Fun and Fancy Wedding at the Bently Reserve

There's no better way to meet a new client than to have them walk in on one of your events during set up, be completely blown away by the design, and then decide right then and there that they've got to hire you to design their own wedding.

That was a true story of how I met Dana. Our team was installing for a beautiful event at the Bently Reserve and was about 75% done when Dana walked in with the venue manager to do a site visit. She was too polite to interrupt our installation but after conveying how much she loved what she saw, the venue manager introduced us. I felt so humbled at all of Dana's compliments at the time, and was thrilled when she reached out to me the very next week, asking me to plan her wedding.

Dana and Hisham lived in Southern California and were both extremely busy with their careers, so they basically entrusted our team with all aspects of the wedding, from the more macro tasks of hiring the right team, to the tiniest of details like preparing comfortable flip flops for her guests to dance in. They flew in once to do their menu tasting, design meeting, table mock up, and final site visit and left everything else to our team.

The Bently Reserve is one of the most classic venues in San Francisco, and is a wonderful blank canvas for us to work with. After curating through all of Dana's pins on Pinterest, we proposed a design concept that conveyed a style/mood of a dreamy luxe garden that would be fancy, yet fun. The details would be refined, yet relaxed, and we would incorporate a clean mix of Old World details and modern touches. Dana loved this concept and so we ran with it, using warm tones of grey, blush pink, and metallic gold.

The results were just what Dana and Hisham envisioned, and we couldn't be happier to watch them walk down the aisle that day! Hope you enjoy these lovely photos from Chung Li:

The awesome team that made our clients so incredibly happy:

Event Design, Planning + Production: Jubilee Lau Events

Venue: Bently Reserve

Catering: Melon's Catering

Bar Service: Best Beverage Catering

Photography: Chung Li Photography

Floral Design: Cherries

Lighting + Draping: Enhanced Lighting

Stationery: Aerialist Press

Rentals: Classic Party Rentals

Linens: La Tavola Fine Linen

Votives: Theoni Collection

Cheers,

FROM MOOD BOARD TO REALITY

Some of our clients come to us with a very specific vision for their wedding. Some have absolutely no idea what they want in terms of design, and some have wayyy too many ideas (thanks to Pinterest) that are all over the place. If you fall into any of these categories, that's okay! Know that most couples are likely in the same boat as you are, and part of the process in the beginning of the wedding planning is to filter and curate through all the different ideas to hone in on a design direction that truly speaks to you! 

When we kick start the wedding planning process with our clients, we always start off with an extensive Design Questionnaire. It's a series of questions that encourages you to think through some of the bigger wedding questions. It's also a way for our team to get to know you and your relationship on a deeper level. Some of these questions could be:

What are you known for as a couple?
What are your favorite brands and what do you like about them?
Where do you dream of traveling to and why?
How would you describe the mood of your dream wedding?

....and so on. After reviewing all of your answers, and taking the time to go through every pin on your Pinterest boards, we would present a Design Summary with a mood board that portrays that look and feel of your wedding. Below, you'll see one that we did for a wedding at the Bently Reserve in San Francisco, where we described the wedding style as clean, modern, sleek, streamlined, structural, refined and polished. We went for a color palette of black, pearl white, champagne and blush, with accents of metallic gold.

We love dreaming up great ideas and beautiful details with our clients, but what we also happen to thrive on is the work that is required to bring all of those ideas to reality! This includes finding vendors that are the best fit to produce the results that we want, working out the logistics on the backend to ensure the ideas can truly execute well, and a lot of other "behind the scenes" production work that is absolutely critical. Although such detail-oriented work may not feel fun to most people, our team truly finds it as one of the most rewarding parts of what we do! 

Here's a collage to show how we brought the above mood board to life at the Bently Reserve! 

Photos by Milou and Olin Photography

Cheers,

ANGELA + ALDO'S WEDDING AT LEGION OF HONOR

As a Wedding Planner, it is always such an honor when I'm asked to plan multiple weddings within the same family. I had worked with the Lipscomb family about 8 years ago when their daughter, Julie, married her husband Jay at Thomas Fogarty Winery. I loved working with them and getting to know the entire family at the wedding. Needless to say, when Julie's youngest sister, Angela, reached out to me last year about her wedding in the Bay Area, I was thrilled to rekindle my relationship with her family! 

Angela and Aldo lived in Austin, Texas, but desired a destination wedding in the Bay Area. One one of their trips out here, we scouted numerous venues in Napa Valley and San Francisco, and they eventually fell in love with the Legion of Honor. 

We represented Angela and Aldo locally here for the bulk of their planning, and arranged one final trip for them out here to do their tasting, table mock up, final walk through, and other pertinent meetings. Our clients love the systems we have set up because it allows them to stay very informed with the planning process even though they live far away. They still get to make all the decisions and participate in the fun parts of the planning, but they're able to trust us to handle all the legwork for them locally.

Angela and Aldo's wedding day began at the St. Regis hotel, where they got ready in their respective suites before seeing each other for their romantic First Look. They then hopped on a cable car trolley with their bridal party to Fort Point, where their photographer Vivian Chen took some amazing shots of them with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.







After Fort Point, the bridal party arrived early to the Legion of Honor for more photos in their famous Court of Honor. We also arranged for the immediate family to arrive early, so that they can get as many photos done prior to the ceremony as possible. This enables them to fully spend their time with guests once the wedding officially begins.







We absolutely love all the details of this wedding, from the custom box invitations that the talented Maybelle designed to the wispy, delicate florals from Nancy Liu Chin, to the handkerchief programs from Lucky Luxe.

















The ceremony was held on the lawn outside the museum, and though the Golden Gate Bridge was only slightly visible through the thick fog, the loving vows this couple exchanged warmed everyone up who witnessed the wedding. One special touch was having the flower girl walk down the aisle while handing pretty flowers to guests.













After the ceremony concluded, guests were invited inside the museum to enjoy cocktail hour in one of the three Rodin galleries. Between delicious hors d'oeurves and libations, they admired a beautiful quilt that Angela made to honor the special relationship she had with her passed grandmother, and signed a wooden puzzle piece which would be turned into a beautiful keepsake piece for Angela and Aldo's home.















When we first started the wedding planning, Angela made it clear that food was a big priority for her and Aldo. They envisioned a fine dining experience, with multiple courses presented beautifully in small portions. We brought on board the best of the best, Paula Le Duc Fine Catering, and custom created a special 4 course menu for this wedding which included

First Course--Big Eye Tuna Tartare
Palate Cleanser--Strawberry Gazpacho Popsicle
Third Course--Barbacoa Soft Blue Corn Taco
Fourth Course--Rib Eye, Dismantled

Each course was paired with wine, sake, beer, or a special tequila recommended by our sommelier. Guests were completely blown away by the dinner experience!


















For the remainder of the evening, guests danced the night away amongst beautiful art work and indulged in the most amazing wedding cake. The custom flavor that Jasmine Rae Cakes created was lemony lemon cake, guava curd, and goat cheese frosting!









As always, we are only able to produce such special weddings when clients trust us to pull together the best, most fitting team for them! Thank you to everyone below who contributed greatly to ensure that our clients had the most perfect day!

Event Design, Planning + Production: Jubilee Lau Events
Venue: Legion of Honor
Caterer: Paula Le Duc Fine Catering
Floral Design: Nancy Liu Chin Design
Photography: Vivien Chen Photography
Lighting + Drapery: Enhanced Lighting
Ceremony Garcon Chairs: Blueprint Studio
DJ: Chris Debol of Mix Different
Makeup + Hair: JBeautique
Stationery + Calligraphy: Maybelle
Cable Car Trolley: Classic Cable Car
Wedding Cake: Jasmine Rae Cakes

Cheers,