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Sonoma, California Jewish wedding: Rebecca + Dave

April 12, 2012

If you’re having a wedding in Northern California and you hail from the Bay Area, you best prepare yourself for rain even when the news says the chances are low. Rebecca + Dave know this all to well. Sonoma was hands down the location these two wanted, rain or no rain. It felt close to home, it’s barn brought a touch of rustic charm to their modern palette of eggplant, reds, greens, and had a nice “destination” feel to it even though a lot of their guests were only traveling as far as an hour away. Works for us, we adore these two! Rebecca worked for many years as a bridal consultant in San Francisco (Just take a look at her dress. Girl knows how to bring it!) and Dave (aka the Whole Foods Parking Lot guy) works as a composer writing music for TV commercials and film.

sonoma california jewish wedding Peter Langner wedding dress umbrellas as wedding decor

I saw an image of a rainbow golf umbrella about a month before the wedding and thought, “If it rains, I want one of those.”  The week before our wedding the 10 day weather forecast had been iffy and I was in Target and stumbled upon that exact umbrella and thought to myself..…I’ll buy it, just in case. It was so much fun to have!

paper poms for wedding ceremony

Tissue paper poms are such a fun an inexpensive way to add color to your decor. Rebecca and friends put these all together days before the wedding and we absolutely love them! Perfect way to pay homage to her Mexican heritage. We just so happen to have a tutorial on how to make these festive Mexican flowers too!

paper pom chuppah

Their playlist: The bridal party, groomsmen and Dave entered to Bach’s “Air on the G string”. Rebecca entered to “Begin the Beguine.” They wanted to play a song during the ceremony to remember Rebecca’s mom who passed a few years ago, so Dave did an arrangement of Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou” for the string quartet. They both exited to a special version of “We are the Champions” (Rebecca’s last name is Champion so it made a cute joke for those who noticed it amidst all the jubilation!). Their first dance was to a recording of “Embraceable You” performed by Chet Baker.  They followed that up with a Father-Daughter dance to “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” by Willie Nelson and Mother-Son dance to “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin.

purple and white floral decor wood table numbers

Billy balls, queen annes lace, scabiosa flowers and pods, ranunculus, purple kale, and chocolate cosmos passion flowers gave off the fluttery and slightly less traditional look Rebecca was going for.

billy ball wedding decor

Rebecca made the place cards using paper from Paper Source and rubber stamps she had made with images from their invitations that she then hand embossed. This is super easy to do yourself if you’re ever interested! Just walk into any Paper Source and they’ll give you a demo. Super fun!

watercolor wedding menu

Yep, she also DIY’d their menu’s by watercoloring them and printing them at home.

wood table decor ideas

How fun are these lanterns? You can purchase similar ones by Allsop in our pop-up shop!

red, white and yellow paper lanterns Miette wedding cakes

A few words from Rebecca on why a rainy day wedding can be fabulous:

I’m so excited for there to be a rainy wedding featured!!! I feel like I never saw them before our wedding and when I looked after we got married, everyone had these amazing sunny, wonderful weather days. But our day was in some ways, marvelous because it rained. It took some of the preciousness out of everything! We all felt cozy and warm and connected because we were in it all together. I mean don’t get me wrong… we were supposed to have our ceremony outside on a lawn and even had the rehearsal out there the eve before. And when they called to say that it had to move inside, I had a little cry, pushed through and it really was so great! 

Congratulations you two!

Photographer: Edyta Szyszlo Planner: Clever Girl Consulting / Flowers: Lila B. Design / Cakes: Miette in San Francisco / Cake toppers: Goose Grease / Location: Cornerstone Sonoma / Caterer: Sage Catering / Makeup: Julie Dy / Bride’s dress + veil: Peter Langner / Shoes: Butter from BHLDN / Cardigan: featherweight cashmere from J.Crew / Groom’s suit: Brioni / Shoes: Prada / Tie: Armani