palm springs wedding, ace hotel- lisa & alan

We had the good fortune to photograph Lisa and Alan’s crafty vintage desert wedding this year. Today it is being featured on Green Wedding Shoes! Lisa and Alan decided right from the start that their wedding needed to be a big fun party for their friends and family. They didn’t want the reception to feel too serious or uptight and what they wanted the very most was a crazy dance party. They made sure all the details, invites, and design reflected their personalities by keeping everything simple and lighthearted. Since Lisa is a talented graphic designer they were able to put their personal touch on everything from the invites, pencil set gifts and the seating chart. Palm Springs with it’s golden hills and never ending blue skies was the perfect setting for their wedding. The pair had a traditional Catholic ceremony at St. Francis of Assisi church and their reception/dance party at the Ace Hotel. It was a perfect mix of traditional and modern. A bit more about the day from Lisa “We picked Palm Springs for our wedding for a couple reasons. One reason, is that it’s so beautiful! The clouds are always amazing, and the weather in the winter is great. We were inspired by the mid century modern design and architecture in Palm Springs. Since I’m from San Diego and Alan is from LA, it was a nice meeting place for both our families. We looked at venues all over Orange County and San Diego, but the first time we stayed at the Ace Hotel we just knew it was the place.”

Sewing my wedding dress was a pretty large project. I knew exactly what type of dress I was looking for, and at the time I couldn’t find it anywhere. I finally found my dream dress as a vintage pattern in an antique store. With the help of my Mom we made the dress I had imagined. In the end it wasn’t perfect, but I still loved it, and I loved wearing it so much. I really wish I could wear it again honestly. I wanted to give Alan a little wedding surprise, so I secretly sewed a blue heart in his coat jacket with an L&A on it.
I was a little surprised that one of my favorite parts was the ceremony. Originally I was somewhat afraid to be in front of everyone, and the church felt huge and a bit intimidating. It can be a lot of work to hold a wedding in a Catholic Church, there is so much preparation ahead of time. But, it was really important to both of our families, and in the end it was very meaningful to us.

A special moment for me was the unofficial father/daughter dance which was right after the official one. My Dad’s side of the family is polish, so I had our DJ play my favorite polka song for him. I wasn’t expecting him to whisk me back onto the dance floor to polka with him. Everyone was standing around smiling and clapping. So much better than the slow dance. I will remember it forever. My advice for future brides would be to make decisions as early as possible. I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted for our wedding early on, but I still waited until the very last minute to pull the trigger on most things. Be confident in what you think is right, so you’re not scrambling at the last minute. Figure out which vendors are most important to you. To us, this was the music and photography. The right DJ can keep the dance floor packed all night and the photographs will be how you remember your day forever. The style of photography was super important to us and when we look at ours they make us so happy!