On Elysium’s Blog Post: Today’s guest blogger is Helen! Wait till you see this Asian inspired decor. Totally gorgeous and a super sweet couple to boot!

Life is love, love is life, and I live life to the fullest with my love….Alex! Alex is a graphic designer with a passion and talent for tennis and photography. I loved my career in business and real estate law, but my ultimate calling is a caretaker. I love to help and give; I give with all my heart to fill my losses and voids in life.

Alex and I met through a mutual friend and remained good friends for many years. We finally connected at the most awkward time in my life. It was an unfortunate time for me to lose my mother and I had an emergency medical condition. I was recovering at the USC Norris Hospital when God sent me an Angel. Alex visited me every day, several times a day. I was at my worst moment, but Alex felt a need to care for me. We grew closer as friends, and Alex revealed that he fell in love with me in the hospital.

We care for my father that has Parkinson’s disease for 20 years. During a Parkinson’s seminar cruise, Alex proposed at the top of the ship. The both of us agreed that our wedding should be close to water since the proposal was in the middle of the ocean.

I wanted a wedding that represented comfort, peace, and harmony. What better place than The Montage Laguna Beach….it was perfect! Ok, the venue was picked, the dressed was picked, and I didn’t know where to start with wedding details. Next I found Michelle Weita from Details Details. Michelle was my savior; she helped me with every little detail for my wedding. She found the most fun and talented designer, florist, photographer, event filmmaker, make-up artist, DJ, and musicians for me. Michelle made and sat through all the appointments with me, thanks Michelle!

I wanted to treasure every moment for my wedding day, it was important that I share this with family and friends. Alex from Elysium Productions captured exactly what I was looking for, and I didn’t notice that he was there. My wedding was an Asian inspired time capsule that took you back in ancient gardens, backyards, temples, and palaces. It was a place of history for the younger generation, and a feel for childhood memories and home for the elders. Elysium amazed me with the video; I was stunned with the wonders of a camera and the people behind the production. The music along with each clip shed tears in my eyes, as I watched my father smile at me. He was pleased and grateful that his little girl’s dream wedding came true.

The wedding was perfect, everything was beautiful; the guests enjoyed the food, entertainment, ambiance, and service. I will treasure the moment that my father walked me down the beautiful garden of love as he waved his hands up high to signify his happiness; and as he embraced Alex when he gave me away.

Special thanks to Michelle Weita, Christopher Aldama, Jaime Puffer, Patty Burns, Aaron & Jen Delesie, Alex & Julie Hill, Kyle Simon, Richard Kang, Zhiming Han, Jeff Holmes, Joyce Luck, and Lynn Wang for adding another chapter of happiness in my life.

by Helen

Check out the highlights of Jeriann and Travis’s wedding, at the Montage Resort and Spa in Laguna Beach. It was a warm sunny December day, we got lucky. Thanks Aaron of Artisan Production.com for sending this to us!

Jeriann & Travis from Artisan Production on Vimeo.

Same day Edit done by Elysium Productions! Nice work, as always…thanks Julie for letting us steal off your blog. Photos coming soon!

Julie from Elysium writes: I can’t wait to share this Same Day Edit from last Saturday at Pelican Hill! After the ceremony at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano, Joe Latter took some photographs on the beautiful grounds and then it was off to the reception! Check his blog and stay tuned for the photos! Everyone had a great time and danced until the wee hours of the morning at the after party. Congrats Alejandra & Damian!

I took this off of Elysium site: “Happy Tuesday! We have another guest blogger today! Enjoy!

“Josh and I got married in May, 2009 at the beautiful St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, CA. While we met and fell in love in California, the vast majority of our guests were from the Midwest and East coast. Therefore, it was especially important to us that our location be at a vacation resort, our weekend be packed with events, and that everyone walk away happy that they had made the long journey to join us in California for our big day.

The festivities started off with a bridal luncheon on Friday at Las Brisas restaurant for the girls and a golf tournament at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Golf Links course for the boys. Following a fabulous rehearsal dinner in the St. Regis’ wine cave for the wedding party, we hosted our version of a welcome open house in the presidential suite at the St. Regis. Guests enjoyed hors devours and cocktails in the spacious indoor/outdoor setting while enjoying the fabulous view of the St. Regis pools, golf course, and the stunning ocean. Saturday morning, wedding day, began with an early morning 5K “Dash to the Altar” run/walk for our guests that took them along the St. Regis grounds and the beautiful Laguna bluffs and coastline. Saturday evening’s ceremony on the Grand Lawn at the St. Regis was immediately followed by cocktails on the terrace to an instrumental medley of California music and then a fantastic fun-filled reception in the Monarch ballroom. Since our focus was on our guests having a fabulous time, we arranged the timing of our reception to reflect a dance party with food rather than the traditional dinner party with dancing. What a fantastic decision! The California wedding weekend concluded with Josh and I sending our guests off with a full belly and a giant thank you at our al fresco “Morning After Champagne Brunch” held Sunday at Club 19 at the St. Regis. We could not have been happier with the entire weekend and the opportunity to share our love with our friends and family.

Our most cherished memories include watching the triplets walk ALL the way down the aisle, our unbelievable band that kept everyone both amazed and dancing all night long (who knew they could play songs that just came on the radio one week prior to the event!), our fantastic silhouette artist’s favors, our adorable welcome bags complete with whimsical Laguna Beach maps, the navy skirts on our head table chairs, the lighting and draping, all the AMAZING flowers, and finally, ending our night dancing to the song California encircled by our guests. We were just so fortunate to begin the rest of our life together at such a fabulous and beautiful party surrounded by our most cherished friends and family. The weekend was nothing short of perfect!! But perhaps my most fantastic memory of all was having both the opportunity and solitude to watch the guests arriving at the wedding and Josh and his groomsmen lining up undetected from above in the presidential suite. It is both a feeling and a memory that I will never ever forget: one of sheer and utter gratitude.

Thank you to all of my unparalleled vendors that made our wedding day beautiful, elegant, and most importantly, fun for all whom attended. Thanks to our wedding planner, Jeannie Savage, the day went by smoothly, neither Josh nor I had a care in the world, and I can honestly say we had the time of our life!! THANK YOU!! And thank you to each and everyone of our family and friends who chose to share their time with us on our biggest day. We love you!

Now it’s time to enjoy our life as husband and wife… with fantastic photographs from Ben Chrisman, a gorgeous ceremony painting by Rich Flynn (he finished it by 10PM!!), and an unbelievable video from Elysium productions to continue to remind us of our love, commitment, and our fabulous wedding day from this day forward!”

by Jennifer Grabiner

Julie from Elysium writes:  This wedding is so beautiful! Check out Janice & Bolaji’s big day from Montage, Laguna Beach. I love the color scheme and I love the way their monogram (& the fleur-de-lis) is brought through the entire event - especially on the dance floor!  Joe Latter was on hand to take the fabulous photographs. He is great to work with and super talented!  

Photos from this wedding coming soon..aren’t same day edits the best!

Let it pause for about 30 seconds so it can load before clicking play:) thanks!

Julie from Elysium writes: “Wow – what a gorgeous event we filmed on Sunday! Everything was perfect for Gina & Ryan’s big day thanks to an incredible team of vendors and all of Gina’s hard work that she put in during the planning process. The Four Seasons is a beautiful property in Carlsbad and the weather was absolutely perfect. Everyone enjoyed the day and partied non-stop until the last dance! Sunny from White Lilac did a gorgeous job on the florals – one of my favorite color combos ever – pink and eggplant! Rabbi Rosenberg was there to officiate and he always does a great job, and of course we loved working with the fabulous Aaron Delesie and his wife Jen for photos. Having a great photographer always makes it easier for us to get great footage! Congrats Gina & Ryan and have fun on your amazing honeymoon!!”

I didn’t get to work with Gina direct, but saw that she got the framed glass for the ketubah, which was so cool and functional. Saw it for the first time in April for another Jewish wedding.

Took this from Elysium Blog:  ”Andrew and I got to know each other from our English & Music class in high school. He liked me but I didn’t know. After we graduated, we both went to Southern California for college, and he visited me a few times in school. I thought he was kind of cute so I asked him to a dance 2nd year in college…. Then we started dating! 8 years later… we got married! One thing I loved during the wedding planning process was looking at all the magazines & websites and thinking about what our wedding would look like. I think my favorite part of planning was that Andrew was there the whole time, picking out all the details of the wedding with me! For the venue, we decided to look at places in Dana Point because my name’s Dana. A friend recommended us to look at St. Regis, and I really loved the place when we saw it. For the decor, I love pink – so everything is pink. We also had welcome baskets for out of town guests which was another personal touch. My best memory of the day was being very happy when I saw Andrew when I walked down the aisle. The other thing was when I walked into the reception… it was even better than I imagined it before the wedding. It made me so happy when I saw it! My advice to other brides is to enjoy the day because it is over so fast!” – Dana

Julie of Elysium writes: Check out this amazing wedding!! The combination of Christopher Aldama’s stunning design and the beautiful venue of Pelican Hill made this event over the top gorgeous! And i’m a little bit biased because I LOVED the colors!! Everything about this wedding was super cool. Just wait until the full Arthouse is edited because we couldn’t fit in all the shots of the details in this SDE! There were too many!

Megan and Kyle were super fun to work with!  After the SDE was shown on plasma screens, we moved into the After Party which also had killer decor. I’m sure Victor will post the photos soon on his blog. Wait till you see them! The couple truly enjoyed themselves the whole day and were just so happy to be married. It was quite moving!

All in all it was a fabulous day with a fabulous couple. Congrats you two!!

Julie from Elysium writes: Check out Christine & Andrew’s Same Day Edit from San Diego! It threatened to rain on Saturday… really weird S. California weather if I do say so myself! But luckily it held off and the happy couple were able to have their reception at the beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. Their ceremony took place at the Immaculata… one of the most beautiful Catholic Churches in San Diego (it’s on the USD campus). Before that, Alex shot thier traditional tea ceremony. It was a long day but we captured some amazing footage! We shot alongside Victor Sizemore (he’ll post pics soon on his blog) Kathy Wright & Co. did the floral decor and it was gorgeous. To add to the already fantastic day, Jeff Holmes from Moondance was there to spin the tunes… he always gets the party going! Congrats Christine & Andrew!

as always… it’s best to press play and then immediately press pause to allow the video to load before viewing!