We’re always thrilled when we get to share images created by the wonderful Elizabeth Messina, our dear friend and a Junebug member photographer, and today’s photo collection is sweeter than ever! This lovely spring wedding shoot took place in France at a chateau that the Junebug team loves dearly, and just looking at the images takes us right back there. Ahhhhh… please excuse me while I daydream for a moment! The gorgeous female model is Ireland’s Faye Dinsmore (check out her style blog here!) and it’s so fun to see one of the photos on the cover of the current Bride & Bloom magazine. We hope you enjoy these images as well, and that you’ll take a moment to let yourself daydream along with us!
What three adjectives that best describe your wedding? Inviting, personal, romantic.
What inspired your personal wedding style, and how did you incorporate your style and personalities into your big day?Neither of us is very comfortable being the absolute center of attention, which is hard to avoid from when it’s your wedding. Also, it was really important for our friends and family, who had traveled such distances, to feel cared for and be part of the entire experience. This led to us choosing to have a smaller and more intimate wedding, creating a warm and inviting environment that leaned more toward a lovely yet comfortable dinner party rather than a big traditional reception. We wrote our entire ceremony and had family members read and sing, and each guest offered a rock from the beach as a symbol of their blessings and well wishes. In the end, we wanted the night to be spectacular and personal without feeling overworked, and I think having the privacy of a villa perched up on a cliff set the tone for the entire night.
Ben and I weren’t going for a “beachy” wedding. Instead, we wanted to embrace the energetic and familial culture of Mexico, so if we were ever at a loss for inspiration, that’s where we’d look. The welcome cocktail reception and our rehearsal dinner played up the liveliness of Puerto Vallarta with oilcloth tablecloths, papel picado, tin can vases, loteria and string lights. The ceremony and reception each had a more rustic yet sophisticated feeling with copper lanterns, twinkling candles and lights, a warm color palette of reds and marigold, and potted agave plants.
Looking back, what are the moments, decisions or memories that you love the most about your wedding? All of the walls to our dining area were open to the ocean breeze. There was one point during the reception that we were standing there with my parents and brother, and each of us looked out to see a full moongiant and shining down onto the water and coloring the sky a deep dark blue. The previous night’s had been a bit cloudy, but at that moment, we all stood there grinning at the perfect scene, taking the night in. It was such a cliché, but so simple and perfect at the same time!
Overall, deciding to get married in Mexico and handing over many of the details allowed both of us to actually enjoy every day of the wedding weekend. Of course, certain moments were harried, but we honestly feel like we sat down and enjoyed the moment with each guest,which was exactly how we wanted to remember the day.
Also, I really can’t emphasize enough how important my *ladies* were during the entire process…My Dazzling Details and KLK Photography ladies, that is.
Kristi from KLK was planning for her own wedding just days after mine, so we went through all the steps together on opposite sides of the country, bouncing ideas off each other left and right – it was like having another bridesmaid along for the ride, except she was eventually behind the camera and it was a godsend having a photographer who we trusted so much. I think our comfort with Kristi and Paul made all the difference in being comfortable in front of the camera too.
As for Kristin and Michelle (and their entire behind the scenes crew), there are no words. They have wedding planning down to a science, yet make you feel like the only bride in the world. It is an uncanny ability. I think they excel when they have a bride who truly believes in them and their vision, and although control is not something I cede easily, I was so happy to give them the reigns. They followed any specific request that I made to a tee and then worked magic on every other detail that I hadn’t envisioned (and didn’t feel like thinking about!). Over and over everyone kept saying that the team had done such an amazing job and kept pointing out details that I hadn’t even noticed (like having custom stitched bean bags for the Corn Hole game – which is a Midwest tradition – and a picture of our puppy sitting on our plates when we sat down). My uncle went on and on about how the entire night was an experience of a lifetime, and I couldn’t agree more, thanks to Dazzling Details.
Wedding color palette: Poppy, marigold and a deep sangria-esque red.
The Wedding: 3.26.11 – Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
What three adjectives that best describe your wedding?Unique, fun and heartfelt.
The feelings expressed on our wedding day, not only between Emre and myself but also from our friends and family, were all so incredibly warm and sincere. We really tried to personalize each aspect of our day and to think out of the box when it came to entertaining our guests. We wanted to create a vibrant but inviting atmosphere for everyone and in return we felt surrounded by a lifetime of love and friendship that we will cherish always!
What inspired your personal wedding style, and how did you incorporate your style and personalities into your big day?We are big architecture and design aficionados, and have a particular fondness for the Art Nouveau and Craftsman movements. I also have a love for vintage styles, especially when it comes to clothing, music and dance. When we first got engaged, we knew that Terranea was the place for us as it not only had a gorgeous location on the ocean but it conveyed a true old – and grand – California feel.
I started incorporating our style by designing our Save-the-Date postcard, in which I chose my favorite Arts and Crafts font and used a scan from a real 1920s postcard back. Emre and I both work at NBC, and I wanted to incorporate a peacock into our invitation suite, but also wanted to use the same font and style of our save-the-date postcards. I found the exact design I was looking for on Etsy, and hired Mali Chi from Hello & Co. on the spot. I worked closely with Mali on all the stationery designs, to stay faithful to our motifs and color palette. As both of our families live far away (mine in Canada, and Emres from the East Coast and Turkey), and we ourselves have lived in various cities around the world, we decided to continue the postcard theme with our escort cards. We bought almost 50 different vintage postcards on eBay and named all of our reception tables after cities we lived in, or that held a special meaning for us (such as Vancouver, where we got engaged during the 2010 Winter Olympics). We wrote personal stories for each of the cities and addressed them to each guest, and made sure each table had an assortment of different postcards so they could compare and share. We set them out in old wooden card catalogs set amongst a vignette of vintage decor that included an Art Deco velvet green fainting couch, old lamps and used books.
We also added smaller rustic touches to the day, like weathered signs and antique frames, our initials handcarved in wood and a custom ringbearer book stack. This love of vintage style was also reflected in our music choices: we had a swing quintet play 1920s and 30s music for our cocktail hour and part of our reception, I surprised Emre by singing a special song, Youre A Heavenly Thing, just for him, and then a DJ capped off the night with modern fare.
Tell us all about your wedding music video!Initially we wanted to do a concept video that we planned to show at our reception but our ideas required a lot of resources and time, neither of which we had in the final months leading up to our wedding. So we brainstormed with our videographer David Robin and the idea of a music video shot on our wedding day came up.
The bar for participation would be low since we just needed people to lip-synch a few lyrics and/or dance to to the song. We knew our friends and family would love the idea, and it would a great gift to give back to them as a unique memory of our day. We had very specific criteria for choosing the music: 1. Big song with lots of energy, and a fun and easy chorus, 2. Singing parts for girls and guys, 3. Relevant lyrics fitting with a wedding, and not R-rated, and, 4. Timeless song that won’t be dated when we watch this 10 years from now. The Time (Dirty Bit) by The Black Eyed Peas met all these conditions, in addition to being a newly released song and one we didnt tire of listening to again and again.
We divided up the lyrics amongst our bridal party, family and friends so they were manageable, we hired a choreographer to teach us some simple moves that our bridal party could perform at our reception, and we informed all our guests beforehand about the plan to film on the day. We shot all day leading up to the wedding, immediately after the ceremony (in fact, we recreated our recessional so we could lip-synch to the song!), and all throughout the reception. We assigned all the spoken word dirty bits to those individuals who would be the unlikeliest of stars: JP Reynolds (our officiant), John Reynolds (our hot jazz guitarist and friend), Emres father Ziya, and finally my father Gordon (who filmed his part at a urinal!).
We couldnt have been more thrilled with the outcome thanks to David Robin and his team, and the 100% support we got from our wedding coordinator Amber Gustafson and the staff at Terranea Resort.
Looking back, what are the moments, decisions or memories that you love the most about your wedding? Finding our wedding coordinator (Amber Gustafson of Amber Events) was the first best decision we could have made! We are both extremely busy with our careers, and having someone to guide us — especially someone whose taste so beautifully mirrored our own — made the entire year of planning a joy and devoid of stress (well, 95% of it hehe).
Choosing to have our wedding at Terranea really set the tone for day, in terms of look and feel. We had great memories of staying there before our engagement, and always thought it would be our perfect venue.
Taking the time to choose a photographer who gets us, and whose style compliments our own. We began working with Callaway Gable Photography last summer on our engagement session and that really put us at ease come our wedding day. They are so detail-oriented and were so much in-tune with our vision for the day. Looking at our photos now we couldnt have asked for a more perfect portrayal of who we are and what the day meant for us, our family, and our friends.
Doing a first look before our ceremony took so much stress out of the day for us, and really let us relax that much more and spend time with our guests.
Deciding to shoot the music video was one of the best decisions we could have made. We knew how ambitious the project was (and how much our coordinator would have to go the extra mile to accommodate it) but we were determined to make it work, and have fun doing it – and we did! Once our friends and family saw the completed video, it truly became the most talked-about highlight of our day!
What was your wedding color palette? Apple Green and Pumpkin Orange. Green is my favorite color (and the color of my eyes) and orange is Emres favorite color. They also worked perfectly with our design ideas and the spring season!
A behind the scenes view from event planner Amber Gustafson of Amber Events: “After planning all of the details of their wedding day together for almost a year, Joya and Emre told me about this music video idea just a few weeks before their wedding. While they storyboarded who would lip-sync which portions of the song, I worked with the videographers and photographers to lay-out a timeline that would not only allow everyone to get what they needed for the wedding day itself, but also this music video. We were producing a wedding and a music video all in the same day. No pressure, right?!
Joya and Emre had sent an email out to their guests ahead of time giving them the heads up, and also wrote a note in the program asking them to get up and sing to the camera after the ceremony. They did their recessional three times, actually: the first one was their official “we’re married!” walk down the aisle, and the second two were directed by David Robin, the videographer.
Potential inclement weather on the wedding day put yet another stress factor on the 7 cameramen, 4 photographers, and 4 wedding coordinators orchestrating this, but with team work we all made it happen. We think it was worth it!”
Thank you so mcuh for sharing your day and your hilarious music video with us Joya and Emre! And kudos to the whole wedding team who worked hard to bring this day to life!
Junebug Weddings uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. We also use cookies to show advertising that is most relevant to you. If you continue you agree to the use of cookies on Junebug Weddings.
Terms & Conditions
.jpg "Photographers")
