WHERE: We got married at a private Estate in Escondido, a newly built mission style house in gorgeous surroundings. We had both the ceremony and the reception outside in the backyard. The yard was large enough for both, and had 2 dance floors, and a fire pit to keep us warm as the night progressed. One of the dance floors surrounded a large tree that was covered in twinkle lights. Twinkle lights also streamed across the yard that helped create a romantic, almost like a fairytale, scene.
THEME: It was somewhat new to me to have a theme for a wedding. Even a color scheme is not necessarily something you consider for weddings in Denmark. So I never really decided on any of those, but had some keywords that such as ‘garden style’ and ‘vintage-like’. From there I just went with things that I saw and loved. We wanted a relaxed, back yard, and summery feel but at the same time feeling of celebrating… I never really had a clear vision how everything would come together. I think I kept going for an atmosphere rather than a look. We wanted to be flexible and never really thought, ‘ok we want this’ but tried to remain open and used key words we had in mind.
GUESTS:135 total, 21 came all the way from Denmark and one from Sweden which such a gift to both of us that so many travelled so far to share our wedding day with us.
DRESS: I wore a strapless Marisa dress. Initially I looked for something with lace, sleeves or straps, and something simple. Eric got the right amount of vintage and a timeless look to my engagement ring, and I actually ended up using that as my guide when dress shopping - I wanted to find a dress that was in the same style as the ring that because he really nailed it and made something that ‘looks like me’. I tried on a lot of dresses and was lucky to find a sample dress, it didn’t have straps or sleeves, but I just liked how the material, which was 100% ivory silk charmeuse with Chantilly lace overlay, felt and looked. I never had a moment where I fell in love with the dress until after the wedding when I saw the pictures - it looked how I envisioned it. It was a simple, timeless, and soft dress with hints of vintage style. Since it was a sample, it had quite a few tears and was many sizes too big, I had a local seamstress resize the dress and fix the tears and she truly did a great job.
BRIDESMAIDS: The seven bridesmaids (my sister, 5 cousins and one American “sister”) all wore dresses from H&M. Bridesmaids aren’t a Danish tradition in weddings, but Eric explained the meaning behind it, and it was fun to choose special people in my life to share in the day. Nana, my sister, insisted on being called the ‘best girl’ after she heard the guy version is called ‘best man’-maid of honor didn’t cut it for her. It was really special to me that I could honor my cousins who traveled a long distance to come to my wedding in California. This decision made sense because we have all been very close since we were children. I didn’t mind if the girls wore different dresses, I thought it could add their own personality to the wedding, but I wanted to find at lease one affordable option since they were traveling so far. I ended up finding two affordable options, both from H&M, and all of the bridesmaids looked good in them. We found some lace at a local fabric store in Denmark and made sashes for the bridesmaids to use if they wanted. Some of my bridesmaids wore jewelry with a daisy flower on it, because it is the Queen of Denmark’s favorite flower and a very common piece of jewelry in Denmark. I also had an American as a bridesmaid because I lived with her family a few years ago when I was interning at a church, and we grew close and became ‘sisters’. The gifts that I gave the bridesmaids were fresh water pearl earrings that they all wore for the wedding.
GROOMSMEN: We didn’t want the groomsmen to be too formal as we were going for a garden style feel also we didn’t want them to wear a jacket for an outdoor wedding in mid July in Southern California. The groomsmen wore their own black pants and black shoes, and wore matching shirts off white/beige color and grey silk skinny ties similar to the grooms tie from the store Express.
HAIR: Was by my new sister in law Sarah Hartzheim, who got my hair just like I imagined even though we never had a hair trial. I wanted my hair to look big, wavy and natural
MAKEUP: Also by Sarah. I don’t wear a lot of make-up normally and I am clueless about anything beyond mascara and blush, so I had Sarah help me with the look. For the eyeshadow, I wore brown colors with hints of purple. For the lips, I kept it natural with a nude color and gloss.
RINGS: My husband Eric surprised me in every single way when he proposed to me in Denmark on November 13th 2009 with a beautiful ring he designed. He worked with Lance from Lance Geiger Jewelers in Brea, CA to design a simple, vintage, and elegant look. The engagement ring was made out of yellow gold with a hand hammered finish. The diamond was .62 Karats and had 85 facets (which makes it the most brilliant thing I have ever seen). I always admired my grandma’s old engagement band which my grandma inherited after my great grandma when she passed away. It was originally my great grandma’s wedding band from when she married in 1904. My heritage and family means a lot to me so for a long time I wanted to copy of it for my wedding band. Lance and his team had their work cut out as was so worn out that it was hard to tell the original design. After a bit of reconstructing they found a similar design in a book with ring ornament and told me it was most likely a combination of two Victorian ring ornaments. The ring turned out incredible! Also made in yellow gold the ring (which is only a size 3), was crafted with incredible precision – brining to life the unique designs. And Eric’s ring is a simple yellow gold ring with a flat surface and a hammered finish; similar to the engagement ring’s hammered finish. We had the best possible experience working with Lance Geiger.
STATIONERY/INVITATIONS: We had rustic and vintage in mind with our invitations. We wanted a pocket invitation so we could include a map/direction card, registry card, and RSVP card. We wanted to have some of our awesome engagement pictures on the save the dates and we also wanted to make it a magnet so that people wouldn’t forget about us J! The invitations and save-the-dates we got through Eric’s Uncle who owns his own Office and paper supply company. So Eric’s uncle graciously paid for all of our stationary needs. Eric and I had a lot of fun finding fonts online to use for the envelopes to make a more unique invitation.
FLOWERS: The florist Allison was so easy to work with and very flexible! I love big soft flowers and bouquet that are not too tight and structured. I chose a paler color palette, but not all white, with a lot of different flowers for my bouquet and bright summery colors for the bridesmaids. I love the look of lose and fresh picked flowers. So for the tables, we had a wildflower look that I thought would fit a garden style wedding as well as our budget.
CEREMONY DETAILS: Processional: Sæglópur by Sigur Ros – my dad and I walked in to my brother playing acoustic guitar. It was such a personal ceremony for us as a close friend officiated the wedding and I had my uncles read and do the welcome. During the communion two of my cousin sang my favorite Danish hymn followed by Amazing Grace. We walked… danced out to Another Day by Jamie Lidell.
RECEPTION DETAILS: We incorporated some Danish traditions such as a traditional wedding waltz and cutting the tip of the grooms of (the traditions says that with a hole he wont be attractive to other women anymore and the wife get a chance to show that she’s a good wife who can fix the sock for her husband.. we don’t actually do that at the wedding :).
CAKE:The cake was a gift from Eric’s Mom. It was 3 tiered and decorated with fresh flowers.
ENTERTAINMENT: The D.J. we hired was amazing and played the music ‘old style’ using turntables. We suggested a lot of our favorite songs for the dancing and dinner portion of the night. Just as we had hoped there was a packed dance floor for the remainder of the evening.
FOOD & DRINKS: As appetizers we had food made by my mother, Eric’s mother, and some of my aunts. Small things to eat that were homemade made the atmosphere cozy, and we were guarantied to have good food. We had amazing crepes by Crepes Bonaparte. They were customizable with fillings such as chicken, tomatoes, pesto, bell peppers, chipotle sauce, and avocados just to name a few. It was fun because we were able to print out recommendations that had our favorite combinations included. As the evening progressed, the dessert crepes were made available with dessert fillings with strawberries, bananas, chocolate, and whipped cream. The food was incredible and all of our guests were satisfied.
The drinks available were Sangria, water, lemonade, fruity lemonade, coffee, iced tea, champagne, and red wine. The red wine was Carmel Road 2008 Pinot Noir.
LITTLE EXTRAS: One extra decoration we had were little paper cones that lined the aisle. They were filled with rose petals and were used to shower us, the bride and groom, as we walked down the aisle as man and wife. They were hand-made using all different kinds of scrapbook paper, tissue paper and colorful ribbons.
Another extra was incorporating Danish words around the site. These signs were made and hung around. Some Danish words that were incorporated were ‘Nygift’ meaning ‘Newlywed’ and ‘Tak’ meaning ‘Thank You’. The signs were made using vintage looking paper and flowers made from scrapbook paper on some ribbon.
As Eric carried me to our get-away car, the guests showered us with bubbles.
BEST ADVICE FOR PLANNING A WEDDING/TO BRIDES:
Get friends and family to help. In my experience they love to help out and their help was such a gift to us. Not just because it’s nice to have someone help you out with the wedding planning but also because we felt SO loved that so many people would help us – and that feeling lasts long after the wedding and into the future and made us both feel extremely rich!
In the church I attend my pastor often says at weddings ‘think how much time you spend planning a wedding compared to how much time you spend planning your marriage’. Your wedding is just one day your marriage is for the rest of your life. We tried to keep that in mind while planning the wedding and I actually think it made our wedding day even more special. I think it helped us view the day as a celebration of the new beginning and not worry too much about little details that aren’t important when everything is said and done.
Figure out what part of the wedding planning you like and put most effort there!
Involve your fiancé (if he wants). Even though it can get hard and it can seem easier to do it your self I loved working together with Eric and that it was Lina and Eric’s wedding and not just Lina’s wedding.
LINA'S CONTACTS:
- PHOTOGRARHY: t & h photography
- BRIDE'S DRESS & VEIL: Mary Me Bridal, Tustin, CA – the veil was made by a local seamstress
- BRIDE’S SHOES: Michael Shannon shoes
- BRIDESMAIDS DRESSES: H&M
- BRIDESMAIDS SHOES: n/a
- RINGS: Lance Geiger, Brea CA
- HAIR: Sarah Hartzheim
- MAKEUP: Sarah Hartzheim
- INVITATIONS: n/a
- FLOWERS: By Allison Vandewarker from Avant Garde Events
- RECEPTION: Private Estate, catering: Crepesbonaparte
- CEREMONY: Private Estate
- WEDDING PLANNER: Lana Meadows
- ENTERTAINMENT: DJ, Bill Child
- DECORATIONS: n/a
- VIDEOGRAPHER: Danielle and Jared from SidebySideVideo
