Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Maren Photography’

Have you seen the Modern Love Decor Inspiration photo shoot editorial in the new issue of Real Weddings Magazine?

Here, in our final installment of our three part blog series, we present even more of the gorgeous photos from the shoot. This shoot was on location at Helwig Vineyards and Winery, shot by the talented Sarah Maren and her team at Sarah Maren Photographers, with the concept design and styling by the incomparable duo of Kate Miller Events and Flourish, and featured newlywed couple Emly & Alex. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see all of the other amazing local wedding vendors who contributed to this shoot — well done folks!

Enjoy!

And, here’s a slideshow of the shoot in its entirety.

Thank you to all the vendors who contributed to this piece:

Photographed on location at:

Helwig Vineyard & Winery

11555 Shenandoah Road, Plymouth

209-245-5200, helwigwinery.com

Photography:

Sarah Maren Photographers

916-538-3602, sarahmaren.com

Design and Coordination:

Kate Miller Events

888-808-KATE, katemillerevents.com

Design, Floral Design and Hair Accessories:

Flourish

916-212-5179, flourishdesigns.com

Bridal Gown and Tuxedo:

Always Elegant Bridal & Tuxedo

530-755-4282, alwayselegantbridal.net

Hair and Make-up:

Hello Glam

LeiLani Miladi, Make-up

Reneé Marquez, Hair

530-301-7088 (LeiLani)

530-632-8313 (Reneé)

helloglam.net

Cake and Desserts:

Sweet Cakes By Rebecca

916-370-7760, sweetcakes.biz

Lighting:

Exquisite Events & Entertainment

916-925-7888, exquisitedjs.com

Linens:

La Tavola Fine Linen Rental

916-321-9333, latavolalinen.com

Rentals:

Classic Party Rentals

916-444-6120, classicpartyrentals.com

Stationery (paper and wood):

Luxecuts^©

888-808-KATE, luxecuts.com

Blog Post by Editor/Publisher Wendy Sipple.

Photos by Sarah Maren Photographers, © Real Weddings Magazine.

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

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The Couple:  Rachel Leach and Darren McCarty

Wedding Date:  June 26, 2010

Photography by Sarah Maren Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  Darren and I met five years ago when we worked at the same company together. I’m the social butterfly and he is the the quick wit! We’re really are a perfect match!

What was the most amazing part of your day?  As any other bride would say, “The whole day was amazing!” But if I had to narrow it down… I definitely have a top three.

(1) The Reveal: the moment that I saw Darren for the first time on our wedding day was unforgettable. Once we saw each other, all the background noise faded away, and I was left with the calm silence of holding my husband-to-be.

(2) Dancing with my father: Everyone who knows me… knows that this was the pinnacle of my life to date. Being the baby of the family and having a father plagued by heart disease… dancing with Dad was a big deal.

(3) Sunset Photos: Not only did our photographers make us feel like super models… but my new husband and I got to hold each other on the rooftop… watching the sun set on the city where we had fallen in love with each other. It was the perfect day.

What else would you like to share about your big day?  Our families and friends are AMAZING. We absolutely could not have had such a memorable day had it not been for the tireless efforts of our family and close friends.

Whether it was making gift bags, running to the ATM, or distracting 5-7 nieces and nephews… no one hesitated to say, “How can I help?” We tried to plan a wedding where our friends and family would have an amazing time… and it turns out, they are the reason it was an amazing time.

Ceremony Site:  The Citizen Hotel, Grand Ballroom

Cocktail Hour:  The Citizen Hotel, Scandal Lounge

Reception Venue:  The Citizen Hotel, 7th Floor Terrace

Photographer:  Sarah Maren Photographers

Videographer:  Heritage Video

Wedding Planner:  Jackie Young, Every Little Detail

Caterer:  The Citizen Hotel

Cake:  Icing on the Cupcake

Flowers:  Ambience Floral Design

Favors:  None… have you EVER kept or remembered a wedding favor??? Spend the money on champagne!!

Wedding Dress:  Miosa Bride

Bridesmaid Dresses:  Bella Donna

Hair:  Sam Hayes, Jr.

Makeup:  Shannon Squires

Invitations:  Wedding Paper Divas

DJ/Entertainment/Band: Supernatural Soundz

Honeymoon location:  Oh my goodness… well, it was supposed to be Playa del Carmen in Mexico. Unfortunately, Hurricane Alex (first of the season) hit the day after our wedding… which was the day before our departure. Luckily, I learned quickly that I married the right man… because he had purchased trip insurance!! Which gave us enough wiggle room to plan an impromptu honeymoon in San Diego, CA. I wouldn’t have changed a thing!!

Any other of your wedding vendor(s) you’d like to call out?  Hamilton’s Jewelers (Sacramento… especially Daniel, my rings are AMAZING!!), Fontaine Dance (Roseville), All Seasons All Reasons Fine Catering (catered my parents cocktail party the evening before the wedding), Judge Tom Cecil, Ten22 (Old Sacramento… especially Koreena Schulz, they hosted our rehearsal dinner and were phenomenal)

First Dance Song:  Forever by Ben Harper

Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now?  Holy smokes… ENJOY IT!!! Say thank you more than you think you should. Remember that your fiance asked you to marry him before you determined a “goal weight.” And throw as many parties as you can… this is the one time it is all about you two!!

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  Not a single thing.

Photos courtesy of Sarah Maren Photography

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Another real wedding loaded to our Real Weddings Magazine Web site!

Congratulations to Featured Real Wedding couple Aimee & Jarrod Carroll who were married on May 15, 2010 at the Malibu West Beach Club.

Click here to read their story, see their slideshow of photos from Sarah Maren Photographers, meet their wedding dream team and more!

Photo courtesy of Sarah Maren Photographers.

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Do you feel that chill in the air? Yeah, me either, but it will be here soon, I hope.

Fall has officially arrived in spirit, if not yet in weather, but why wait…let’s bring on a new palette of warm and rich hues to color your wedding.

With the bridal bouquet, a fall wedding inspires shades of red, burgundy, orange, yellow, amber, brown and vibrant green. With the earthy, harvest mood of the season, it’s also a great time to incorporate natural components other than flowers, like berries, twigs, and leaves.

Here are a few beautiful examples from Sacramento-based Blooms By Martha Andrews:

Photo by Sharpe Photographers.

Above:  Orange calla lilies, antique roses, leonitas roses, red safari sunset, browning leaves.

Photo by Sharpe Photographers.

Above:  Orange ranuculus, calla lilies, dahilas, roses make up a fall posey.

And check out these sunning fall creations from Sacramento’s Flourish:

Photo by True Love Photo.

Above:  Flower girl pomander of Kermit poms accented with roses, grain and orchids

Photo by True Love Photo.

Above:  James Storeii orchids, Sahara roses, oak leaves and guinea fowl feathers

Photo by Sarah Maren Photography.

Above:  Roses, black brunia, star of Bethlehem, fern fronds and sweet peas wrapped with an Italian silk ribbon and detailed with punched leather flowers

Above:  Pincushion protea, wax flower, cymbidium and mokara orchids, tropical leaves and brunia berries

Stay tuned for more gorgeous fall bloom bouquets!

Blog Post by Always a Bridesmaid Columnist Darren Elms.

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The Couple:  Elizabeth Kempton (a.k.a Tibby) and Thomas Wroten

Wedding Date: March 28, 2010

Photography by Sarah Maren Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  We’re both from Sacramento and went to a small private school locally. Sacramento Country Day School was small enough that we were acquainted in high school even though we were two years apart. After attending college in Southern California, we both ended up back in Sacramento, working at the school we attended. Tom is the Director of Technology and I’m the Library Assistant. We met up again five years ago and started dating a little over two years ago. Since we started dating, we’ve become inseparable.

What was the most amazing part of your day?  The day was the culmination of six months of hard work, planning and organizing. Seeing it go off without a single hitch was probably the most amazing thing. The food was pretty spectacular too.

What else would you like to share about your big day?  Our whole wedding was book/library themed. Our save the date was a book mark. Our invitation was a mini book; Birds and Words which is a Charley Harper book. The RSVP card was a due date slip in a library pocket, like you see in old-school library books. Our favors were Media Mail packages. Our table numbers were Dewey Decimal call numbers. And our thank you cards were overdue notices.

I walked down the aisle to the Indiana Jones theme song. I’m a librarian now, but I started out as an archaeologist, so I harbor a love for Indiana Jones. When the song starts out, it’s pretty unrecognizable, but as soon as the melody started everyone in the audience started laughing. It was a much needed moment of levity since everyone, including Tom, was sniffling.

We had our ceremony early in the morning, 10:00 AM, and on a Sunday. We really wanted to have a brunch with an omelet bar. It also gave us the afternoon to be with our out-of-town friends. Having it on a Sunday gave some of the guests some extra time to get to Sacramento, and they were able to leave early enough on Sunday evening to make it home for work the next day.

We decided that since we had all these friends in from out of town, we would spend the afternoon doing something fun with them. We rented out a bunch of lanes at Crestview Lanes. We had a blast bowling in our wedding clothes. Tom and I got our own bowling balls and had them engraved with “His” and “Hers.”

Ceremony Site:  Private Residence

Reception Venue:  Private Residence

Photographer:  Sarah Maren Photography

Caterer:  Magpie Catering. The food was AMAZING. People are still telling us how good the meal was.

Cake:  We didn’t have a cake or even cupcakes After some deliberation we decided cake at noon would be a little decadent, especially on top of a heavy brunch.

Flowers:  Our mothers arranged the flowers. We were able to buy them wholesale through a friend. The flowers were actually what set the color scheme for the whole wedding. We really wanted to do lots and lots of daffodils since it was early spring. That meant lots of bright green and yellow.

Favors:  Tom designed a little logo for our wedding with two little birds on top of a ring. We had it made into a stamp. This went onto the favor box with a “media mail” stamp. The actual favor was two or three daffodil bulbs. We didn’t really want to give people something that they would want to toss at the end of the day. The bulbs could be planted and will come up next year right around our anniversary.

Wedding Dress: Priscilla of Boston, Vineyard Collection, “Trish” from Bella Donna Bridal.

Bridesmaid Dresses: We didn’t have a wedding party.

Hair: Victoria Wotzka

Makeup: Victoria Wotzka

Invitations: Crazy people that we are, we made our own invitations. Tom designed them himself and we printed and assembled them. My dad owns an old Chandler and Price printing press, so we got it up and running and letter pressed the cover of the invitation. The invitations were truly handmade.

DJ/Entertainment/Band:  We used a faculty band from the school we work for. It was the French teacher, the two band teachers, one of the high school students, and a drummer from another band they play in.

Photo Booth:  Tom put one together with an app he bought for his Mac laptop. We hooked up a digital camera and a photo printer. It didn’t look as swank as one of those old fashioned photo booths, but people had a blast and the result was the same. Plus we have all the pictures saved on the computer.

Honeymoon location:  We went to Napa for five days and stayed at Bardessono in Yountville. What a relaxing week!

Any other of your wedding vendor(s) you’d like to call out?  I want to reiterate, Sarah Maren, our photographer, was INCREDIBLE. And so was our caterer, Magpie. The two things we decided to spend the most money on were our pictures and our food. We were not disappointed with either.

Tom and his dad had custom suits made by Steve Benson. Steve was a wonder to work with and the suits were sublime.

Crestview Lanes, which has sadly closed. We rented out several lanes and had an open tab at the bar. They were very friendly and helpful.

First Dance Song:  We actually didn’t have any officially planned dancing.

Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now?  Try not to stress too much. In the scheme of things, it’s one day and no one notices the blips. Plus they make for great stories later on. Tom forgot his shirt and his dad had to drive back to our house to pick it up. We still started on time and not a single person knew it had happened. Not even me!

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  I don’t really think there is anything I would have changed. It was as close to a perfect day as it could have been.

Photos courtesy of Sarah Maren Photography.

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