On Saturday, October 2nd Stacia Childers became Stacia Smith as she exchanged vows and rings with Ryan Smith in a wedding ceremony at Wolf Lakes Park in Sanger, California. Usually for an October wedding you’d expect cooler temps and fall colors, right? Well, not this one!
Unfortunately, the weather did not really corporate with us for this ‘fall’ wedding. With temps soaring close to 100 degrees with 100% humidity, the day was a little uncomfortable, but we made the best of it. We had a sudden downpour of rain in the morning during our set up and another huge downpour at the very end of the night during clean up, but other than that, the rain clouds were just a threat during the day.
Stacia and her mother contacted me almost 16 months ago to assist with their wedding plans. Stacia is a teacher and her wedding plans were already starting to stress her out, so they brought me on board to help ease the stress. Stacia and Ryan chose the English Garden at Wolf Lakes Park for their wedding and we soon started putting together to pieces to their wedding. Wolf Lakes is always such a great place to work, their staff is amazing, the food is great and the park is so beautiful this time of year!
Stacia and her mother decided early on in the planning that they wanted to create their own centerpieces not only to save some money but to also create a very unique look. Black, white, silver and bling adorned each and every aspect of this event. The bride’s mother created 3 different uniquet centerpeices with candles that lit up the English Garden of Wolf Lakes Park. We started out with a U-Haul full of stuff….yep that’s right a U-Haul full! But actually, having a small U-Haul at the end of the night was great for getting everything back home, including the gifts, left over cake and food.
The day started early for this bride and groom, with photos before the ceremony with Tom and Keccia Milne of Milne Photography. The bride and groom wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to enjoy their reception, so they decided to see each other before the ceremony for their family photos. Tom is a great photographer, one who doesn’t mind a little dirt on his tux to make sure he gets ‘that perfect’ shot!
Stacia and her mother decided that they wanted to do the majority of the decor, but they still needed bouquets and other floral accents. After much searching, they decided to go with Amy DeGraw at Brown Bunny Flowers. Amy created beauitufl white bouquets for the bride and her attendants, that we then placed on the head table during the reception (great money saving tip by the way) Amy also created small white floral balls that were placed on shepherd’s hooks down the center aisle. It helped pull everything together.
To help create the overall color theme of this wedding, the bride worked closely with Irene at Maty’s Chair Covers. She provided black crushed linen for all the guest tables and crisp white chair covers with black sashes. Maty’s also provided the silver chargers for the tables where we place the menu cards and CD favors.
Probably my favorite part of this wedding, was the dessert! The bride and goom love ice cream, so why not serve it at the wedding? Well, serving ice cream can be tricky, but an ice cream cake was……..a piece of cake! They chose two different flavors from Cold Stone Creamery. The guests were so excited to get this chilly treat, especially at the end of a very hot and humid day. The bride and groom also chose a cake from Eddie’s Bakery for the traditional ‘cake cutting’….this cake was actually never served to the guests. We boxed it up and they served it at the Day After Brunch on Sunday.
After dessert, the guests were treated to great dancin music from Todd Henry of AMS Entertainment, a great way to finish off the night. Even though it was so hot and humid, this group kept the dancing going! I will say that they did go through a lot of iced tea and that famous Wolf Lakes Pink Lemonade.
As the bride and her mother worked on the decor for this wedding, they began to collect a lot of decor, including votives, centerpieces, candle holders, etc. If you see anything in these photos that you are interested in for your own wedding, please let me know….everything is either for rent or sale!
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Special Thanks go to:
Wolf Lakes Park
Milne Photography
The Black Tie
Maty’s
AMS Entertainment
www.amsentertainment.com/fresno
Brown Bunny Flowers
