Category: Planning Process

Today is an exciting day for our family, as Erik’s older sister is getting married!  We are so thrilled for her and her fiancé, whom we’ve known and loved for years now.  They will exchange vows after dark, in a super romantic rooftop ceremony in downtown Los Angeles.  As a fun bonus, Erik, Olive and I are all in the wedding!  I’m a bridesmaid, Erik is a groomsman, and Olive is one of two adorable flower girls.

One thing I am NOT, however, is the wedding planner.  😉  Although I assisted in pulling a few things together for Meg, I really wanted to enjoy the wedding day as a member of the bridal party and family.  I am grateful for some sweet friends who will be managing the set-up and day-of details so we can all relax today.

The wedding has an underlying Art Deco and Gatsby-inspired theme, since her venue is a historical building with period architecture and furnishings.  This made it a ton of fun picking our my bridesmaid dress (we all go to pick our own!) and accessories.  My lovely friend Heather from Twig and Twine did the dark and moody florals — I can’t wait to see everything come together!  Feel free to check my Instagram today where I’m sure I’ll post a few sneak peeks of the big day, too!

photo by Callaway Gable

Congratulations, Megan and Anthony!!  We love you so much and are truly delighted to see you join together in marriage.  Let’s celebrate!

Everyone else — enjoy the weekend and see you soon!

Hey everyone!  If you couldn’t tell by the gap between posts, wedding season is upon us and I am busy busy busy prepping for our summer of beautiful events.  🙂  For this reason, my guest post on Sugar and Charm yesterday is perfectly timed.  Click over and check out my 5 tips for planning a charming wedding.  All photos in the post are courtesy of my incredibly talented pal, Ryan Ray.

If you haven’t discovered Eden and Sugar and Charm yet, go subscribe and thank me later.  She is a dear friend and writes the loveliest blog full of recipes, entertaining ideas and local (southern California) lifestyle posts.  After reading a few posts you’ll feel like you’re chatting with an old friend.  I’m so grateful she’s in my life!

Is anyone out there planning a wedding?  Let me know if you have any planning questions; I’d love to address them in a future installment of The Nuptial Primer.  😉

Enjoy the rest of your Thursday and see you again soon!

In the week since my last post, things have been REALLY busy.  Like, I-drove-about-1000-miles-since-then busy!  I’ve had client meetings and tastings and mockups and site visits and sourcing trips and emails.  A mountain of emails.  🙂  It will be a few more days before I’m fully caught up but there is so much energy buzzing around here and I LOVE it.  With June just around the corner, I feel the heart of wedding season beating wildly.  I can’t wait to share with you what we’ve been working on with our amazing couples; it’s going to be a wonderful summer!

Here are some snippets of life to get you all caught up.  Everything below is from the last 7 days!!

Mehndi trial with Henna Me Beautiful

vivid colors and textures; I love the protea, orchids, two-tone roses and coral charm peonies together!  Beauty arranged by April Flowers SLO.

I can never get enough olive branches and seeded eucalyptus when it comes to soft and romantic arrangements… (also by April)

the poppies might be my favorite… (one more from April)

Olive at a birthday party for Romeo, adorable son of Eden from Sugar and Charm! (Photo is from her, too!)

Eden threw the party in collaboration with Milk + Bookies to collect donated books for kids who need them.  What a wonderful example of philanthropy to young Romeo and all the kids in attendance.  🙂

delightful lunch at Kentro Greek Kitchen in Fullerton

playing with pretties at Casa de Perrin.  I am loving their signature collection, including this gorgeous scalloped soup bowl!

Planning in progress with Tori, Tina and Lauren at {found} rentals.

pillow heaven at {found}

How are you all doing??  Any fun Memorial Day plans?  I’m hosting a tea at my home for some ladies from our church, so I can’t wait for that sweet time together.  In the afternoon, I hope to visit one of the various local festivals taking place this weekend.  Grill time is also a given; Erik has been grilling meat and veggies for us about twice a week.  It feels like summer!

Enjoy the rest of your day and see you again soon!

Last week was such a wonderful week, filled to the brim with outings and meetings and celebrations!  I have lots of posts to share but for now, I thought I’d sum up the activities of last week in one teaser post.  😉

1) We took Olive to Disneyland (her very first time) with our friend Jackie and her sweet baby X.  It was an amazing day and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.  Her Mickey encounter was picture-perfect!

2) I had a first meeting with a sweet new bride and we had so much fun chatting and planning that we had to schedule a second meeting later that week because we ran out of time!  I am truly grateful that I get the privilege of working with such smart, creative, kind-hearted clients.

3) I had a long overdue girls’ night out with two of my favorites: Mara and Eden.  We had the most scrumptious vegan + organic fare at Gracias Madre (highly recommended!) and more importantly, lots of laughs and great conversation.  Isn’t it the best when you can sit down with friends and feel like no time has passed since your last meeting?  Can’t wait for our next outing!

4) In 2010 I had the exhilarating and joyful experience of helping very special clients (now dear friends) plan their weddings here in LA and Taipei, Taiwan.  Last week I met up with them for a day full of meetings as we plan their extra-special vow renewal!  (They were technically married in 2009 — this year is 5 years!)  I am doing the planning and am collaborating with my fab friend Tori on the design which means double the outrageous detail and style!  We have a seeeeerious dream team in the works that includes Siren Floral Co. (I totally fell in love with Rachael after meeting her last week!), Braedon Photography, Heirloom LA, Elysium Productions, and many more to come.  Hold onto your hats for this one; it is going to be BEYOND.

just a few of the yummies we tasted at Heirloom LA

brian, tina, me, and Nicolette of Heirloom!

5) I turned 30 years old (woohoo!) and spent most of the day just hanging around with my family, doing some shopping and relaxing.  We had a delicious family dinner (my sister and brother-in-law surprised me and drove through rush hour traffic to join us!) and I felt so loved by all the texts, calls and messages I received that day.  Thank you to everyone for making my day so memorable!

shopping and Umami Burger at The Grove

my sis, Olive, me

6) And on Saturday… my sweet husband threw me a surprise birthday party!  I will admit that I knew something was up… He isn’t the best at keeping secrets (that’s a good thing!) and he was just acting odd.  I am not the easiest to surprise, either.  I could not have imagined what he had prepared with the help of my sister and brother-in-law (who opened up their beautiful home to be the hosts!) and my BFF Kristin (who prepared amazing flowers and decorations).  It was SO much fun!  I was shocked by all the sweet pals who made the trek to join in on the festivities.  I sure am blessed by my friends and family!!!  I can say that my 30th birthday was my very best yet, and if that’s any indication of the year ahead, I can’t wait for it all to unfold.

Today was a family work day in the garden as we visited 2 nurseries to pick up plants for our two large planting beds.  I love all the beautiful flowers and shrubs we picked out and I can’t wait to do the planting tomorrow.  Our vegetable garden is looking lovely; everything has sprouted and it is so neat to see some of the crops already looking like their mature forms (like the adorable bean sprouts and multicolored mesclun lettuces).

I’m going to grab a cup of coffee, finish clearing out my inbox and hop into bed early-ish.  We have another packed week ahead and if you can believe it, a very special little girl turns TWO in just a couple days.  I know, I know… I don’t want to admit it either!  🙂

See you again soon!

It has been a packed week full of meetings with sweet clients and I am going into the weekend SO excited for all the fun ahead this season.  Just this week, my clients and I did a walkthrough at Bacara, visited Classic Party Rentals and picked out linens at La Tavola, tasted cake at Decadence, met with the talented Tenley Erin Young, visited Presqu’ile Winery and had two trials with TEAM Hair and Makeup.  There was also lots of brainstorming and checklist checking-off and laughs… lots of laughs.  😉

lunch at State + Fig // this arugula, date, apple and pistachio salad was incredible!

picture perfect Bacara

couldn’t stop laughing with these two silly sisters!

I love Presqu’ile!

me and sweet Lauren <3

Although it has been a full & busy week, I feel so grateful to work with such wonderful people.  From my hard-working and creative colleagues to my sweet (and hilarious) clients, I am surrounded by a lot of love all the time.  It is a blessing to be a part of so many special celebrations and I cherish each and every opportunity I have!

I can’t wait to see these weddings come to fruition this summer.  For now, I’m off to put the final touches on a design packet for a very special couple (hi P&S!) and prep the house for some company arriving tonight!  Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Hello everyone!  I thought I’d drop in with a quickie post amidst a busy January week.  I am SO excited about all that in store for 2014 and the past couple of weeks have been filled with preparations and meetings and a wedding!  Yes, we kicked off our 2014 season on Saturday with the wedding of a dear high school friend of mine.  It was a beautiful day and a great way to begin our ninth (!) full season of weddings.

Recent happenings…

venue scouting with these lovebirds from London

squeezing in bedtime snuggles with this girl

multiple midnight car rides (I always drive while she can sleep) back and forth

crashing the birthday celebration of Jewel of {found} vintage rentals (FYI, Jeni makes the most INCREDIBLE chocolate chip cookies)

I savored this passionfruit pavlova donut from Sidecar Doughnuts.  You guys — it was INCREDIBLE.  It has a passionfruit glaze, fresh whipped cream, a little fluffy meringue and fresh passionfruit purée.  It tasted even better with sweet company from my pals Carissa, Christina, Carlie and Lindsay.

striking chandeliers at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion — site of our first 2014 wedding!

joy and laughter with my love and splendor girls last weekend!  we missed you, michy!!

Enjoying every second with this rapidly growing toddler!  Love this casual snap of us (thanks Lourdes!).

My fun tasks for the week: booking a steel pan band for a seaside wedding, sending out a set of summery save-the-dates, planning a vegetarian menu for an intimate vow renewal, putting together a design packet for a California chic wedding (think Mediterranean casual luxury, monochromatic blooms, fresh herbs and farm-to-fork inspiration), and organizing the final set of images for my BRAND.NEW.SITE and blog!  Yesterday my incredibly talented friend, Julie of Julie Song Ink, sent me the final version of my new logo/brand.  It is so utterly beautiful!  I am dying to share it with you all but I am waiting until the new site is ready to be unveiled along with it.  My current site hasn’t been updated in five (yes, five!) years so I am looking forward to debuting a fresh look and some never-before-seen work.

Love you all and am grateful for you!  Enjoy the rest of the week!

Happy Monday, everyone!  As you could have guessed from the lack of posts last week, things have been quite busy at Casa Swanson!  My sweet Olive got sick, then kindly passed it on to Daddy, so it has been nearly 2 weeks of playing nurse for me.  By God’s grace I escaped the plague (aka Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease — and yes, it’s as gross as it sounds!), so I am grateful I could take care of my loves!  Olive had an extremely mild case (thank you Lord) but it really took a toll on Erik.  I’m glad to see him recovering now.

In addition to caring for my “patients,” I have been working on our last wedding of 2013 (yay J&G!), preparing for a January wedding (yay T&J!) and meeting with some darling out-of-state clients who are planning their 2014 weddings (double yay!).

This darling pair will be married by the sea next summer!

And these cuties are planning a whimsical garden wedding on the central coast!

Olive also turned 21 months old somehow (!!!).  I can’t wait to share about all of these things and more in coming posts.

For now, I simply wanted to drop in and say hello and thank you for continuing to drop by here.  I’ve missed blogging and promise to share more soon.  Enjoy a sweet and cozy evening!