Archive for the ‘Camino Flower Shop’ Category

The Couple:  Jennifer and Christopher Tredennick

Wedding Date:  October 29, 2011

Photography by Lexigraphics Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  Christopher is a computer engineer working for Hewlett Packard and I (Jennifer) am a freelance court reporter. We dated for a year and a half before we got engaged, and we are proud to say we planned our wedding in five months.

The story about how we met is pretty fun. Jennifer’s younger sister, Heather White, went to University of the Pacific in Stockton with Christopher. Heather had become friends with several people in Christopher’s fraternity at UOP and eventually befriended Christopher as well. Heather went to visit Christopher at his home in Santa Clara one weekend while she was driving through town where he treated her to – apparently – an absolutely memorable dinner where he prepared cheese meatballs. Heather visited her sister Jennifer a week later and reported with enthusiasm, “Jennifer, I have someone I really would like to introduce you to. He makes amazing meatballs.” Eventually, an introduction was arranged with a gathering of mutual friends, and Christopher and Jennifer were attached from that moment forward. Heather’s inclination was spot-on while trusting her match-making intuition.

What was the most amazing part of your day?  Well, of course, it was spectacular to get to marry a man that I admire, love and respect so much. But one of my favorite and most memorable parts of the wedding was when it came time to feed cake to each other. My husband cut a bite out of the slice we had cut together, and looked at me, and without hesitation, gulped down the piece of cake without a second thought. Christopher is a huge cake enthusiast and actually picked out the flavors for the wedding cake, so it was completely appropriate that he would get so caught up in his enthusiasm about eating cake that he’d forget to feed it to his bride first. When discussed later, Chris exclaimed, “You practice every other part of the wedding, but we never practiced feeding cake to each other. We hardly even talked about it. You can’t really blame me, right?”

What else would you like to share about your big day?  Our mantra for planning our wedding and wedding day was the following:  We have two goals for this wedding: We want to get married and have a really fun party.

We abandoned the goals of perfection for our day and encouraged everyone in our family and bridal party to abandon it also. As long as we ended up married at the end of the day amongst all those we love and adore, that’s all we could hope for. I am so grateful we adopted this attitude and would give every bride and groom the same advice.

Remember that the day is about celebrating the commitment and vows you’re making public, it’s not about the pomp and circumstance, and it will not be perfect. We put our faith and trust into great vendors and a wonderful venue; we delegated our wishes out to friends and family; and our wedding came together so wonderfully and we had SUCH A BLAST! Hold on loosely to the details and perfections, what is important at the end of the day is that you’re married to the love of your life.

I was also so humbled by all the amazing people who were eager to offer up their talents and gifts to help us with our amazing wedding. My mom, Charlene White, and “second mom” Heidi Leveroni spent hours planning and putting together a beautiful candy buffet as a gift to us; two women who have been doing my hair since I was a young girl insisted on offering up their skills for my special day and helped make me and all my loved ones look stunning. A long-time family friend — who works for Renfro’s bridal shop in Placerville and has been doing alterations on all my special-occasion dresses since my eighth grade graduation — did an absolutely spectacular bustling alteration and dress alteration to help me feel beautiful on my perfect day. Christopher’s parents threw an absolutely generous and amazing Texas-style rehearsal dinner for all the bridal and extended families, which ended up being about 100 people in total. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were so supportive and loving, they were drama-free and couldn’t have been more helpful. We are so grateful and humbled about how much love was showered on us, and we are so grateful for everyone’s contributions.

Ceremony & Reception Site, & Caterer:  Lake Natoma Inn. We selected the Lake Natoma Inn in Old Folsom. It was so convenient and we were very happy with our choice. We had about 2/3 of our guests coming from out of town or out of state, so we chose a location where no one would have to drive anywhere for anything. They could stay at the hotel and walk to anything we needed. Old Folsom had a lot of fun fall activities going on during the weekend, and the ambiance of the town, restaurants and shopping was great for everyone. It was so convenient, and no one had to worry about driving anywhere if they didn’t want to. The staff at Lake Natoma Inn were great, and we can’t say enough about how easy they made everything and how reasonably priced they were.

Photographer:  Lexigraphics Photography. We loved working with them. A dear friend of ours recommended them to us, and it was a great recommendation. The fact that they’re a husband-and-wife team made it so easy to work with them because they could divide up on the day of the wedding and work with the groomsmen and bridesmaids. You hardly noticed they were there unless you wanted to talk to them. They were so sweet and supportive, I can’t say enough about them.

Cake:  Cakes by Angie. Our cake was made by Angie Cain, and we got raving reviews about how it was the best cake that people had had at a wedding. It was very moist and so yummy. Our flavors were chocolate chip cake with peanut butter butter cream filling, and white cake with Oreo butter cream filling.

Flowers:  Camino Flower Shop. Dottie was so fun to work with, and you can really see her enthusiasm and artistic abilities shine through her beautiful flower arrangements. I would highly recommend her.

Favors:  I dipped Oreos in chocolate as party favors for my guests. This was a surprisingly uncomplicated process and I really had a lot of fun doing it. It was a very inexpensive way to send party favors with our guests, and it was nice that it had a personal touch to it. We also had a candy bar.

Wedding Dress:  Renfro’s Bridal. All the dresses were so reasonably priced compared to all the other dress shops we’d gone to, and the service was so much better. I did all of my other shopping in Bay Area bridal shops, and the service I got at Renfro’s was so much more genuine and enjoyable.

Bridesmaid Dresses:  David’s Bridal

Hair:  My dear family friends, Lynda Frandsen and Eileen Skates-Gervasi, who are very gifted and talented hair stylists who did a magnificent job on my hair.

Makeup:  My gifted and talented, Whitney Egbert, (we’ve been friends since kindergarten) flew all the way from New York to help me with my makeup, and I had NO CLUE she was coming until I was getting my hair done on my wedding day. I was facing a wall while Lynda was doing my hair and all of a sudden I felt a pair of arms wrap around me and turned around to find my friend had flown in from New York for 48 hours to be at my wedding, and my husband was the only other person that knew about it. It was one of the most amazing surprises that day.

Invitations:  DIY from Vistaprint

DJ/Entertainment/Band:  Function 45. I cannot say enough about our experience with our DJ Steve Schon. We had more people comment on our DJ and how amazing he was than about almost any other part of our wedding. His selections in music were great, and he really took a decent amount of time to get to know Chris and me before our wedding, and he played a huge role in getting the guests up and grooving. He helped make it so much fun, and we are so grateful for what he did for us. Our first dance was literally magical with the creative touch he adds. He had Chris and me record audio messages about our feelings about each other, and then fused the messages throughout the song we chose for our first dance, I was in tears because they were some of the most tender words I’ve ever heard Chris say to me was during that recording. Steve was absolutely professional, and I am happily recommending him out anywhere and everywhere I can. He was worth every penny!

Honeymoon location:  Chris actually planned the whole honeymoon, and we spent a week on an island in Belize. Chris told me what to pack and how long to pack for, and I didn’t find out where our final destination was until we landed in Atlanta for our connecting flight to Belize. We stayed at an all-inclusive island in a thatch hut over the warm water, and we had a spectacular time. We got to snorkel four times, we went on a really fun river cruise, we toured the Mayan ruins, and the food and staff was amazing! The price was extremely reasonable as well.

First Dance Song:  ”When You Got A Good Thing” by Lady Antebellum

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  We wish we would have had one more hour to dance. We tried to save money by having everything go from 5:30 – 10:00, and Chris and I hardly got to dance at all because we were talking with our guests so much.

Photos courtesy of Lexigraphics Photography.

Check out the Real Weddings Contest Page! Great bridal loot for real Sacramento-area brides!

Subscribe to the Real Weddings Magazine Blog!

Another Featured Real Wedding from the Winter/Spring 2012 issue of Real Weddings Magazine loaded to the Real Weddings Magazine Web site…presenting Online Exclusive couple Kristine & James Johnson!

Congratulations to Online Exclusive Real Wedding couple Kristine & James Johnson who were married on April 1, 2011 at Sequoia.

Click here to read their story, see their slideshow of photos from Artistic Photography by Tami, meet their wedding dream team and more!

Photo courtesy of Artistic Photography by Tami.

Check out the Real Weddings Contest Page! Great bridal loot for real Sacramento-area brides!

Subscribe to the Real Weddings Magazine Blog!

Here at Real Weddings Magazine, we are so fortunate to work with some very talented wedding professionals. And no where was their talent on such display than at our cover model photo shoot this past March.  

We always like to use local resources for our shoots, and with that in mind, we asked five of our Real Weddings Partner floral designers to design some bouquets for the shoot…and boy were their bouquets gorgeous!  

 So without further ado, let’s start your Monday morning off with a little floral eye candy!  

Above flowers designed by:
Flourish
916-212-5179, flourishdesigns.com  

Above flowers designed by:
Camino Flower Shop
530-644-5730, caminoflowershop.net   

Above flowers designed by:
Botanica Floral Designs
916-673-8650, botanicafloraldesigns.com  

Above flowers designed by:
Heavenly Flowers & Events
916-941-1171, heavenlyevents.net  

Above flowers designed by:
Natural Flair Custom Floral Designs
530-677-0878, naturalflair.net  

Thank you Flourish, Camino Flower Shop, Botanica Floral Designs, Heavenly Flowers and Events and Natural Flair Custom Floral Designs for sharing these bouquets with Real Weddings for our shoot!  

Blog Post by Editor/Publisher Wendy Sipple. 

Cover photos by Jacqueline Photography, © Real Weddings Magazine. For additional cover model shoot photos and details, please see blog post announcing our new cover model winner. 

Check out the Real Weddings Contest Page! Great bridal loot for real Sacramento-area brides!

Subscribe to the Real Weddings Magazine Blog!

The Couple:  Kimberly Armstrong and Julien McAdams 

(Editor’s Note: If Kimmi looks familiar, she should — Kimmi was our cover model winner for our Winter/Spring 2010 issue!)

Wedding Date:  July 3, 2010

Photography by Jodi Yorston Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  Julien and I met when I got into a fender bender with someone in a parking lot. He came over to make sure I was all right and to assure me that everything would turn out okay. It turned out more than just okay…I’ve now got a husband and a whole new chapter of my life to look forward to.

What was the most amazing part of your day?  I have to say, the most amazing part of the day was when we had the last song of the night. Our DJ, Anthony, put on the song we had planned for “It Had To Be You,” by Harry Connick, Jr. Anthony had everyone make a circle around Julien and I as we danced and it looked as if we had choreographed our every move. We were enjoying the day and each other so much that it made the dance look like as if it was planned. Everyone then ended up separating into their own groups so they too could enjoy the last dance of our wedding.

What else would you like to share about your big day?  Our wedding was truly meant to reflect the people that Julien and I are. We are still told to this day that our wedding was amazing and people felt like they were getting to experience us and how we are as a couple. The day was filled with great weather, a smokin’ hot wedding party, good food, good drinks and the wonderful people that we care about. An unforgettable experience.

Ceremony Site:  Newcastle Wedding Gardens & The Red Horse Barn

Reception Venue:  Newcastle Wedding Gardens & The Red Horse Barn

Photographer:  Jodi Yorston Photography (she’ll get on the ground or up near the ceiling to “get the shot”…A GREAT photographer)

Videographer:  My friend, Marie, grabbed her camera to be by my side and tape the day.

Caterer:  Newcastle Wedding Gardens & The Red Horse Barn

Cake:  Family member, Shelly, made the cake for our wedding gift.

Flowers:  Camino Flower Shop

Wedding Dress:  I took a chance and bought the dress online to be made. It was a big ordeal, but I got lucky and had an amazing dress.

Bridesmaid Dresses:  Purchased at ROSS

Hair:  Hoshall’s Salon

Makeup:  Hoshall’s Salon

Invitations:  DIY

DJ/Entertainment/Band:  A&A Music & Events  (EVERYBODY loved Anthony — he made my day)

Honeymoon location:  Cabo San Lucas (we purchased it the Thursday before the wedding with thanks to our moms!)

First Dance Song:  “Sunshine,” by Steve Azar

Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now?  If you have any vendors that you know you will be using, ask them for suggestions on venues. Using the “grapevine” that these professionals already have, might make it easier to find the place of your dreams. Also, I would definitely have your makeup and hair professionally done. What a difference it makes on how you FEEL about yourself when a professional gets you “camera ready.”

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  I would have been a little more clear on it being an adults only wedding. We loved having the children there, but it made the money situation for us difficult. Also, I would have slowed myself going down the aisle. It is important to not let yourself rush through anything, even if it’s because you’re excited.

Photos courtesy of Jodi Yorston Photography

Do you have the new Real Weddings Magazine iPhone and iPad App?

Subscribe to the Real Weddings Magazine Blog!

Your email:

 

The Couple:  Kathy Hourmand and Jason Laneve

Wedding Date:   July 3, 2010

Photography by Shepard Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  We met 16 years ago and have been lucky enough to grow together as best friends and now as teammates. Marriage was never something that mattered because our commitment to one another was so strong.  However, we couldn’t think of a good reason not to make it official.  So when Jay popped the question on Christmas, it was an absolute yes from Kat! It’s been a wonderful new stage of our relationship ever since.

What was the most amazing part of your day?  At the ceremony, seeing each other at the end of the aisle as well as the family style dinner where we shared lots of laughs and toasts! Also, having our maltese/child, Angel, as our ring bearer/flower girl…seeing her trot down the aisle all by herself and then later during the ceremony wander behind us to “take care of some business” was a real treat.

What else would you like to share about your big day?  It  was so wonderful to celebrate our love of many years in a beautiful vineyard setting with an intimate group of family and friends, it’s exactly what we wanted, and we’re so proud of being able to create something like that together. Since Jay is Italian and Kat is Iranian, we had an idea of a Mediterranean event and it was done so nicely that many of our guests said they felt like they were on a Tuscany hillside.

Ceremony Site:  ParaVi Vineyards

Reception Venue:  ParaVi Vineyards

Photographer:  Shepard Photography   

Cake:  Assorted individual desserts by Sugar and Spice Specialty Desserts

Flowers:  Camino Flower Shop

Favors:  Olive oil bottles prepared by the bride

Wedding Dress:  Gabrielle’s Bridal Atelier

Hair:  Talayeh Hourmand

Makeup:  ConniMaree Catano

Invitations:  Wedding Paper Divas

DJ/Entertainment, Lighting and Lounge Furniture:  Sonny Gallardo of Exquisite Events & Entertainment 

Honeymoon location:  Mini-moon in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe

First Dance Song:  ”Stand By Me” by Ben E. King

Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now?  Know your vision going in and don’t let anyone deter you from that.  If it’s important to you, take the time to explain exactly what you want but in the end don’t sweat the small details…no one will notice those things. In the end it’s a celebration of you and your partner and there’s nothing people love more than a good party!

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  Perhaps gotten a “day of” wedding planner. It’s tough to justify this when you’ve done all the work leading up to the special day but it might have been worth it to hand the final day off to someone else to worry about and to keep everything organized. Also, we were torn between two caterers who seemed equally as good in their tastings but price wise were far different. We decided to go with the cheaper caterer which turned out to be a mistake. While her samples were good, she clearly lacked the experience to produce an event like the one we wanted. In making wedding decisions, couples want to be as economical as possible without sacrificing quality so perhaps pick a couple areas where you are willing to spend more and in turn spend less in other areas that may not be as important to you.

Photos courtesy of Shepard Photography   

Subscribe to the Real Weddings Magazine Blog!

Your email: