Real Wedding - California

ABC Member Planner: Merryl Brown, 
CWEP, Merryl Brown Events, LLC, 
merryl@merrylbrownevents.com, 
www.merrylbrownevents.com.Photographer: Aaron Delesie.ABC Member Businesses Involved: Classic Party Rentals.Non-Member Businesses Involved: 721 Productions, La Tavola Linens, Aurora Ensemble, Bacara Resort & Spa, The Stationery Collection, Eye of the Day Garden Design Center, Camilla Svensson Burns, Designing Life.The Couple: Geoff and Shannon are a beautiful couple who charmed us from the moment we met them. We were drawn to the bride because she had recently lost her mother, and we felt we could create a wedding that would beautifully honor her mother's memory.Wedding Date: May 26, 2013.Inspiration: I thought about what the mother of the bride would have wanted for her daughter’s special day. In an instant, I knew she would have wanted A Secret Garden theme. When I approached the bride with this concept, she said her mother’s greatest joy was her garden. With this in mind, we created a lovely secret garden that opened to a vast view of the Pacific Ocean. The garden was overgrown, dripping with ivy and floral elements, with butterflies and rusted, wrought iron gates, trellises, antique keys, and sweet robins’ eggs.Color Palette: Palette of buttery shades of cream, buff, coral, and blush undertones with hints of spring green and lavender.Budget: $170,000.Guest Count: 130.Most Unique Design Element: The secret garden. We partnered with a garden design company and rented several dozen trees and masses of antique and new garden statuary as well as a beautiful, three-tiered fountain and two stunning antique garden gates.Biggest Challenge: We had to use several large trucks to transport trees and statuary and a giant forklift to delicately navigate the ocean-side path to the ceremony venue. On top of that logistical challenge, we had the threat of a massive windstorm, which required that we move the dinner from an outdoor to an indoor location hours before the ceremony.Hindsight: One thing we’d do differently is to have the dinner outdoors as originally planned now that we know the giant windstorm didn’t occur until the next evening!Learnings: We had to deal with many challenges at this wedding—one of which was the wind threat. My main takeaway was that sometimes problems occur that are beyond your control. The best you can do is to work hard to mitigate the issues, be gracious and in control, and not let your concerns overtake your professionalism. When you are there to do a job, do the best you can with grace and confidence.