Today I have a classically beautiful country club wedding, nestled in the mountains of Malibu. One thing I LOVE about Reagan, the bride, is she’s a twice-as-nice bride. Shortly before her wedding, her officiant became ill and couldn’t do her ceremony. Because of church restrictions, she couldn’t have the outdoor ceremony she planned. Find out what Reagan did below and enjoy all of the lovely details of this pretty wedding…
Tell us a bit about your wedding
After getting engaged, my husband’s and my first task was to decide where we wanted to get married. Though there were so many cities we could imagine getting married in, we decided to stay in the Los Angeles area because that is where most of our guests were located and we wanted to make it easy, especially financially, on them. Then we wanted to figure out what kind of wedding we wanted. I could not decide between a beach wedding or a country club wedding in the mountains (my husband supported both!). I grew up in the mountains and at the beach, and found merit in both locations. In the end, I decided upon the country club/mountain option because I was scared to death of L.A.’s notorious “June Gloom” at the beach! We chose Sherwood Country Club as the location because we loved the outside veranda, the brick buildings, the waterfall, and the quietness the surrounding Santa Monica Mountains provided. We used gold and cream as our colors to just be subtle accents to what, we thought, was the natural beauty of the location. The first bouquet my now-husband ever gave me was made up of hydrangeas and roses, so we chose those as the main flowers for our wedding.
I love ribbons, scroll-type designs, and candles, so those were everywhere, from the ceremony & reception decorations, to the aisle runner, to the programs and menus, to the cake. Almost all of the personal touches were DIY projects that I spent 14 months on with the amazing help of my mom and my sister and with the cheerleading of my now-husband.
Two months before the big day, we had a wrench thrown in to the wedding plans. I was informed that the priest that was to marry us was no longer able to because of personal issues. We had another priest readily volunteer, but, due to restrictions, we had to have a ceremony in a church for him to marry us. We already have everything completely finalized for the ceremony at Sherwood, so, to make a long story short, I ended up having two weddings one day apart! Our church wedding included just family and bridal party. I wore my mom’s redesigned wedding dress and veil she wore 30 years prior, almost to the day (I wore the same veil and a new dress the next day) and used the colors I would have used with a beach wedding (blue and yellow).
In the end, I really just wanted our wedding weekend to be one big happy celebration and it really turned out that way. Each person present on both days had made some special impact on my husband’s or my life and it was such a joy to have them there to celebrate such a special and important occasion. I wish I could re-live the weekend over and over again!
Stay tuned for part and Reagan’s BEST Hindsight Advice!
Team Wedding
- Photography: Sherri at Sherri J Photography
- Church Ceremony Location: Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church
- Ceremony & Reception Location: Sherwood Country Club
- Ceremony & Reception Music: The Hodads
- Flowers: Bianca at Britica Designs
- Cake: Star at LaStarr & Co
- Day-of Coordination: Peggy Shevlin
- Dress One: Mom’s wedding dress, redesigned with the help of Reene at In Stitches
- Shoes: Badgley Mischka and Glint
- Dress Two: Lazaro
- Bridesmaids Dresses: Alex Evenings One Shoulder Gown, Nordstom