Stable Cafe Showcase Event

Hello!  It's been a while, per usual :(  I'm finding it's so much easier these days to share via Instagram because it's, well, instant?  But I definitely have some fun events stored up to share with you here so let's get started!

Stable Cafe is of course very near and dear to me (KTW and I married there last year!) and this past October, they let me host a little showcase event with just a few of my favorite Bay Area wedding vendors.  The results were absolutely lovely and I felt so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderfully creative folks.  Green Wedding Shoes humbled me further by sharing the gorgeous images by Edyta Szyszlo HERE.  A few of my favorite details below....

In the bricked fireplace room we set up a faux dinner table.  I was inspired by the million shades of green at Stable and tried to bring those into the tablescape.  The vintage bistro chairs from Pieces by Violet faded from dark green to soft washed white and the bench opposite's fabric carried the ombre pattern as well.  Got Light hung a vine-y brass chandelier that fit right in with the indoor growing trees and vines.

Creamy soft white dinner plates were set off by a pale golden patterned charger, teak silverware, amber goblets and crystal champagne coupes all from Frances Lane.  I found vintage milkglass vases at the Alameda Flea to hold bundles of skinny green tapers that resembled grass shooting up from the table.  The striped green runner from La Tavola brought some structure to an otherwise organic feeling scene.

Lila B's signature succulent gardens decorated the entire space...

Including the walls!

I watercolored different succulent designs and had them blown up to different sizes for this art installation.  Ikea lanterns held bundles of copper wired LED lights for my "firefly lanterns".  These looked so magical once it got dark.

Lilikoi Design letterpress invitations were hand-delivered in the weeks prior to the event.  Each was wrapped in a colorful liner and closed with a gold seal and was handed to the recipient on a copper tray with two mini succulents wrapped in chambray fabric and green and white striped grosgrain ribbon.  Guests were encouraged to keep one and bring another as entry to the party.  Baylor from Lila B will be planting the ones that were returned.

Vintage furniture from Pieces by Violet were tucked into each space in the venue.  I particularly loved this Chesterfield with wooden legged chairs and gold coffee table.

Guests were welcomed through the main coffee shop with a cowhide rug, Got Light marquis heart and draped greens along the stairway.

Maisons, Marques, & Domaines hosted a bubbly bar and poured Scharffenberger into Frances Lane cut crystal coupes on Stable's own custom wood cut bar.

Guests took away burlap bags full of fun treats!

A second beverage bar hosted flavored water and wines served in dark green glass 

Frances Lane goblets.

Although easy to close off, we left Stable's lovely kitchen open for guests to peek into all the hard work that goes into catering such an event.  Chartreuse curtains framed the open space.

A lash bar by Katie Nash Beauty and Marisa Perel was a fun treat for all of the ladies!

Creative and delicious appetizers from Jersey Tomatoes were passed in the courtyard.

The Cheese School put together a lovely cheese spread in the gallery space complete with a "cheese cake" decorated with figs, greens, and berries.  I'm positive nobody left hungry!

Venue: Stable Cafe

Photographer: Edyta Szyszlo Photography

Event Coordinator and Designer: Ryder Sloan Events

Catering: Jersey Tomatoes and The Cheese School

Floral Design: Lila B

Furniture Rentals: Hartmann and Pieces by Violet

Linen Rentals: La Tavola Fine Linen

Tabletop Rentals: Frances Lane

Papergoods: Lilikoi Design+Letterpress

Lash Bar: Marisa Perel and Katie Nash Beauty

Bubbly Bar: Maisons, Marques, and Domaines

Drape and Lighting: Got Light

Gina and Chad's Wedding Featured!

A couple weeks back, Gina and Chad's day after Thanksgiving wedding at The Hotel Vitale was featured on Brides.com.  It was an honor to be a part of their special day and the images by Angie Silvy perfectly capture this effortlessly in love couple.

The groom's uncle is a close friend of Jason Alexander who played George Costanza on Seinfeld.  

As avid Seinfeld fans, the couple was thrilled with a surprise recorded wedding wish 

directly from the actor!

Aren't they the sweetest?!

A Sneak Peek and Inspiration for Saturday's Wedding

Hi Guys!

I thought it might be fun to share some sneak peeks of the inspiration that went into this weekend's wedding for G+A.  I'm so excited for this lovely couple as they create a new family together.  They have truly been a delight to work with and I think I might be a bit of a cryer on this one...

We loved the draping for this Ceremony spot with iron lanterns and gorgeous garland.  

Photo by The Nichols

Our main inspiration image from this stunner at Haiku Mill.  

We loved the long tables and fantastically romantic chandeliers!  

We'll switch out the gold chairs for silver and have tall silver centerpieces in between the chandeliers.

Photo by Aaron Delesie

La Tavola's new linens will please this polka dot loving bride!  

We're pairing it with silver ball chargers and a gray-purple linen napkin.

Can't wait to celebrate G+A on Saturday!  

Happy Monday!

This weekend was full of beauty (I don't get to say that every weekend so I'm going to brag a little :)

RSE's third wedding of 2014 was held at Stable Cafe, coincidentally where I got married in February.  The charming space clearly holds a lot of special memories for me.  And it was an honor to help Whitney and Eric host their beautiful day there.  I'll be sure to share more photos soon but I'll leave you with this sweet sentiment for the beginning of the work week.

Our Rehearsal Dinner

As of today, I've been a happily married woman for three months.  Can't believe how quickly that happened!

I figured it's time to go ahead and show some fun wedding details.  I'll start with our Rehearsal Dinner which was hosted at The Wayfare Tavern, one of our favorite SF restaurants.  Celebrity chef, Tyler Florence does his thing there and the food always amazes!  Additionally, it has a distinctly NYC feel which is very special to us as NYC is the city we met and fell in love in.

The only photo of us from our Rehearsal Dinner.  

Really wish we had hired our photographer for this night too :(  

I had met Taylor's sister for an awesome blow-out at Dry Bar earlier that day to ease a little stress and to catch-up with my soon-to-be sister over mimosas!  Taylor bought me the dress when we were out running errands one day from Betabrand, an SF start-up.  

And my Alice and Olivia shoes have tiny red hearts on them for our Valentines Day celebration. 

We reserved the Bartlett Room upstairs which is long and skinny.  It features a view into their wine collection on one side and lush velvet curtained windows on the other side.  There's a bar at one end and a screen at the other end where you can play your own videos or watch enchanting black and white scenes of old San Francisco, we did both!  The long dinner table was perfect for our family style meal.  

We first hosted a private dinner for our family and then opened up the rest of the evening to all guests.  This worked perfectly for us as we wanted to give special time to our family but also wanted to see all of our friends who had flown in to be with us. 

 Since it happened to fall on Valentines Day, I made up a little sweets table in the front of the room with vintage Valentine candies and my mother's heart shaped rice krispie treats.

I bought vintage Valentines off of Etsy and hand wrote all of our 

dinner guests names in gold for place cards.  

We now have our "Bride" and "Groom" place cards framed 

with the personalized menu below in our kitchen.

The dinner was delicious and we had the sweetest toasts from family members.  At the end of the meal, we played a slideshow that my mother made for us of pictures of Taylor and I growing up and then as a couple too.  It was emotional and beautiful and later when our friends started to arrive, we couldn't believe how many people were there to celebrate us.  It's truly one of the most overwhelmingly awesome things you realize when you host your own wedding.  More from the big day later...off to make my husband a little three monthiversary surprise!

Ryder Sloan Events

After years of dreaming, I have finally started my own event planning company!  Ryder Sloan Events is now open for business!  Well, officially, as of November I was open but now I've applied for the LLC, created a website, had a custom logo designed, helped two lovely brides to plan their nuptials and even have one more on the books.  So far, so good.

With the creation of the new website, seen HERE, I was encouraged to include a link to my little ole blog here.  I agreed, however, I'm incredibly embarrassed as I haven't actually blogged since last May.  So here we go!  Back in the blogger game.  Hoping to keep it up although no promises.  My RSE Facebook page HERE is definitely the best way to keep up with the new company.

For my first post back though, I thought I'd share an image per month for the last ten months I've been away.  Hope I still have some readers out there, if not, this will just be a fun exercise for me at least to remember a great year :)

June: Purchased a new camera for my trip with KTW to Tokyo!  Trip was amazing, will try to share photos soon, unfortunately they're on another computer so my new camera will have to do, it's pretty right?

July: Saw Mates of State at the Independent (officially a groupie now I think after five shows), their opening band was The Stepkids and we loved their white screen, white outfits and crazy graphic light show.  This would be so fun to do at an event, great backdrop! 

August: Did day-of coordination on my own for the first time for an Amy Nichols Special Events wedding who I've been freelancing with for almost two years now.  It was such a magical day and furthered my desire to pursue my own company!  

 September: Went to Berkeley for the Edward Sharpe Show, proclaimed it one of the best experiences at a concert that I'v ever had.

 October: Hosted a Halloween party, glittered some pumpkins and used blue hydrangeas to decorate.

 November: My first wedding under Ryder Sloan Events for sweet Sera and Sean.  We even did all the florals seen here on the floor of their room at the Bowery Hotel. I lived in NYC for five years and never made it to the flower mart, bucket list item checked!

 December: Sorry for the grainy photo...hosted dinner for my Cookbook Club and was able to use those same glittery pumpkins as place cards.

 January: 2nd Ryder Sloan Events wedding for Jenn and Ben, first sword arch at a wedding.  Love this so so so much!

February: Family visited and we spent a day in Napa.  Their trips are always bittersweet, I hate dropping them off at the airport.

March: Perhaps our biggest news, we've bought a condo!  We get the keys Monday and start renovations right away.  Looking forward to sharing some before and afters!

It's good to be back, thanks for reading!