Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Love in Santa Barbara

We took a short but sweet trip to Santa Barbara a few weekends ago to attend the lovely wedding of our dear friends Carol and Jezreel. Carol is the talented wedding photographer behind the lens of our Santa Monica engagement photos, so with her artistic sensibility and passion for weddings, we knew their wedding was bound to be a fabulous, picture-perfect affair!

Santa Barbara is such a lovely city, with distinctive Spanish style architecture and a wonderfully rustic flair.
We stayed in a small but quaint room nestled in a quiet hillside neighborhood just half a dozen blocks or so from downtown State Street. It was our first booking with airbnb and a very pleasant experience. 

After enduring a long traffic-congested drive, we enjoyed a scrumptious seafood dinner at Hungry Cat. Fresh crab claws, fennel stuffed snapper, and halibut with crispy garlic... delicious! 

The next morning we had brunch at the adorable Crushcakes & Cafe. Crushcakes has competed on Food Network's Cupcake Wars so I ordered the breakfast version of their signature red velvet cupcake, the red velvet pancake! With fresh strawberries, syrup, and a big dollop of cream cheese frosting, the pancakes were a perfect rendition of "dessert for breakfast", yum!

We worked off our morning indulgence by climbing to the top of Santa Barbara county courthouse clock tower for a great view of the city... ok, so we actually cheated and took an elevator up to the top, but we did take a nice long stroll around the courthouse grounds and nearby downtown streets.

Then it was off to the wedding~


The wedding festivities were held at the beautiful Santa Barbara Historic Museum and the entire affair was filled to the brim with sweet and charming details (some literally SWEET, aka the amazing dessert bar!). Think hand-painted floral invitation and program designs, adorable animal place card holders (Rhinos!), gold chevron, rustic terrariums, stacks of vintage novels, and soft pastel florals. We sipped refreshing blood orange spritzers from mason jars alongside lovely table settings embellished with a palette of warm peachy coral, soft minty green, and elegant gold. After sunset the magical string lights twinkling overhead was the perfect canopy for dancing the night away beneath the stars. Of course the beaming bride and groom were shining all the brighter!

Marriage is often described as an earthly shadow of what our relationship will be like with Christ in heaven, so in moments like these, I can't help but marvel at God's great love for us and what kind of celebration and pure joy will abound when we are united with Him in eternity.

Much love Santa Barbara, we had a fantastic time!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for sharing such lovely pics. I am also arranging my sister’s wedding at venues in Los Angeles and listing unique and interesting ideas for making her day memorable. Going to decorate venue with red and white flowers and already booked 3-tier grand wedding cake.

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