Email  Print  Feed

A White Wedding

Nicole Garcia & Ben Crase

WHEN TWO STYLISTS decide to get married, it’s bound to be a chic affair. And so it was for Nicole Garcia and Ben Crase, who share a mutual passion for turning hair into art for well-heeled clients.

They gave their wedding the same star treatment, using a contemporary, clean palette, with the Ivy Hotel as their backdrop. Color, of course, played a key role. “In the invitation we requested white, cream or beige cocktail attire,” Nicole says. “And everyone for the most part followed along, which is kind of cool because you’re normally not supposed to wear white if you’re not the bride.”

The early-evening ceremony was held atop the Ivy and was officiated by cantor Deborah Davis, who wore white as well. Nicole’s sisters walked her down the aisle to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” and Davis not only led the vows but also sang a moving rendition of “Our Father” in what the bride calls “such a beautiful operatic voice.”

After the ceremony, the 120 guests were escorted downstairs for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in a room decked out in orange—from lighting to the linens. Perfect Pear, the featured concoction, kept guests imbibing while the staff transformed the rooftop from ceremony to reception site. Hundreds of candles set the mood and complemented an all-white design palette—from chairs to linens to flowers— accented with hanging lights in ice-blue. “We’re not huge flower people,” Nicole says of their choice to keep floral arrangements to a minimum, using only white orchids for an understated elegance.

“The hotel really waited on us hand and foot and made all of our guests feel like a million bucks,” Nicole says. “Everyone was so kind and service-oriented that we never felt like we needed anything else. Everything was always at our fingertips.”

The food stations were particularly successful, especially since the Ivy’s catering team was charged with creating a menu with fare as different from typical wedding food as possible. “Ben is a really picky eater and hates typical wedding food,” Nicole says. Instead, the groom wanted hamburgers, so the chef created mini Kobe beef burgers alongside French fries in a cone, which delighted both the bride and groom. Other food stations featured sushi, ginger salad, fajitas, Kobe hot dogs and macaroni and cheese.

“It was pretty fun the way the food was,” Nicole says. “At the end, they passed around cookies and milk in little shot glasses. It was upscale comfort food.”

Another area where traditional wouldn’t work was the wedding cake. Rather than the expected flavors, the couple requested a three-layer coconut and lemon confection. “I wanted it to almost look homemade and it did,” the bride says of the cake designed by Cake in Mission Hills and topped with an 80-year-old vintage bride-and-groom statuette.

In keeping with the clean color palette of her wedding, Nicole selected a dress by Les Habitudes that she says “felt like me, like second skin.” The groom wore a light-gray suit, making him one of the only people not wearing white. “It was kind of cool that he stood out that way,” she adds.

Though the Garcia-Crase wedding was largely monochromatic, it was also multidimensional, blending cozy with cutting-edge, new with the old. As Nicole says, “We just wanted to make everyone feel comfortable.”

Nicole's Favorites

Kristin Garuba, Pink Papaya Creative Events

“IF IT WEREN’T FOR HER, we would have eloped,” Nicole says about her wedding planner. “She did everything and was so kind, so understanding, so organized, so business-oriented with so many ideas. She was able to pull everything together and it never seemed like it was hard for her.”

Thanks to the Garcia-Crase wedding, Garuba holds the distinction of having planned the first wedding at the Ivy Hotel San Diego. “We did deal with a few details that changed as things progressed,” Garuba says of challenges that made her even more creative. For instance, to solve the issue of privacy on the rooftop, where the poolside bar remained open to the public during the wedding, she hung 14-foot-long white chiffon curtains. They not only worked to cordon off the wedding from the general public, but they blew romantically in the breeze and added to the ambience.

“Lots of hotel guests wanted in and thought this was a celebrity party,” Garuba says. “I have to say it ended up being one of the best-dressed crowds. I’ve never seen that many gorgeous dresses.”

Kelly Fitzgerald Photography

&rdquoKELLY FITZGERALD AND MIA DELCASINO are truly fine-art photographers,” Nicole says. Having shown their art in numerous gallery exhibitions and with a worldwide network of devoted collectors, the award-winning duo is highly experienced at transforming a mere moment into a piece of art.

They took our vision to a whole new level,” says the bride, who cried when she first saw her wedding album. She was awed at Fitzgerald and DelCasino’s ability to capture an instance that no one else would have noticed.

“They’re really loving and have great energy,” Nicole says of the characteristics she felt would be necessary for capturing both subtle and exciting moments. One of her favorite images is the reaction from Ben, captured after he saw his new wife had changed from her wedding gown into a sequined mini-dress to kick off the late-night boogieing.

Dennis Bergstrom, B’Entertained Live Guitar & DJ Entertainment

“MUSIC IS A REALLY BIG THING FOR US,” says Nicole, “so we wanted a deejay who was also really into music.”

Ben is also a fan of flamenco guitar, so their choice was easy: Dennis Bergstrom isn’t only a full-fledged wedding deejay, but a classically trained guitar player as well.

Bergstrom entertained guests with guitar solos before the ceremony and coordinated the evening music strictly to the couple’s specifications. “He is so knowledgeable where music is concerned,” says Nicole, who was pleased with Bergstrom’s choice to play tunes by some of the couple’s favorite bands, including Coldplay, Radiohead, the Doors and Led Zeppelin.

What the couple found most appealing about Bergstrom was the fact that he was recently married himself. Of course, Nicole says it also helped that he was “so relaxed and loving and compassionate.”

Do you like what you read? Purchase Exquisite Weddings Magazine »