“I envisioned our wedding style being romantic with a comfortable easy going, backyard feeling. Green is my favorite color and being surrounded by vines, I wanted to play up the greens with blush, champagne and gold tones since we knew the California summer golden light would make for amazing photos. I even had my dress lining dyed to a light gold!

Our wedding was held at Falkner Winery, close to my hometown in Southern California. I’m American and my husband is Australian. We met over 4 years ago in his hometown in Australia while playing professional basketball. My goal was to incorporate as many nods to our basketball roots as I could. Our seating chart became a “Seeding” Chart. One of my amazing bridesmaids made “love and basketball” cookies as party favors with the heart shapes in blush complete with our new initials which happen to be ACDC. Also, our DJ did a fabulous job of seeing through my husband’s request of calling us out “starting line up style”. Our bridal party came out to the Chicago Bulls theme song and of course we rallied the crowd with the ACDC classic Thunderstruck! My husband even had a Lebron James pre-game powder moment, but used gold glitter instead.” -Alisha, the bride

What is your favorite wedding day memory?

A few of our favorite memories were saying our own personalized vows, the surprise father-daughter dance mash-up {no one knew except my Bridesmaids and my Mom} my dad even wore a blonde wig during the Sia Chandelier contemporary portion of our dance! The wine and food at Falkner was amazing, but most of all we enjoyed having all of our family, friend and teammates from around the world in one place before we moved overseas to continue my husbands professional basketball career.

What did you DIY for your wedding?

As a fashion designer and Etsy shop owner, I’m a huge fan of DIY and enlisted the help of my carpenter father for a ton of our wedding details. While venue shopping, we found out pretty quickly that my husband was just too tall for a majority of the in-house alters. I’m 6’1 and my husband is 6’9 and I knew on our wedding day I wanted to wear 4″ heels! Our venue was accommodating and allowed us to bring in the 8 foot tall rustic bare-boned alter made by my dad! My dad also helped me with all of the other wood crafted items found throughout our venue. He cut up the signs we had coming down the footpath to the ceremony site which I hand lettered and painted 1st Corinthians 4:13 on. We also handmade our seating chart, DIY’d our LOVE marquee letters for our sweetheart table, cut and hand painted table number signs, cut and hand painted our chair “love and basketball” signs, made our own tissue paper tassels and my personal favorite…the cupcake display! I used scraps of wood from my parent’s garage and all of the blush, gold and cream papers I could find at Michael’s to make the paper flowers. Another bridesmaid made our “Let Sparks Fly” tags for our sparklers and my teammate from Australia made our fingerprint guest book. I chose to incorporate the long distance theme with vintage suitcases, a hand painted globe and maps of where we met, got engaged and where we were married since the majority of our relationship has been transcontinental. My younger brother surprised us the week of our wedding with all of the backyard games that he handmade for us. Our guests had a blast playing life-size jenga, corn hole and more!

Something old, new, borrowed and blue?

My something new was my shoes, something borrowed we’re my Mom’s diamond earrings, my something blue was my garter and my something old were the nail necklaces my bridesmaids wore each re-purposed and stamped with the year we established our friendships.

Any advice for brides currently in the planning process?

Things will happen. We did have a few mishaps the day of, a few of the tables weren’t set up exactly as I had laid them out, but I learned to let those go of those disappointments. We also chose to not do a first look as many photographers suggest. We wanted our big moment of seeing each other to be coming down the aisle, not to mention the best lighting for pictures was after the ceremony anyways!

Event Credits

Photographer: White Haute Photography // Venue: Falkner Winery // Florist: Sweet Pea Floral Creations // Desserts: Sweet Layers // DJ: Good Time Entertainment // Engagement Ring: Zales // Bride's Attire: Maggie Sottero // Make-Up: 10.11 Make-Up // Bridesmaid's Attire: David's Bridal // Groom's Attire: Men's Warehouse // Cake Topper: PS Weddings and Events // Bride's Etsy Shop: Carpenter's Daughter