I love this photo captured at one of our weddings at the Fairmont Olympic  this last summer – the light coming through the Phaleanopsis Orchids is amazing. Marsio Photo out of Indonesia captured some wonderful shots! Still waiting to see all of the photos from the wedding – what an incredible wedding this was – Indah’s three gowns alone were stunning!  Definitely one of my favorites of the year – the centerpieces were SO much fun to create!

This summer I had the extreme pleasure of designing and helping plan my cousins wedding.  Now, I’m usually not  a huge proponent of mixing work and family, but I couldn’t help but jump in and help Jessica create her dream wedding.  I come from a VERY small family – there are less then 10 people that I am related to on this half of the world!!  I’ve known Jessica since the day she was born, and (now) fondly remember those nights when I would babysit and she would cry for hours on end…suddenly, she’s all grown up and getting married – and she tells me the design and flowers (besides the getting married part) are one of the most important parts for her.  NO PRESSURE.  Not to mention that she wants a very gardeny (yes, I made that word up) romantic wedding, and my designs tend towards the lush and modern.  Despite my aunt’s look of worry, I tell them that yes, I can indeed do romantic and gardeny.  Oh, and of course, I LOVE to use bold color – and Jessica wants what I termed a “tea-stained look.”  I assure them that I can indeed, design to the bride and her wishes and we designed away, ending up with a fabulously collaborative mix of my designs and the bride’s DIY touches.

The beautiful bride and her romantic “tea stained” bouquet of garden roses, sweet peas, jasmine, gardenia and Metalina roses.  Oh, that sweet flower girl?? That’s my daughter, Isabella.  I’ve never ever  my kids on my blog or website  – that whole family/work separation.  But, since Style Me Pretty has posted These stunning shots by the amazing Stephanie Cristalli, I figured it was time!

The pin on the ribbon was the bride’s and mine grandmother’s….very, very special.  I hand-pleated the dupionni silk ribbon to complement the pleating on the bottom of Jessica’s  delicious Melissa Sweet Gown.

The ceremony…

The four ADORABLE ringbearer’s – although I’m biased – the little blondie is my son, Mateo. I know, his tie is crooked and he didn’t want his pocket square (gasp!) One of the drawbacks of being the florist/designer/planner, wedding attendee, mother of the ring bearer  – still cute though.

The centerpieces – yum!

Hanging escort cards, designed by the bride

Love this shot – it was so nice to work with Stephanie again!!

What pure joy to have been such an integral part of Jessica’s wedding!

So, there you go, readers – Over the last few years I’ve shown you my work, my passion, and now my family, and even my children…Hard for me to be so personal, and show so much of myself.  However, the more open I am, the more you can see what drives me to create and  how passionate  I am about creating a wedding that truly reflects who you are.  It just gets better everyday!

When I started the process of designing Laura and Billy’s Wedding (yes, with a  four week timeframe)  I never saw it as an “Anthropologie Wedding,” but so many people have commented that it felt this way to them when they viewed the amazing pictures shot by Jasmine Star! What I felt more than anything as I stepped back and viewed the pictures was that it was really a reflection of Laura and Billy.  Everything from the mismatched vintage chandeliers we strung, the hanging windowpanes as people walked in, the caramel/taupey colors of the blooms in her bouquet- it just felt SO LAURA (and Billy – but I definitely got to know Laura better in the time we all spent together.)

I loved their story, how brave they were to allow a bunch of strangers to design and create their wedding in such a short time, and to broadcast it live for millions to see.  They knew that all that really mattered was that they loved each other (and their impeccable taste, joy for life in general and great friends and family didn’t hurt.)

As I look over these pictures, I am struck by that process of “getting into a bride’s head” to help her design the wedding she wants.  We spend hours, weeks, months together – and then it’s all done!  Many of my brides and I have remained great friends, have worked on projects, and still check in with each other.  I feel so blessed to be part of peoples lives in such a special way, and am grateful that I get to create, share and feel every single day.  Laura and Billy – thank you – you are a joy, and I can not wait to watch your marriage and careers grow!

I LOVE this photo – It is the epitome of who they are – fun, joyful, sweet.  And Jasmine, thanks for taking me with you on this crazy ride of a live broadcast wedding.  I’ve loved your work, but now I’ve experienced YOU – what a treat.  It’s always great to work with other great professionals – it’s even better to work with those that “get it,” get you, and get the client. JOY!

I had the pleasure of going Gown Shopping with Laura – only a few of the brides I work with end up having me accompany them on all their vendor visits, as there is only one of me to go around!  I do end up personally working with about 10 special brides a year who start with Bella Signature Design from start to finish and collaborate with us on the entire wedding from gown, invitations, venue, decor, etc.  I love this process, and of course it’s much more fun than hearing it secondhand from one of my assistants!  Laura was so fun during this process – listening to advice from her friends, but also being honest with herself about what she wanted.  We went to several different boutiques that I recommend: La Belle Elaines, Marcella’s and La Votre (formerly the Bridal Garden).  Christy from Junebug Weddings came along to capture photos of Laura trying on gowns at La Belle Elaine’s.  You can even watch our visit to La Belle Elaines here, as the film crew was on hand to capture it!

Which gown do you like the best?  And don’t we all want to know which gown she will end up with?  (Psst – I just found out which one!)

You can watch our  broadcasts and planning sessions with myself, Jasmine Star, Christy from Junebug Weddings and of course the bride, Laura here.

I am so excited to be working with Laura and Billy!  Laura and Billy were chosen as the lucky recipients of the “Jasmine Star/CreativeLive/Bella Signature Design Wedding” Phew – a mouthful – but what an experience!  In just four weeks, we are planning and designing a fabulous, stylish, fun wedding for Laura and Billy, who not only get our planning and design services for free, but free photography from the amazing Jasmine Star and coverage from CreativeLive.  See more information about the CreativeLive Wedding here.

Laura has been a blast to work with.  She’s is absolutely sweet, hilarious, open-minded.  She has some definite ideas on what she likes, which is actually very helpful to the process of planning and designing.  It is hard for her to make the actual decisions, but with guidance from myself and her bridesmaids (and the urgency of our timeline) she has been crossing things off of our list!

Billy also seems very easy going and fun – they are obviously in love, and always full of joy and laughter when I am with them.

Christy of the uberfantastic Junebug Weddings Blog has been on hand to not only capture these amazing images but to blog her point of view on this experience on the Junebug blog.  Follow our adventures on the Bella blog, Junebug blog, and of course, every Monday at Noon PST at Creativelive.com/live – where you can even ask questions as we broadcast live and discuss where we are planning process so far.

Bella Signature Design is proud to announce the launch of our brand new YouTube channel! The Bella Signature Design YouTube channel offers exclusive insight into what we do, from inspiration to actual creation. Bella’s YouTube channel will include behind the scenes looks into photo shoots, events, and even Daniela Isabella’s inspirations for the designs she creates.  Scheduled first are a few behind the scenes looks into photoshoots, including an exclusive video showcasing our work for Grace Ormonde Wedding Style.  Eye candy in the form of Real Weddings will also be featured, so be ready to be inspired!  We hope that these videos will offer a source of inspiration for brides and grooms as well as a better understanding of the creative process behind Bella Signature Design. This has been something that we have wanted to do for quite a while and we are very excited to share it with you! Videos will be uploaded as they are released and we hope you will subscribe, leave comments, and check back regularly for new video uploads. Just follow the link to the new Bella Signature Design channel on YouTube. Enjoy!!

Ah, lovely Christy and Blair over at the fabulous What Junebug loves asked me for one of weddings where we had sketches and photos, and to share the story behind the wedding – and I couldn’t resist sharing one of my favvorite weddings from this last summer!

Here is the sketch:

come see what they posted here!

and view some of the great photo compilations Christy did of Lifemosaic’s fabulous shots! (reception shots on Junebug’s blog)

We’ve had a HUGE response to our sketch to reality blog post about Leah and Adam, with lots of requests for more!

SO, here is a wedding we did last year, that was so colorful, lush and warm – it’s one of my favorite weddings from last year!  This ceremony ended up being very much like the sketch!

Here is the original sketch:

wedding rendering

and here is the wedding ceremony:

This Hindu Ceremony and following reception was so full of color, warmth, and joy.  I loved collaborating with Madhuri and Karthik, and enjoyed the challenge of bringing both of their styles into their wedding: Madhuri is quite traditional, and Karthik prefers the more contemporary feel!  We decided to keep the ceremony more traditional, so we utilized traditional Hindu wedding colors of red, gold and white.  Yummy gold chair covers from Wildflower Linens graced the chairs, turning each banquet chair into luscious perch!

On a side note, we also think about budget as we design – for example, Madhuri wanted the reception colors based on the color of her reception Sari (she had three different outfits that day!), so the  reception color palette of deep blue, tangerine and raspberry  had to somehow overlap with the ceremony colors.  Had we chosen the red or white for the ceremony chaircovers, we would have had to have a second chaircover for the reception, but choosing the gold hue made it easy to utilize them for both.   Working the gold into the reception was easy by bringing beautiful gold beaded overlays for the tables, that perfectly accented the chaircovers and set a great neutral backdrop to the blue favors, blue and orange lighting, and the very contemporary tangerine and raspberry flowers.   Although we often get to work with some pretty fantastic “platinum weddings” type budgets, we stay aware of not wasting any of that money and giving our clients the most for their investment.

For the ceremony design, having decided on the chaircover color then led to the aisle runner color, the color of the Mandap fabric, etc.  Sometimes we create a color palette, the basic elements, and then work backwards, to come up with a design that not only looks beautiful, but makes sense and creates the right composition:  Madhuri was wearing red for the first part of the two hour ceremony, and then changing into a white Lengha after she was officially married, for the second part of the ceremony.  We had to make sure she stood out from the Mandap instead of blending in, so the gold fabric on the Mandap itself was partially chosen for that reason, and since we have a backdrop of red silk in the back of the room, we hung sheer gold panels on the back of the Mandap to really maker her red, and then white, Sari pop!  Yes, these are all things I think about as a designer – how will the photos look, what’s the overall composition, including fabric, flowers, backdrop and what the bride and groom are wearing  – these are all very important in the successful outcome of the overall look, the look and feel of the photograph, and the guest’s experience.

A look at  the reception, with the gold chaircovers, beaded linens, blue lighting and orange lighting.  Photo by Jane Lee photography

If you like these “Sketch to Reality” posts, please let us know by posting comments here on the blog!