Wedding Design Day: Tea, trains, dogs!

Today was "Design Research Day" for my clients Marce and Alfi's September wedding at Nestldown, and what a fun day we had!

Tea time with "my bride", Marce, at Lisa's Tea Treasures

Our tea table setting, with Marce's flowers from my garden, as the centerpiece.


Marce meeting Nestldown's resident dogs, Bandit and his son, with the idyllic beauty of Nestldown behind her; she is holding a bouquet of flowers from my garden...as you know, I love to share my flowers!

In front of the Nestldown train; from the left, Marce's mom, Gloria Tritasavit,
Catherine Conlin, of Wiggy's flowers, and Marce.


Imagining lighting in the Nestldown barn, are Brooke Green, property coordinator for Nestldown, Tristan Flores, lighting consultant for Elle Music and Events, Gloria Tritasavit, designer for Sash and Sugar, Marce's mother, and Marce.


Early this morning, Marce and her mother (who is visiting this week from her home in New Guinea!), Gloria Tritasavit, and I met with a lighting consultant, Marce's florist, and Brooke Green the Nestldown coordinator; our goal was to collaborate on design, decor and logistics for Marce and Alfi's wedding day. Their theme will be tea, books, and all things related to enjoying both....I can't think of any combination I could resonate with more, especially when you add flowers!!

I am so grateful to be teaming with Gloria, owner of Sash and Sugar (www.sashandsugar.com) to offer Marce and Alfi the design expertise and the logistical coordination needed to plan and carry out a flawless wedding day.

Supporting Gloria's unique and creative ideas, by thinking through the logistical questions of how to see them become reality, while supporting Marce in her over-arching wedding planning needs, is a perfect fit for me. My experience coordinating many weddings at Nestldown has already been helpful as we get started. Marce and Alfi's wedding is the first chance for Gloria and I to collaborate in this way; I thank Marce and Alfi for hiring the two of us to be partners in this creative process!

After a full morning of discussing Marci and Alfi's tea theme, we continued our "research" by having afternoon tea at Lisa's Tea Treasures, in the Pruneyard in Campbell (www.lisastea.com). I had suggested that we visit Lisa's Tea Treasures some time, to see how the shop projects a warm and welcoming tea theme; when Marce's mom was to be in town, she encouraged Marce to invite us all for a complete afternoon tea! Gloria and I were of course delighted to accept...all in the line of professional research, you understand!

In that spirit, we slowly savored the lemon curd on Lisa's special cookies, the scones with clotted cream, the 6 different kinds of tea sandwiches, the yummy quiche and our own individual pots of tea, with milk!

As we ate, and sipped our tea, we came to know each other in new ways through discussions of travel, families, career goals, growing up in different parts of the world, and of course weddings; the fine art of tea time has firmly bonded this intimate group of wedding participants and planners. It is with even more enthusiasm that I look forward to helping plan and carry out Marce and Alfi's wedding day!

More to come in late September!