Behind The Scenes: A Tuscan Wedding Dinner for Southern Bride Magazine

 I was kicking back after a busy holiday season with my latest guilty pleasure -- Pinterest 

(Lillie's has its very own board here) -- just searching around, and what should pop up but this photo shoot of a Tuscan themed wedding dinner...a photo shoot that I had done with Southern Bride Magazine! So, I thought I should share more of it here. 

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Oh how I wish we'd been in Tuscany, but alas, we were not. Instead I set up the shoot at an old Spanish Colonial home tucked away in an unlikely part of Birmingham. Gabrella Manor, as it is now called, had the right bone structure to give us our night in Tuscany. 

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Each element on the table shares a common theme of elegant rusticity synonymous with the Tuscan countryside. Textured linens, raffia, hand-thrown pottery, dark wood and hand-painted tiles form a backdrop for an abundance of fruits, herbs and late summer blossoms. 

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These wonderful baskets tied to black chivari chairs are filled with rosemary, tomato red rosehips, antique hydrangea, garden roses, fushcia beautyberry (or pokeberry as we call it down south) and tiny sunflower-looking mums called vyking.

 

 Here (above) is wedding planner Anita Kanellis of AK Brides who worked with me to pull the look together with wonderfully rustic place settings from Peter’s Pottery,  linens and chairs from Aztec, and beautiful invitations by The Invitation Place. 

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Diane Olexa of Olexa's Cakes baked this stunning gold wedding cake - almost too pretty to eat....almost. Bridesmaids dresses by Dalia McPhee, and of course, to set the mood, Andy Tolar of Design Productions hung strings of cafe lighting.

Natural light was provided by the Alabama sun, which refused to dim for most of the very balmy evening. I suppose this should have helped me get into character, but in my dreams Tuscany has less humidity.

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The folks at Southen Bride Magazine brought in The Foto Altelier  to shoot stills and these shots are straight from the video made by the always fun, John and Angela Deaver of Main Street Productions who documented the event on video here on Vimeo.  Enjoy - Ciao!

Weddings 2011: Fall leaves and wood slices

Fearless color isn't the only fearless thing about Ryan and Whitney's wedding. After all, this is the groom who chose to pop the question in one of  the most daring ways I've heard (And I've heard a bunch!) He sent his beloved, Whitney, high into the air aboard a skydiving plane and then stood at the target landing sight with a giant sign:

"I Love You Whit. Will You Marry Me?" 

Come to think of it, Whitney is the real firecracker! How many girls would jump from a plane into the arms of her man? 

And so it was appropriate that Whitney's wedding at The Sonnet House was a riot of fall's brightest colors: firecracker red, tangerine, and fearless yellows. 

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I love how photographer Frank Carnaggio captured the intensity of Whitney's bouquet of tulips, freesia, rosehips, and billy balls.

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 The rustic mantle at the Sonnet House was the ideal foil for a swath of fall foliage and vines.

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To round out the rustic theme,Whitney's precious parents brought in these wonderfully aromatic slabs of cedar from a fallen tree.

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