Southern Weddings

This wedding is absolutely amazing! From the bride’s beautiful dress, from {Romona Keveza}, to the chic floral arrangements, by {Minoo’s Flowers} and Oswaldo Hernandez, elegant is the best word to describe Shadi + Robert’s big day. Photographer {Anna Kuperberg} caught every stunning detail of the event, which took place at {Cornerstone Gardens} and was catered by {Alex’s Catering}. The simple and stylish cake is by {Torino Baking}. A special thanks to {A Savvy Event} day of coordinator for making sure Shadi + Robert’s wedding went off without a hitch. To see more of this wedding, check out Anna’s {Blog}.

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. Unknowingly, Robert and I worked at the same company for a few years before crossing paths. He worked in the San Mateo location while I worked in the Dublin location, each in unrelated departments. It was a rare occasion for Robert to work out of the Dublin office but on one lucky day he did. I happen to sit in a cube right behind the administrative assistant who happened to step away from her desk when Robert showed up. I was headed back to my desk from the break room and saw him waiting for the administrative assistant to return. I was feeling helpful that day and approached him to see what he needed. After I called an admin to find him a place to sit, I headed to my cube. I realized immediately that the guy I just helped was the first handsome man I had spotted since I started working at the company three years ago. I was determined to find out more and soon started a search for this mystery man. Feeling brave, I approached him and asked him a silly question to get the dialogue started. We both looked each other up in the company directory right away and he sent me an email thanking me for my help.The emails continued, he asked me out on a date, and let’s just say that the day after our first date I told my coworkers I would marry this man. Woman’s intuition!
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? A phalaenopsis orchid. Orchids exude a confident, modern, charm that is both sexy and romantic at once.
Favorite design element of your big day: Do I have to pick one? Though the barn is really a compilation of elements, the décor and ambience really showed off the look I was going for. We had a backdrop of sheer draping to define the all white lounge of leather couches, ghost chairs, large white vases of peonies, hydrangea, and orchids, beautiful chandeliers, and a dramatic white dance floor and lots of candles all inside an otherwise rustic barn.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: Let’s just say I almost didn’t have a dress but that would be a very long story. The designer cut my dress too small but amazingly it ended up working out and the dress was exactly what I wanted. When you find it, you just know! The architectural look was in perfect harmony with our wedding.
Describe your wedding flowers: Lush, sleek, modern and dramatic all at once. Our venue was an amazing garden with several different spaces that allowed us and our guests to explore the grounds throughout the evening. This allowed our florist (my talented mother) to change the focus of the arrangements in each space while maintaining the look and sticking to a specific group of flowers. We started off on the vineyard lawn for a traditional Persian ceremony. Here we brought in our color theme of white, yellow, and pewter. This is the only place where I used yellow in my arrangements via a long runner of mixed flowers. I had hydrangea balls hanging on the tree above the welcome table, floating across the water pond behind us, and decorating the pew aisle chairs. I had phalaenopsis orchids galore! My bridesmaids each had cascading bouquets of them and we had huge arrangements full of orchids next to us. I had a bouquet of cattleya orchids and ostrich feathers wrapped with satin pewter ribbon. The cocktail hour was on the barn terrace and consisted of groupings of white vases filled with hydrangea flowers only. Dinner was under an open air tent surrounded by fully bloomed white garden roses. We had two versions of centerpieces. Most were fluffy mixes of all white flowers including peonies, phalaenopsis, hydrangea, tulips and spray roses set atop pewter linen and low enough to allow easy conversation. The other centerpieces were single bloom arrangements of phalaenopsis orchids. Each dinner napkin had an orchid elegantly resting on top. When it was time to dance we headed back to the barn, but this time inside. The barn was decorated in all white and the flowers were mixed arrangements reused from other portions of the wedding. At the end of the evening we had a table set up next to our Ecuadorian chocolate favors so that our guests could take centerpieces home as an extra treat.
Describe your wedding cake: Julie of Torino Baking is amazing. Both for the person she is and the cakes she bakes. The look was inspired by the combination of a few different cakes I found on blogs online. We went with a two flavored fondant covered cake: banana cake with cream cheese frosting and a dark chocolate cake inspired by black bottom cupcakes (dark chocolate, cream cheese frosting, and mini chocolate chips). Delicious with a capital D. The design was very modern and included a super sized cattleya orchid sugar flower and had orbiting pewter ribbon. The pewter ribbon was a re-occurring design element that started on my invitations and was carried throughout the evening in small doses.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: Another tough question. I would have to say the tent draping. I think the sheer fabric had a huge impact without actually drawing attention. It really helped create the dinner space and worked very well with the pewter linens, fluffy centerpieces and intricate china. Robert’s favorite detail was the linen. Just kidding. His favorite was the white dance floor. I don’t think anybody expected it to add so much to the barn décor.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Modern, Romantic, Airy
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Enjoy it. The planning takes up way more time than the actual day so if you don’t enjoy it you’re missing out. Take advantage and set dates with girlfriends, your mom, and your husband to be. Every one of the wedding activities and errands shared with friends and family become cherished memories.
Any DIY items? Many. I designed and put together the escort cards, bar menus, table numbers and “best wishes” for the Manzanita branch guest book. My mom is an amazing florist (Minoo’s Flowers) and worked with the super talented florist Oswaldo Hernandez who is a great friend of hers. I guess it isn’t really DIY but I was able to work very closely with my “florist” to achieve exactly the look I wanted. I also did the schematics and design for the spaces used throughout the evening. This includes designing the lounge, the barn terrace, the tent, and ceremony using different tools, sketches, and what I learned in an introductory interior design course. The toughest DIY undertaking was the tent draping…not easy! We had a quote for over $3,000 for a design company to install some pre made sheer draping so we decided we could buy the fabric and make it ourselves for under $1,000. My mom, my dad, and I designed the draping together and my mom sewed it with the help of her close friends. It took a huge gang of us to install these the night before the wedding but all the work was well worth it.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? Traveling, buying our first home, and continuing to learn together and about each other.

Congratulations Shadi + Robert! We wish you the best life has to offer!