Our Bohemian-Bling Beach Wedding: Tulum, Mexico

 

As most of you know, my now husband, Nicholas and I got married last year on 11.11.13. Surrounded by our family and closest of friends, we were married by Mayan shamans on the soft, white sand of Tulum, Mexico.

Our wedding was inspired by our love for travel, the ocean, the unconventional and my love for glitter and all things sparkly. We put a lot of thought in to how we could personalize and add meaning to our wedding and ended up making most everything from our wedding invitations to the programs to the 65+ friendship bracelets that we included in everyone's welcome bags. An experience never to be forgotten, there is not one thing that I would change about this magical day.

It took me a good month to create these 100+ hand-made invitations. 

All artwork and design was created by me. The address stamp I purchased from Red Cloud Boutique.

 

 

 

 

We used this picture to create our Thank You (post)Cards.

Nic created a book filled with pictures of us and all of our family and friends that were in attendance. He left blank pages for people to write on in the book using some of my watercolors from the wedding invitations.

How adorable are these custom Foldable.me dolls, gifted to us by a dear friend. 

We managed to bring them from LA to Mexico and back without crushing them!

Our tables were named after things that are very important to us: Family, Friends, Love, Hope and Dreams.

Sticking with the beach theme-- our escort cards/wedding favors were messages in bottles. Little glass bottles with cork tops that contained a hand-written sentiment for each guest. The messages were written on gold glitter paper and rolled in to the bottles. I created and painted each heart-shaped name tag to be unique and Nic wrote the guests name and table in each.

Purchased in Tulum, the beautiful ever so perfect, handmade box was gifted to us by dear friends at our wedding and included on our welcome table.

You can't see our little birdie cake-toppers in the cake shot above, but here they are. Handmade by Skye Art, these adorable little birds now sit in our living room.

Photographer: Del Sol Photography // Venue: Dreams Resort & Spa, Tulum, Mexico // Officiant: Eventos Luz // DJ: DJ Doremixx // Wedding Invitations: i make pretty // Hair: Dreams Resort & Spa + Skin By Gina // Makeup: Skin By Gina and Sewon Kim // Bride's Dress: Maggie Sottero, Panache Bridal Beverly Hills // Groom's Suit: J.Crew // Veil: Weddings & Dreams // Wedding Rings: XIV Karats, Beverly Hills // Bride's Necklace: Baublebar  

i make pretty: Hummingbird Inspired Artwork

// Happy Hummingbird 8x10 Print by imakepretty //

Inspired by the magical little hummingbirds that started coming around our home last summer, I painted these two colorful little birds. It all started with one very friendly, ruby-throated humminbird who would sit outside and sing the same song all day. We hung a hummingbird feeder for him, and before long, more hummingbirds showed up. 

// Happy Hummingbird Birthday Card by imakepretty //

 

After a couple of weeks, I could stand outside, and he would come right up to my face, hover, then go to his feeder, eat, and take off. He was so cute!

5 interesting hummingbird facts:

• Their wings flap in the shape of an infinity symbol when they hover
• Hummingbirds can fly backwards, left, right and forward
• They flap their wings about 80 times per second
• Their feet are for perching, not walking or hopping
• Hummingbirds symbolize joy, playfulness and adaptability

I haven't seen him in awhile, I'm hoping the spring brings him back!

Back to the art-- this was the first time that I painted in detail with watercolors. I usually use watercolors when I'm painting abstractly and acrylics when I want to paint details. I really liked the way the watercolors allowed me to add depth and layers of color so nicely on top of each other and I was still able to get the detail that I wanted.

I have added the 8x10 Happy Hummingbirds print and the Happy Hummingbird birthday card  above to my Etsy store, i make pretty, check out the new goods!

xo,

Maria

A Minute in the Life: Popcorn + Pizza

// Grey Block's Delicious Salad Pizza + Cheese Flavored Popcorn //

My husband just loooves food that's not-so-healthy. I tried to compromise with a salad pizza, which he so nicely went to pick up...and brought home with a bag of extra salty, cheese flavored popcorn. 

I have to admit, it was quite a killer combo.

Try it sometime :)

xo

Maria