A wedding and 1000 cranes

The tradition is to create one thousand Origami cranes and that's what they did in many hours of bending colorful paper into shape...
Jane and Ethan live in San Francisco where they met studying at Berkeley a couple of years ago. To honor Jane's family in Los Angeles and of course to allow everybody to enjoy the beauty of the Malibu beaches, they decided on celebrating their wedding in Southern California. They got married on October 10, 2009 at the Malibu Nature Preserve.

Coming from the bridal dressing room hideout...

...to the ceremony in the Sycamore grove.





Hundreds of cute little succulents joint the cranes on the tables.





Cheers to Jane and Ethan, it was a beautiful, natural wedding with hors d'oeuvres around the pool, organic food and dancing on the ocean deck into the night.

Malibu Nature Wedding

Maria and Joshua celebrated their ocean themed wedding at the Malibu Nature Preserve on Saturday, September 5, 2009. Los Angeles green wedding expert and passionate wedding planner Angelica Weihs orchestrated their love for nature by helping them use the entire property: the couple wowed their guests with spectacular views from the ocean bluff during their ceremony, then let them experience the contrast of the woodsy Sycamore lawn. Any mountain lions around?


Guests had fun walking the nature trail to and from the woods to the ocean deck, where a delicious meal, created by Diana Temple was awaiting them.


Not only Maria but all guests were not afraid to smile, to show their love for the couple or their appreciation of the beautiful surroundings. Nature girl Maria did not stop; she climbed up a small hill behind the club house, laughing, with her dress held high and loving it. The photographer had suggested to enter the reception through a passage higher up... a magnifique grande entrance.


Cheers to you Maria and Joshua!

Ceremony at the Ocean Bluff

Andrea and Tammy from Red Loft Studios did a beautiful wedding shoot for Meghan and Ryan. They captured the breathtaking feeling of space on the bluff, where one overlooks miles and miles of ocean.

Green Wedding at the Malibu Nature Preserve

Charming, beautiful Jo Giese married charismatic Ed Warren on May 23, 2009 at the Malibu Nature Preserve. The Malibu Times Magazine will publish a spread of their colorful celebration in June.
Friend and photographer Bradford Stanley did an amazing job capturing the joy of this event, which did not miss a second of entertainment - welcome grove, the wedding bluff, the walk way and the reception area presented 17 different musicians from classic trios and septets over a Banjo Bard to a 6 piece band rock'n the 60ties and 70 ties.
Loving the spoken and written word, Jo and Ed's mini cup cakes featured words they are fond of, whenever do we get to munch philosophy?
I have rarely had so many prep discussions with vendors, but it was worth it: Malibu Party Rentals and Diana Temple Catering did their usual magic, while the SMS bio diesel generator and the amazingly cool bathrooms from Uptown Bathrooms performed with excellence.
Read more...

Wedding season started at the Nature Preserve

Especially with the help of a competent wedding planner there's no problem to coordinate a wedding in four months. We started to plan Jo and Ed's colorful creative wedding (May 23, 2009) in February and are full on schedule, even with various musicians, continuous surprises and entertainment on all sites. Jo's motto: "no down time" for their expected 250 guests.

Jo and Ed's inspiration is their trip to India in the beginning of the year when Ed proposed to Jo on her birthday - in a boat on the river Ganges, surrounded by floating flowers...
The ceremony will be on the bluff overlooking the ocean in the most marvelous way. The famous bamboo structure on the bluff will be decorated with colorful drapes and guests were asked to think color: all shades of pink, orange, green, saffron, yellow.
The feast of colors will compete with a sea food feast by Creative Fare and sounds of music managed by Matt Sidoti.
I created Jo and Ed's website at mywedding.com and RSVP's are flowing in.

Creative photographers

Miriam Geer, a creative and experienced photographer has done many weddings at the Nature Preserve. We are happy to show her work.

Ceremony at the Nature Preserve

Vegan Winter Wedding

Candace&Josh at the Malibu Nature Preserve, Winter 2008






Candace and Josh are a seriously vegan, humorously quirky and life enjoying couple:
Their table numbers were Muppet figures and their first dance was accompanied by Kermit, the frog. Tiny Ninjas popped between pine cones on the pimento and gold tables, sat on the napkins and gave the saturated and elegant design a funky touch of childlike fun. Who called a green Ninja their own, was the lucky winner of one of the centerpieces: wrought iron candelabras. An enthused quilter herself, Candace decided on quilt making instead of the traditional guest book: her guest wrote or drew on recycled cotton squares, which will be made into a blanket of happy sentiments...
Their rehearsal dinner had everybody fight each other via Wii games - so it's not really surprising that gender attributes also don't quite matter for the unconventional twosome: Josh cried with joy when he saw his girl enter over the romantic little bridge to the ceremony site of the Sycamore lawn.
Sierra Nevada beers, Yellowtail red wines and Frey white made the vegan list and Diana Temple served a delicious vegan meal. I loved the Ratatouille stuffed tomatoes and the Bruchetta bar. (Don from Twenty1West will do a "mashed potato bar" in Martini glasses for Dan&Danilea's Malibu beach wedding on April 5. I'll report!!)
What's a Vegan cake made of? This is Candace order: "Carrot cake bottom with butter cream frosting, cream cheese in between the layers, Italian mocha espresso with Ganache for the middle layer with that scribble lace stuff in white and then the Italian mocha for our top but with the white butter cream frosting to balance it out...."