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Let Love Sparkle

Vanessa Escobar and Matt Wilhelm

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Vanessa's Favorites

Jennifer Cavanaugh, Coast & Co. Events

Vanessa says, “Communication is the key in any relationship,” and that advice includes the relationship between a bride and her planner. The rapport between Vanessa and Jennifer Cavanaugh helped ensure every detail of this fabulous wedding was perfect. “My parents commented on how Jen saw to everything,” Vanessa recalls, “down to sending presents to our room and having champagne brought to us in the morning.”

When Jennifer declared a double major in marketing and transportation logistics at Iowa State, planning weddings wasn’t exactly what she foresaw in her future. She began her career planning corporate incentive trips. But today she realizes coordinating luxurious weddings was exactly what she was born to do.

She had stopped working when she started her family but continued planning parties or cochairing charity events. “People would say, ‘Why don’t you call Jen?’” she says. People did. As word of mouth grew, she found people requesting she plan their weddings and Coast & Co. Events was born.

Her first step when meeting a bride is to make sure they are a good match. After discussing budget and the vision for the event, she maps out goals with a timeline. “Brides want to have a period of ‘bridal bliss,’” she says. “Most brides shoot for two weeks, but we want to have at least a week right before the wedding where they don’t have to worry about details.”

Her early training has stood her in good stead. “I see the whole picture,” she says. “I know how to deal with all the logistics of an event, down to measuring the loading dock and taking the limo through a dry run to make sure the driver knows the route.”

She describes herself as an advocate for the bride, willing to have the candid conversations with other vendors. “When we have meetings,” she says, “I go with them and ask the harder questions. I take the heat because at the end of the day, it’s about what the bride and groom want.”

Vanessa came to her with a definite vision, she says. She knew right away her colors would be coral and melon with crystals as a major motif. The wedding was to be elegant and, most importantly, it was to be fun for the guests. Going beyond the traditional guestbook, for example, Jennifer arranged for a photo booth to be set up at the reception. Family and friends stepped inside, then taped their pictures and wrote personal messages into a “Wedding Wishes” book.

Touches that reflected the bride and groom’s personalities were a priority with Vanessa, and Jennifer worked to make sure these were evident throughout the event. Besides the candy table overflowing with Skittles and Bubble Yum, the favors were in keeping with the couple’s well known fondness for sweets. A silver box with personalized M&Ms sat on a coral napkin at each place setting. The couple’s monogram, designed by India Ink, was seen everywhere, from the rhinestone cake topper to the carved ice of the martini luge.

Jennifer’s words of advice for brides are simple: “Choose whatever speaks to you and stay with what’s personal.”

Kathy Wright & Co.

“We came in looking at her book and I knew right away I wanted to work with her,” says Vanessa of floral designer Kathy Wright. Kathy’s reputation for impeccable standards and her 30 years of designing lavish and unique celebrations assured Vanessa and Matt their wedding décor would be a vision of perfection.

“I was given a gift, and my gift is that of creating heart-stopping, jaw-dropping events,” says Kathy. “My passion in life is to create for my brides and grooms, their families and guests, memories that will last a lifetime.”

Vanessa told Kathy she loved “bling” and she loved color. Given her long experience with the Del’s ballroom, Kathy knew how to keep the event elegant and sophisticated and yet give it the “edge” the bride wanted. “We chose to incorporate the color of her attendants’ dresses on the tables in the ballroom,” says Kathy. “Colored linens in a grand ballroom such as this were unheard of even as recently as five years ago. Shades of ivory, white or champagne were always the standards. But today we’re breaking the rules. I felt that this color, although vibrant and alive, was still a good match for the existing interior of the room.”

Kathy chose centerpieces that were elevated 30 or more inches, helping to fill the void created with the room’s palatial 40-foot ceilings. They were brightly colored as well, laden with bright celery green cymbidium orchids and hydrangea, shocking pink Ravel and coral Movie Star imported roses from South America, along with other seasonal blooms such as coral peonies, amaryllis and lime green viburnum. Vanessa supplied the team with crystals that they then dangled from the flowers. The tables glowed with light, projected from high in the ballroom ceilings, while the table tops came to life with clusters of votive candles, set in a base of bright pink and coral rose petals.

Kathy created her signature seating card table, which is covered in flowers with the seating cards slipped among the blooms. For Vanessa and Matt’s wedding, it was a rainbow of shades of bright coral and pink flowers.

As the bride and groom entered the ballroom, they passed through a beaded “curtain” of white orchids. Kathy also added a nightclub feel in areas of the ballroom, with clusters of ottomans encircling coffee tables near bars, candy stations and specialty dessert bars.

The team lit the room with beams of dramatic color and projected custom monograms onto the white dance floor. “We chose white because of its reflective nature,” Kathy says. “Light washes onto a white surface in a far more dramatic way than onto the usual wood surface.”

Vanessa wanted a more traditional look for her and Matt’s table. “We covered it with a white cloth,” says Kathy, “and then overlaid it with a beautiful sheer linen embellished with crystals, adding to the ‘bling’ of the look. I created a bank of white flowers that topped the table and added clusters of pillar candles and votive candles. Then we scattered the table top with more crystals from Vanessa!”

When she begins working with a bride, Kathy says her first question is: “‘How do you envision your reception as you walk through the doors and see it for the first time?’ I’ve gotten many different answers to that question over the years, but the one thing every bride says is ‘romantic.’”

India Ink

Stacey OF India Ink in Little Italy knows invitations, from the best weight of paper to the proper arrangement of enclosures. Having been in the industry for nearly 20 years and with a mother and sisters owning a stationery store in Santa Monica, she understands the importance of the perfect invitation.

For Vanessa, India Ink was exactly what she was looking for when it came to choosing her invitations. “I love unique things, and Stacey was amazing to work with. The staff is so supportive. If you’re stressed, you can take a minute there and relax.”

People are still talking about the gorgeous invitations created for Vanessa and Matt’s wedding. “We try to personalize what we do for the bride,” Stacey says. “When Vanessa couldn’t find the ink color she had envisioned, we talked about what she wanted and she ended up choosing the coral ink.”

Creating an ensemble for the scope of celebration Vanessa and Matt were planning took a team effort and several months. Amy Kreft, an in-house designer for India Ink, developed several concepts and presented them to Vanessa. Because Vanessa wanted sparkle to be a motif throughout her wedding, crystals were placed by hand on the the filigree pattern and the seal on the invitation as a final touch.

Since Vanessa and Matt were inviting guests to a number of events over the course of their wedding week, individual response cards had to be created that invoked the spirit of each gathering. On the rehearsal dinner card, for example, the heading read: “Our Last Night as Miss Escobar and Mr. Wilhelm.”

Stacey credits Vanessa for the wording of the invitation (“She was brilliant”) and planner Jennifer Cavanaugh for balancing the words with wedding etiquette, an important component of the process.

When couples come in to order invitations, Stacey begins by asking them about their own personal style. It helps when they bring pictures from a magazine, but inspiration can come by way of the venue. “Architectural ideas can start something,” says Stacey. She also asks what time the wedding will be held, the number of expected guests and if certain flowers have been chosen. All these factors can play a role in the design. “We use anything,” Stacey says. “Even something like an ad or a book cover they really like can be helpful. What we ask is that they be open minded and trust the experts.”

With two in-house designers, the store can easily customize invitations. It also carries a wide range of catalogues from small presses and large companies as well as many samples from previous clients to help guide brides bewildered by the maze of choices. All the elements—from typography to printing options—can be overwhelming.

“We’re here to serve them,” Stacey says. “People have complicated lives and complicated events, and we are sensitive to their needs.” To that end, India Ink provides total service, getting involved in as many of the details, from calligraphy to assembling, as requested by a busy couple. As a tip, Stacey recommends allowing at least two months for design and printing of custom work, while catalogue orders generally take four weeks.

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