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Wedding Colors – Elegance and Drama in Red, White and Black

Who says weddings should be “Pretty and Pink?” When this bride and groom began making plans for their March wedding, visions of “Blush and Bashful” were not part of the conversation. “Drama! Glitz! Glamour! Passion!” exclaimed the bride-to-be at the couple’s first meeting with DFW Events in-house Designer, Nelson Robinson, who quickly seized upon one word that seem to say it all: RED!

For her own gown, the bride found the perfect “princess dress” in a bejeweled soft white satin Kenneth Pool. It featured a strapless neckline softened by a flutter of pleated organza and mermaid silhouette. The entire gown was opulently embellished with silver and gold bullion, Austrian crystals and caviar beds. She gowned her attendants in black satin, ideally suited to showcase eye popping red bouquets.

The magnificent wedding cake replicated the bride’s gown and was topped with a glittering marzipan M (the first letter of the groom’s last name). Ornate mirrored stands supported the massive bouquets of white lilies and cascading orchids embellished with crystals tear drop votives. Stands of crystal beads extended from the ceiling. Diamantes encrusted the cake knife and server.

Luxurious red was integrated into almost every glamorous feature. An embroidered canopy hung over the expansive head tabled swathed in red linens where the bride and groom were seated on a tufted red brocade love seat. Guests danced away the evening on the red Lucite dance floor flanked by curved red silk sofas festooned with throw pillows. The band played in front of a red backdrop screen decorated with a distinctive AM monogrammed designed especially for the occasion. The monogram was repeated on the wall behind the cakes as well as the napkins and menu cards. The entire ballroom glowed red with a dramatic wash of lights.

Photography by Karlish Photography

Destination Wedding | The Beach

For our brides who are finding themselves engaged this holiday season, if you are looking for the beach as your wedding destination, think Mexico or the Caribbean.

• Weddings at One&Only Palmilla Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico can be casual or elegant but will always be perfect.
• For an idea, view this StrictlyWeddings.com One&Only Palmilla destination wedding.
• Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios specializes in organizing dream weddings at a spot that has been called ” …the gem of the Caribbean.”
• The photos from this Jamaica Inn destination wedding are definitely gem-worthy!

Our Bride & Groom Photographs Capture the Moments

We just love how this post came together. We’ve captured poses from our Featured Wedding bride and groom showing love, joy, drama, playfulness … all the wonderful, exciting emotions that can be experienced during the wedding day.

We are so grateful for the amazing talents of our StrictlyWeddings.com photographers who made these moments possible – Carasco Photography, Brian Dorsey, Phil Farber, Jai Girard, Thisbe Grace, Gruber Photographers, Scott Hagar, Jennifer Lindberg, Andy Marcus.

Chicago’s Carasco Photography

We are so thrilled to welcome Carasco Photography to StrictlyWeddings.com. We’re loving what we’re seeing and can’t wait to publish a featured wedding.

Over the past seven years, Carasco Photography has become one of the most sought after wedding photography companies in Chicago.

As a husband and wife owned company, Cara and Scott Nava understand firsthand all of the elements that go into planning your wedding day and choosing a photographer to preserve those memories. Their ideology is simple. In life there is beauty and through creativity they are able to celebrate this beauty through the still image.

With a MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago, Scott’s nationally recognized work has been in such magazines as Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Social Magazine, CS Brides and ChicagoStyle Weddings. Inspired by fashion editorial and every day experiences, this duo will convey a poetic and unscripted visual narrative of your wedding. Simply put, they love what they do.

Guilty Pleasures with Cake Opera Co.

Toronto based Cake Opera Co. was formed by the wildly talented duo (see below) Alexandria Pellegrino and Jessica Smith. Alexandria, the resident ‘artiste,’ and Jessica, the patissier, compliment each other’s talents and have created a totally unique take on the art of cake making. They describe their look as dramatic, evocative and design-sensitive, gearing their pieces to truly confident connoisseurs of sweets. Alexandria founded Cake Opera Co. in 2007 and since then has received tremendous international praise as one of the industry’s leading cake designers. She is the recipient of several awards including two gold medals on “Food Network Challenge“.

“Baroque influence is everywhere,” explains Alexandria. “Early on as a painter and sculptor, I drew most of my inspiration from the 18th Century bourgeois and the alluring concept of beauty and the sublime. As I began to shift my focus from fine arts to cakes, I fell in love with the frivolousness and fleeting beauty of cakes. The Rococo era perfectly encapsulated the ideas I was trying to portray.”

Salted caramel and heart-shaped macarons, boudoir-blue meringues, dark Valrhona chocolate bars flavored with pink sea salt, white sesame and crystallized ginger are just some of the incredible confections they offer.

Alexandria’s art takes the form of delicately sculpted, ornate cakes with her signature hand-modeled shapes like birds, Louis XIV and Venetian Moretto Mask figurines. Their cakes would not be complete without gilded flowers, gold and silver flourishes, (edible) Faberge eggs and other rich design elements that seem to explode off their pieces.

Cake Opera Co. also offers divine dessert tables called Operettas, in themes like Enchanted Forest, Black & White, Bohemian Chic and Ethereal White that can be filled with your choice of chocolate tablets, marshmallows, meringues, butter cookies, nougats and of course, cupcakes.

For Jessica, the pastry chef, she loves the moment when her clients take their first bite at a consultation. She’s a firm believer that tradition is more important than trend. Taste above all else!

She adores classic combinations like dark chocolate and fresh raspberries, honey and nougat, and black currant and lavender. She prefers to forgo the flavors of the moment.

She also confides that she is totally in love with their Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate and Cream Cheese Buttercream and, if she could, she would eat it every day. Their most popular flavor for wedding cakes is the Bourbon Vanilla Princess Cake with Fresh Lemon Buttercream and Blueberries, described as slightly tart, textured and refreshing. Their Banana Cake with Salted Caramel Ganache and Milk Chocolate Buttercream is also a major hit among their loyal clientele.

Newlyweds Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, who tied the knot in December 2010, had their towering Versailles-themed, white and gold embellished red velvet wedding cake created by Cake Opera Co. The lucky couple was depicted in sculpted sugar on the top of their cake, complete with period powdered wigs and all.

They are proud of the fact that they attract a sophisticated clientele that really wants something unique, something special created just for them; in essence, a bespoke cake. In the five years they’ve been a team they’ve never had a single client ask them to copy a cake from a photograph. Their customers are encouraged to dream and discuss freely what they see ideally in a cake.

Party Shoes & Bling with Benjamin Adams London

Where: The Left Bank Jewelry & Wedding Shoes

When: December 1-4

What: Party Shoes & Bling with  Benjamin Adams London
Introducing the new evening and special occasion collection from this eponymous
designer of fine shoes along with a dazzling collection of bijoux.

-20% discount on the entire collection
-No appointments necessary
-Special trunk show hours:
Dec. 1 & 2- 11am to 8pm
Dec 3 & 4- Saturday 11 am to 6 pm, Sunday 12-5 pm

Favorite Wedding Reception Floral Designs

Here are some of our favorite examples of wedding reception floral designs from our featured weddings. These floral designs make such a statement as guests walk into the reception area. Love the color.

Wander through our Featured Weddings

We regularly give you such wonderful featured weddings that highlight the talents of our StrictlyWeddings.com partners, but sometimes we think they may get hidden and you could miss them – we don’t want that. They are amazing photographs that tell the story of the bride from getting ready, to walking down the aisle to the creative “thematic” details to the reception where the party begins.

Our latest Featured Wedding is from Chicago’s Jai Girard. We have another incredible wedding from New York’s Gruber Photographers that will follow. So take 15-20-30 minutes and wander through the fabulous world of luxury weddings from StrictlyWeddings.com.

Photo by Jai Girard

Photo by Gruber Photographers … looking forward to our next featured wedding!

Vera Wang – The White Collection 2012

Breaking the pace a bit and (giving ourselves a break) to show you several of Vera Wang’s gowns from her 2012 White Collection. We’re really loving the simplicity of the gowns.

Featured Wedding | Mike & Christen | Wedding Chicago Style

The oh so fab photographer Jai Girard, our Chicago StrictlyWeddings.com partner, sent us this wedding (and others to come soon) that is truly wonderful! We love Jai’s dramatic photos and how she captures her bride and groom is so many fun and creative ways.

Our bride and groom, Christen and Mike, met through a mutual friend and there first official date was the following night … love at first sight? Mike proposed to Christen atop a cliff overlooking the desolate Papkolea Green Sand Beach on the Big Island (Hawaii). A very rare type of beach, its unique olive green sand is made of a smi-precious stone eroded by the ocean and crushed into fine sand. Mike surprised Christen after a 3 mile hike through volcanic rock to get there.

Fun to know…Christen’s something old was a beautiful diamond that she won at the grand opening of a department store. Her parents had placed in on a ring setting that she was allowed to wear to church until she was old enough. By then, it was dated so it was put away in her mom’s jewelry box. Come her wedding day, her parents surprised her with her “old” diamond in a new beautiful necklace.

Ceremony: St. Hyacinth Basilica
Reception: The Blackstone Hotel
Wedding Gown: Lazaro
Shoes: Jimmy Choo
Flowers: A Stem Above
Cake: Take the Cake
Entertainment: Bradley Young Orchestra
Rings: Harry Winston