Malibu Weddings&Events

Lightly green wedding in Malibu

2010-10-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Michelle and Andrew got married on Saturday, 9/4/2010 at the gorgeous bluff and celebrated their wedding in two different Sycamore groves, one for cocktail and hors d'oeuvres and the other, further in the woods, for the reception and dance party.

Hand painted signs and local flowers, re-used mason jars of all kinds and sizes and organic foods made this a lightly green event.

There's always the kid, loved by photographers...

Amazing Malibu Wedding

2010-08-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Cheng captured the wedding of Barbara and Zach beautifully, very much in tune with the couple and the Nature Preserve.

There are so many beautiful backgrounds for elegant photography. Nobody has used the tennis courts yet or the horse stables, which are rather unique and perfect for the mod or quirky couple.

Farolitos on the walk ways are a romantic lighting idea.

DIY Wedding Malibu

2010-08-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

The bluff of the Nature Preserve has undisputed the most dramatic ocean view before Santa Barbara, it always reminds me of Tom Petty's "Learning to fly".

Heather and Kyle got married at the bluff on sweet and sunny July 17, with a reception following in the woods, at the Sycamore Grove. Heather's friends from Pepperdine University helped with flowers and set up for their DIY wedding, which I organized for them with lots of pre-discussions, a tight to do list and assiting mom Susan with artful delegating.

Family and friends decorated everything and brought in all drinks. They chose Susina Bakery's Berry Blossom cake and for the groom's cake Kyle went for chocolate and peanut butter. As they wanted a fun party with lots of dancing, Diana from Creative Fare created food stands with tasty bites so that DJ Gil could rock the crowd undisturbed by a formal sit down dinner.

Fire and water

2010-01-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

The pool at night... Marshmallows anybody?

Green Wedding on a Horse Arena

2009-11-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

Stephanie and Randal were the first couple to hold a green wedding at the Malibu Nature Preserve's recently added former horse arena.

Guests enjoyed the dramatic views on the bluff then the gorgeous lighting of the reception site, which went from afternoon sunset overlooking the ocean into the mysterious starry night - were the mountain lions watching from afar?

Stephanie and friends created their own place card flowers, which were taken home by the bunch to decorate houses and apartments. What else was green? The shuttles from Avalon drove on bio diesel as did the generator, the bathroom were solar powered and the delicious food from chef Diana Temple was mostly organic and definitely local.

Event Creation: Green wedding expert Angelica Weihs.

A wedding and 1000 cranes

2009-10-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-07T19:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-04T23:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-01T13:46:00.001-07:00

2009-06-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Green Wedding at the Malibu Nature Preserve

2009-06-07T11:45:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-18T12:08:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

Vegan Winter Wedding

2008-12-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

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...."

Design with Nature

2008-09-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

Treehugging looks fabulous.
Outmoded wedding habits: book a hotel ball room, schlep in thousands of dollars worth of flowers, deliver the guests in Hummer limos leaving dizzying trails of carbon emissions, have a Las Vegas style DJ fire up the crowds and get everybody boozed up to enforce oblivion. So over: Bridezilla, the creation of clever marketing pros. She was perfect, as norms had to be reached, new levels of "awesome" had to be created and budgets had to be exceeded. Guys gave up on the craze and decided that their role was just to show up.
Today's life partners party exuberantly in nature without following a set of rules and regulations nobody really knows where they came from and why they exist. $$$ Competition with the cousin's 2007 wedding? No need, if you're different.
The princess in the woods has a whole new green cornucopia of choices and creates a wedding, which "has not been there before" without needing to waste cash and resources. Her natural hero loves to get involved in his wedding, as it is hands on fun and, being Eco, even somewhat scientific.
Nature locations resonate with romance and lush design as much as with the smart and savvy trend of saving the earth.

Fairies and Fauna

Pluck your place card from the tree

Keep it simple with flower bulps

Tree favors are still cool - if your guests actually plant the tree.

Rustic with Bamboo and succulents

Wheat Grass looks better than it tastes.

Earth Goddess

2008-08-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

Michelle Moore did an eco fashion shoot and her photos are just amazing - as finally is the bridal eco fashion. Inspired by the flow of nature, these dresses love the back drop of trees and flowers. More on Ecocopia, with weddings, eco-fashion and catering news and a few drops of green girl gossip.

Diana's Creative Fare

2008-07-28T13:44:00.001-07:00

Please enjoy: Vegan Polenta on a bed of organic Ratatouille...

Diana Temple, who's mother was the personal chef for Grace Kelly, has cuisine in her genes and is the Nature Preserves creative chef. I always found, when a chef is able to create vegan wonders and vegetarian visions and make people ask for more, he/she is a God in the culinary genius culture. “Diana” is the goddess of the hunt but chef Diana shines with vege’s made into the banquets of dreams. Most of the time she creates “regular cuisine” like Panko-Coconut encrusted Chicken Breast with a Wasabe Ginger Beurre Blanc or Miso Sake glazed Striped Bass on a bed of Bok Choy and tunes in to all tastes and diverse palates - just slabs of meat slapped on charcoal grills is not quite the aim..... Check in for additional photos of her culinary delights.

The man behind the Nature Preserve

2008-07-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Peter Ireland, president of the “Nature Trust”, the non-profit company who owns the Malibu Nature Preserve, a certified hiking coach, does not seem to stand still. When he is not hiking himself, he is organizing nature and yoga retreats, shows his guys which branches to cut or bridges to repair and in between he sets up weddings and parties. Which vitamins is he taking? He swears on the Elderberry trees of the property, packed with anti-oxidants and enriching his life.
While driving us up to the bluff with its breath taking ocean view, he stops to close a gate here, points out a huge bird there and slows down for a "parking" sign, which he grabs with one hand through the window: "Doesn't belong here", he smirks. 50 yards further he finds the spot and lets it plop down. Busy with the enormous property he brought multi tasking to a mastery level. It is no wonder that notes and business cards, phone lists and invoices crowd his small office; paper work is not his favorite part.
The lawns, which I had assumed to be nature-given gorgeous like the whole property, are looked after by eco-instructed gardeners who created green carpets, soft enough for brides to walk on. Some more rustic than others, the grassy areas are beautiful inside and out as they are void of fertilizers and pesticides. Wild life of all kinds can graze them without dropping dead or sick. Not that the foxes, bobcats and mountain lions would come that close, the lawns are by the human dwellings, but the deer do. They look at Peter with those beautiful wondering eyes and accept his presence at least for a while as he vibrates caring and sensitivity. They usually dash off when he moves, he’s a human after all and who can trust us? But Peter doesn’t like to hold onto things or deer, he goes with the flow, the ocean breeze and follows the natural laws of the land. That’s how he could restore the property back to health after it was abused for years by a rather rowdy equestrian center. Just recently he found three Salamanders by a little stream and they only thrive where there is prime spring water. If that isn’t amazing enough, he plans an organic garden in one of the fenced tennis courts - so that they don’t have to shush and slash away the rabbits and other critters who naturally find delight in stealing fresh goodies. Considerate? There’s more. All alu, plastic and wine bottles are recycled and a bunch of solar panels provide most of the energy necessary for the lodge type dwelling - with fire place, wooden floors and ceiling and a rustic long bar.

“Sometimes we’ll find red tail hawks arguing with wild parrots”, Peter says, “but other than that it is all about peaceful coexistence and the love for life”.

To follow:

The Preserves many locations

The Preserves Future Plans

The wedding of Candace and Josh