25 Jan

Good monday morning! We have a very talented vendor to share with you all this morning. Anyone on the hunt for their wedding photog will have fun poring over Brion’s blog for at least the whole morning. So much color!

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Brion Hopkins is based out of Santa Barbara, where he went to school for photography at the Brooks Institute. After working for Elite Model Management for a bit, he felt like he wanted to shoot something more real. And weddings turned out to be the perfect focus, because he’s always been in love with people being in love, (which he attributes to his older sister making him watch Anne of Green Gables over and over when he was young). And you can totally see his background in his modern take on wedding photography. In his own words:

“I love shooting people in love and I try take a lifestyle photography approach to it. I want to ensure that 20 years from now these photos will still look stylish by keeping my work creative, airy, elegant, captivating and cinematic.”

And he travels wherever you want to send him.

BrionHopkins.com

14 comments

11 Jan

Buenos dias, bonitas! We have a really cute feature for you to start off the week. Most of you must already be familiar with Cheree Berry Paper, yes? Her studio is a little St. Louis gem, turning out some of the most beautiful paper goods in the industry. And if you SOME HOW missed Cheree’s wedding in Martha Stewart, make sure you spend a little quality time with it on Martha’s site. The paper (of course) is especially divine.

While Jillian was in St. Louis for Christmas, she popped in to Cheree’s studio for a visit… and look how cute it is:

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Adorable business cards, check.

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Inspiration everywhere…

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New invites for a New Year’s Eve wedding this year. And Cheree’s blue tights (we love).

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Aren’t they such a cute group?

Now a little about their studio and their process. And quickly before we let them take it away, you don’t have to be a St. Louis bride to hire them to create your invites. Cheree Berry designs for couples literally all over the world, with the help of our friend the internet and it’s hardworking cousin email. Which means you could have pretty paper made just for you by these lovely ladies no matter where you live!

And now a little bit about their company and their process:

“One of the best parts of working in the wedding stationery field is that each of our couples is completely different. This truly allows our days to be filled with creative brainstorming about how to translate a couple’s unique personality into paper. It also allows us to do what we do best – make sure each invitation is filled with touches of unexpected details. We want opening a Cheree Berry Paper invitation to be an experience – like opening a paper present. This means that each invitation must have something that you might not notice at first glance…

It could be a sweet phrase under the reply envelope flap that says “Betsy said yes. We hope you did too!” Or it could be non-traditional wording for the reply card. For beach weddings, we are loving “Yes, we’ll be there with shells on!” It might be a tiny spider hidden amongst a floral pattern or the couples’ initials hanging on a tree branch. All of these details are what we think sets Cheree Berry Paper apart from the rest.

We also get a lot of inspiration from our couples’ wedding themes or venues. For instance, one of our current couples is getting married on May 1 and it has been a blast exploring their “May Day” theme – spring flowers and ribbons and May poles! Another couple was married at Per Se – think New York City elegance and fine dining. Their save-the-date was directions for “how to open a champagne bottle” with little gold foil bubbles floating out of the bottle. As for the invitation, the back of the invitation was covered in a real cork backing.

We love brainstorming with couples about their ideas, but we also love to have creative freedom to explore our own ideas as well. This involves some trust on our clients’ part, but our hope is that all Cheree Berry Paper couples feel as though we are on the journey with them to make their wedding stationery as special and unique as they are. We hope that many of our couples think their stationery suites went above and beyond what they imagined in the beginning of the planning process. We also love having the freedom to make design suggestions to couples. For a recent Halloween wedding, we suggested a cobweb-themed ceremony program and for a New Year’s Eve wedding, a bag filled with confetti acted as the escort cards.

Our inspiration comes from so many sources, but more often than not, it comes from our clients! We love hearing the excitement in the bride’s voice during our very first conversation with her and we love seeing the pictures and the happiness in our couples’ eyes when it is all said and done.”

Thanks so much for having us over, Cheree! Make sure you all visit her site to see her pretty work if you haven’t yet.

photography by: Scott Clark Photo

flowers by: Bloomin’ Buckets Floral Design

16 comments

4 Jan

Our Jillian has started her own event planning/design company! We’re so super excited for her and thought this little announcement would be an excellent start to the new year.

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Jilly (as we like to call her) is just so talented in the realm of product styling and designing parties and projects and events, it was only natural that she start her own little company. She’s always been inspired by weddings and such, but in the last year with the awesome time we’ve had with 100 Layer Cake, it’s become clear to her that this is REALLLLLLY what she wants to do when she grows up.

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Make sure you check out her cute website and for those of you planning events in the near to distant future, keep her in mind! She’s based out of Brooklyn, but will CLEARLY travel anywhere for the right event.

JillianEventDesign.com

And, side note, check out Christina Hendricks’s wedding Emily posted last week. LOOOOVE Mad Men! Especially Joan.

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