Fairytale Cottage Wedding at Craven Farm

Today’s wedding is the perfect depiction of a fairy tale wedding come true. Bride Alyssa wanted her wedding to be a reflection of every girl’s dream wedding growing up, but with a grownup approach — or, as she says, “like Cinderella’s Ball, but at the cottage instead of the castle.” Lora Grady Photography, Kaleb Norman James, and Dancing Fox Weddings and Events did exquisite work bringing this vision to life!

From the bride, Alyssa: From the very beginning stages of planning I knew I wanted our wedding to feel like a fairytale. I wanted it to be exactly how every little girl pictures her wedding when she grows up, but with the adult class and romance. I wanted the décor to represent an enchanted forest or garden. We had a lot of beautiful greenery throughout the venue and in the florals, and there were all shades of pink represented in the flowers which were mostly roses. I wanted the day to feel just magical, romantic, and warm, and like an escape from everyday life into a celebration of our love story in a picturesque setting. Although our venue, being a farm, feels rustic and most weddings held there go with the country feel, I wanted ours to bring elegance inside the barn walls. I told our florist “Like Cinderella’s Ball, but at the cottage instead of the castle.”

Our color scheme was multiple shades of pink, with accents of pale/sky blue and gold. The theme was cottage fairytale, I am a big Disney fan if you can’t tell already (Miguel proposed in front of the castle at Disneyland!) but I wanted to eliminate anything “cheesy” or childish and add elements that would portray that whole vibe but still be very elegant and timeless. I designed our logo and printed it on stickers for the top of the 2oz jars of honey butter for the favors. The groom is a former chef and made the honey butter from scratch and then him and my maid of honor spent a few hours tying bows around each jar while I worked on other projects! All of the calligraphy was done by myself, I learned calligraphy before sending out save the dates and hand lettered all the addresses on the save the dates and invitations. I also did the name cards and all of the signage you see was done in the late hours of the night wondering if I would ever finish! Haha. The animals attached to the name cards were hands down a favorite part of the décor! My MOH and I spray painted them all gold and then attached them to the cards with string. They were adorable, especially the dinosaurs! We spent way too much time assigning different animals to each guest thinking about which one might be their favorite. We also had a couple of birdcages that were spray painted and the programs were designed and printed and then we added the gold elements to them as well.

Any advice for couples planning their weddings now? Don’t procrastinate! Create a timeline and stick to it. Also, you can only pin on Pinterest so much before you have to sift through all of the ideas and narrow down what your big day will actually look like. I printed out my favorite pins and created a vision board to keep me on track of the ideas that I really loved and wanted to see come to life for my wedding. Also, just enjoy the day. It goes by SO fast! There is no time throughout the day where you aren’t busy doing photos, or talking with guests, or getting ready with the bridal party so remember to take as much of it in as possible and remember the little moments and the feelings and emotions that you experience as the day goes on.

See Also

A Bold Berry-Colored Vallejo Wedding

Wedding Music:
Bridal Party Processional: “Lavender’s Blue,” Jim Brickman (from the new Cinderella movie)
Bride’s Processional: “Someday My Prince Will Come,” Jim Brickman
Recessional: “The Princess Bride – Storybook Love,” Vitamin String Quartet
First Dance: “A Thousand Years,” Christina Perri
Father/Daughter Dance: “My Little Girl,” Tim McGraw
Again, I wanted all of these princess-y elements to be subtle, for those who don’t know them they just sound like pretty instrumentals but for those who do know, had an “I see what she did there” moment.