in San Juan, and the ladies in charge of the church have it all under control there, so I focused on the reception at the hotel.  Where a lot of my brides in Mariners have gone eggplant/dark purple in colors total, Christina preferred the champagne colors for guest tables but the dark purple for the headtable &cake table.  We chose upgraded linens for all the tables that really gave that quality/thought about it look/feel, and we did the purple for the uplighting to frame the room, so it all blended and popped without being overpowering/too much.  For a group of 150ish in Mariners, it is great to do the cocktails on one side, dining/dancing in the other, and we play by opening the drapes inbetween those two areas as the event goes on.  Both areas were separated by the drapes being completely closed at first, then once dinner began one portion opened so the guests could see and have access to the bar (which we kept in the cocktail area), then once the dancing began we opened up the last area of drape that now had the whole room open and guests could choose where they wanted to be, at the dining tables or back at the cocktail tables.

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Till next time

Lisa

www.lisasimpsonweddings.com

714 305 7112

Add a comment June 18, 2012

Another lovely Indian Wedding Celebration

I was so looking forward to Shivali and Ankur’s two day celebration at the Ritz-Carlton, Dana Point.

We had started at the beginning with the budgetting and vision, gone through the vendor selections together, put all the details of the two days down in the detailed timeline/script, had a great tasting/floral sample/linens-chair selection day, and then just had to wait to see it all come together.

Two different looks, but the same soft feel both days, very reflective of lovely Shivali.  Friday’s Sangeet had a soft blue look by having Nisie’s Enchanted Florist do boxed florals in blues and whites, we used the hotels blue banquet chairs and soft blue water glasses, put some soft blue uplights around the room, and voila what a soft/relaxing/calm feel we gave the room, which worked so well when the guests arrived in all their vibrant colors and were there to party.  The theme/feel was not competing, it was the backdrop.  A lot of fun was had by all, Shivali had told me it would be all over by 11pm, but it was around 12;15am when I managed to get bride and groom to leave and around 12:40am when a bunch of the guests left.  Who can blame them, cocktails and dinner on a beautiful lawn looking out to the beautiful Pacific ocean, watching the sunset, then coming in to party, and it was so pleasant outside that even at midnight people were outside enjoying the balmy night.

Then the main event, lovely apricot/salmon colors, beautiful ocean backdrop, our groom coming in on the horse and really enjoying himself, I gave them 30 mins to bring him in over only a few hundred yards, and boy did they milk it and have fun.  Beautiful ceremony done by my favorite Indian officant/priest – he explains/talks through the ceremony so well.  Everyone had lunch, lots of great sandwiches, hot and cold, vege and meat.  Then rest/relaxing, until the evening event.  I was thinking the night may end before 1am due to the prior night, but no such thing, 1:45am was when the last guest left.  As you can see with such a beautiful ballroom and cocktail area to hang out in, why would you leave too.

You may have noticed, on each side of the dancefloor was a big X table with seating for around 30 guests.  From our first meeting Shivali had shown me her inspiration picture with a table like that, she loved it.  So of course we made sure that was incorporated into her celebration and they did look fabulous.

Tx to the great vendor team who worked with us to create this wonderful celebration setting:  Amber Event Productions/Lighting (I have worked with Amber and her team a few times now, she is lovely and they do a great job), Nisie’s Enchanted Florist, Fusion for the linens, Classic Party Rentals for the chivaris, and of course the awesome team at the Ritz Carlton and especially Holly from the catering office and Mike and the banquet team hands on in the ballroom.

I got two really lovely emails from my bride and groom the day after and another the following day, thanking me.  They are sunning themselves in the South Pacific about now and I know they will be having a fabulous time.  It was my honor and pleasure to go through the process with them and end up with such a beautiful, fabulous celebration, they and their guests will remember and talk about for a long long time.

Till next time

Lisa

www.lisasimpsonweddings.com

www.pinterest.com/lisasimpsonwdgs

714 305 7112

Add a comment June 14, 2012

Sunset Terrace/Plaza Room, Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel

I so enjoyed Suzanne and Eric, both very busy with their lives/jobs in Dallas, and her three lovely children.

When they contacted me they weren’t sure where they wanted to get married, just knew they wanted it here and that the ocean was important, and that they would probably have 60 of their most favourite people in the world with them.  So we got clever, we gave them the experience of two five star/five diamond resorts for this multi day celebration.

Everyone stayed at the St Regis, did the wedding celebration at the Ritz Carlton, and then the after wedding brunch for nearly everyone back at the St Regis.  How lucky are we to be able to run between two such fabulous resorts with no inconvenience at all.

Suzanne had a vision and some inspiration pictures to start us off with, I personally wasn’t feeling the look, but she loved it and that is all the matters (we got things started by emailing photos back & forth and interviewing two of my florists by phone then she chose who she wanted to work with),  and as I have learned over the years, where we start with vision/thoughts etc can be very different to where we end up.  The journey/process is all part of the fun of the planning, so just let things reveal/unfold as you go along. 

The look was in place, and we were at the tasting (this was their only trip here, first time we met and we had all vendors in place by this trip), ready to go and see the floral sample/do that meeting and then confirm the linen/chair order after, when we got to the cake design.  Suzanne just wasn’t seeing anything that jumped out at her, so I pulled out my ipad in case some of the cake pictures I had gave us some direction (I only have a few on there, and they tend to be the more different/unique look ones).  Sure enough something so different to anything we had planned for was jumping at her and she loved it, a gray cake with black swirl designs on it on a silver stand.  She loved it.  That was the cake.  And thus, 6 weeks before the wedding a whole new vision was created, using the cake as our inspiration our whole linen/floral look changed, and boy how fabulous it looked.  We were all so happy, and all agreed that by not being stuck on something and letting things happen, we ended up with the perfect look for them, which we all just loved, and so did the guests.  When we started the journey I can pretty much guarantee that that cake picture would not have had the impact it did and we would not have ended up where we did.

Love my job, never boring and always a beautiful end result, and always for such lovely couples. Aaaaah.

Thanks to Karen French for the photos below:

Very hard to beat that backdrop!!

This is where the guests go to cocktails and through out the night can keep coming out and hearing those waves and looking down at them.  The pelicans-it seems that at every ceremony we have a couple of fly bys, all the guests ooh and aah a bit.

Such an elegant lovely look and feel.

Till next time

Lisa

www.lisasimpsonweddings.com

714 305 7121

Add a comment June 1, 2012