The Portofino Hotel Wedding | Redondo Beach California Wedding Photographer | Kathy + Kris
Words from the bride: What makes the difference between weddings? Is it the dress? the decor? the DJ?!? For me it was the people!
When I thought about my wedding, I thought about all the amazing people in my life that I wanted to be there to celebrate my wedding with us in Los Angeles. We wanted to them to have a memorable experience and make them feel special. How did we do this?
1. Wedding Invitation - we created a video showing them all the fun activities we can do together in LA such as Disneyland, Santa Monica, Hollywood BLVD.
2.Beautiful ceremony and reception location - when they saw pictures of the Portofino Hotel and heard the food was delicious, they new they were in for a treat
3.Non-traditional surprises - when Kris and I were pronounced husband and wife, we did a secret handshake before we kissed. It was hilarious
4.Non-traditional surprise #2 - we made up a story that "in Kris's old country of Ukraine " people threw goats in the air to celebrate the union of marriage. We had plush goats underneath the seats which everyone threw up in the air. Why goats? Kris is born in the year of the goat
5.A MAGICIAN - we had a magician walk around during cocktail hour and do card tricks. It was a great way for our guests to interact and be entertained
6.At the reception, each guest had their name customized on a Coca-Cola bottle with our wedding hash tag on it.
7. Instead of a photo booth, we had a caricature artist come in and create portraits for everyone. It was a hit and everyone LOVED their souvenir.
8. Instead of a slide show, we made a video our how Kris and I are "famous" but it was really just glimpses of us in the crowd. We also reenacted a few Hollywood movie scenes including Lady & the Tramp.
9. Instead of a bouquet toss, we invented a Tiger Toss. We had a plush tiger thrown into the crowd and the superstition was whoever caught it was going to have the next baby. Most of our friends are in relationships so this avoids that awkward time trying to get all the single ladies on the dance floor. I was born the year of the tiger.
10. At the end of the night, we had a dunk tank in the parking lot. Yes, you read that correctly - a dunk tank. We ended off the night being dunked, along with a bridesmaid and groomsman in their outfits. Kris and I changed for this.
A lot of ideas and brainstorming came together for this and I realized I wrote "instead of (your traditional wedding item)" several times already. We choose to make it our own and had an incredible time. We've been to many weddings and when it came to our wedding, we picked and choose what we wanted to make US happy. That can be difficult during the wedding planning process.
The photos turned out AMAZING and we love all of our vendors.
Lots of love, and thank you for reading.
Kathy
Edmonton, Canada
