I just love the combination of classic wedding prettiness with the rustic touches of a California vineyard in today’s wedding of Grace and Kyle, photographed by Vincent Au and planned by Frances Liu of Charmed Events Group!

The Couple: Grace and Kyle

The Wedding: 5.19.12 – Thomas Fogarty Winery – Woodside, CA

What were the top three priorities for you in planning your wedding?

Since most of our guests were coming from out of town, it was important for us to have a wedding that was welcoming and fun, and showcased the beauty of California, since that was where we fell in love! We wanted an outdoor wedding in a vineyard where people could enjoy the sunshine and the great wines that California has to offer. When we first saw Fogarty Winery, we immediately fell in love. Not only was the vineyard gorgeous, but the the outdoor spaces for the ceremony and dinner were fantastic as well, and offered stunning panoramic views of the Bay Area. Fogarty Winery offered the perfect mix of sophistication, rusticness and romance.

It was also important for the wedding to reflect us as a couple and individually. We are both very family-oriented and love our parents dearly. To honor them and to show our love and appreciation, we had a special rose ceremony for our parents during our ceremony. Since we are both private people, we chose not to write our own vows but instead wrote love letters to each other that we read in private right before the wedding. Grace loves wedding details and arts and crafts, so it was important for the wedding to have a lot of DIY items, like our Fogarty cork place card holders, tissue paper flowers, straw flags and homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies favors.

Since our wedding was in the spring, we wanted it to feel like a romantic garden party. We wanted our color palette to be soft, but with pops of vibrant color to stand out among all the vineyard greenery, so we chose a sherberty theme of pinks, corals, oranges, peaches and yellows. Kyle is a diehard Oregon State fan, so his boutonniere had to be orange (no yellow and green University of Oregon duck colors allowed!).

What wedding traditions or cultural traditions did you incorporated into your wedding and what did they mean to you? Even though our wedding was very Western, we wanted to incorporate some Asian influences into our wedding to honor Graces culture. We did this by having the Chinese Double Happiness character incorporated into each of our paper stationary items, from hand embossing the character on everyones invitation label to including the symbol in our programs and menus.

What was your biggest wedding planning success? Our biggest success was that everyone had a BLAST at our wedding (us especially)! By the end of the night, almost all of the alcohol was gone and everyone had a smile on their face. Since we were up a steep mountain and didnt want our guests to have to worry about drinking and driving after the wedding, we arranged for shuttles to bring all of our guests down the mountain.

What was the most important thing that you learned through the wedding planning process and what would you tell other brides-to-be? Definitely enjoy the day! Everything passes by so quickly, so you need to just sit for a moment and take it all in. To see all your closest family and friends in one place celebrating you is an amazing feeling, so enjoy it! And hire a good wedding coordinator to ensure that your big day is stress free!

The Wedding Team:

Photographer: Vincent Au
Event Planner: Frances Liu, Charmed Events Group
Ceremony& Reception Venue: Thomas Fogarty Winery
Videographer/Film Maker: Wing Hon
Officiant: Rod Murcray
Invitation Designer: Wedding Paper Divas
Catering: Schumanns Four Seasons
Florist: Amy Burke
Cake: Satura Cakes
Wedding dress: Pattis
Bridal accessories: Shoes – Badgley Mischka
Hair and make-up: Aimee Lam
DJ: Big Fun DJ
Live music: Krista Strader (Harp)
Transportation: Destination Systems
Favors: Personalized jelly bean tins from Jelly Belly Candy Company, and homemade cookies
Rentals: Mens Warehouse
Photo Booth: Photo-matica

Thank you Grace and Kyle! What a beautiful day!