The Locally Grown Weddings team has gone through some changes during the slow season and we are now excited to introduce our new photography partner, Jenna Hesse!

Jenna started her company, JennaBeth Photography, in 2008 after several years of shooting weddings.  Her background in Fine Arts adds to her photography style along with her ability to create vibrant, natural and sincere images.

She can’t wait to capture your wedding story.

See more of Jenna’s images on our website. Here’s to a great 2013 season!

Perhaps what is so exciting about Chacewater’s wines is that their first professional release was in 2011, and the following year they were named Golden State Winery of the Year at California State Fair. No small feat, let alone for a winery that just emerged onto the scene! And not only do they produce award-winning wines, but they are also creating award-winning olive oils, too! These folks are busy, busy, busy, so we’re thrilled they will be making the trek down from Kelseyville to spend some time with us in the tasting room. We’ll be featuring their wines alongside Rebecca Jean Catering & Events at 2pm and Square Meals at 3pm, so make sure you stop on by and sample their amazing wines!

A few tidbits about the winery, in their own words…

Chacewater Winery & Olive Mill is family-owned and operated. We are located in Kelseyville, a town tucked away in Lake County, California. We take pride in producing wines, Extra Virgin Olive Oils and soaps of the highest quality, sourced from select vineyards and estate-grown olive trees. By producing only small lots and using only the finest natural ingredients we are able to produce artisanal products of distinction.

We can’t begin to express how excited we are for Gina’s wine and food pairing workshop in the Salon on Sunday! We’ve been collaborating over the past few months on the food and wine pairings for our Tasting Room and Lounge and appreciate how approachable, informative, and fun Gina has made learning about all the different wines! We know she’ll bring all of these qualities and more to her wine and food pairing workshop on Sunday in the Salon.

Wondering what Gina will cover in her workshop? Check it out!

Wine is a wonderful tool to elevate experiences. In this workshop we will arm you with the tools to discover your palate, create harmonious food & wine pairings, and leverage wine to make your events spectacular. Join us for a full sensory experience as we guide you through the following topics.  

- Break down key wine concepts and put them into context 

- Discover your palate: learn how to taste wine, identify components in a wine, and communicate what you enjoy 

- Learn how to approach food and wine to create harmonious pairings

- Explore creative ways to incorporate wine into your events and receive practical wine tips for entertaining

And if you like the wines we’re pouring in the Tasting Room, you can take some home on Sunday and  support a local nonprofit, Plant*SF!

Gina is also providing Locally Grown Love with a wonderful service for our event. Guests, (that means you!) can purchase the wines we’re pouring in our tasting room on Sunday and 10% of the proceeds from these sales will go directly to Plant*SF, a local nonprofit that Locally Grown Weddings is excited to support!

Their mission is to promote permeable landscaping equally as sustainable urban infrastructural practice and as a beautification effort; by providing information to the public and by partnering with city and neighborhood organizations.

Plant*SF is helping to green our community, one neighborhood at a time. Check out some of the before and after photos of the work they’re doing. It’s amazing!

Gorgeous stationery makes us swoon, and Melia, the creative mind behind WedSpring, has us going ga-ga! But WedSpring is not just about beautiful and unique papers, it’s also an amazing resource for all things wedding! With a beautiful space on Polk Street where you can peruse paper products, photos, and more to your heart’s content, this is one place where we want to be spending lots of quality time. For some immediate gratification, come visit Melia in the Marketplace on Sunday and check out a specially-curated selection of invitations and more from her paperie!

Tell us about the name of your company and its origins?

WedSpring has a multi-faceted meaning, it mostly means the spring, the source for all things wedding, the beginning of the wedding journey and the inspirational process involved it that journey.

How did you get your start?

My obsessions for paper, weddings, travel and food started at an early age.  I used to get all of my friends to play wedding when we were kids, had a HUGE collection of every type of paper imaginable and got myself subscriptions to Food & Wine magazine, Sunset and Home magazine when I was 13… then when Martha Stewart started her wedding magazine I was smitten.  Weddings was where all of passions came together and made sense.

Describe your most unique product or service.

Hmmm… that is a tough one, as all our services are unique. Couples love our honeymoon planning services, as it is a creative process and very involved.  There are so many decisions to be made when planning the wedding, that when they finally get to the honeymoon they have reached decision atrophy.  We help them refocus, and design an itinerary that is beyond their wildest dreams.  Our specialties are romantic vacations, boutique hotels and knowing the best restaurants in any location.

What is your favorite wedding or celebration trend?

Weddings are becoming as unique as the couples getting married, and all of the old rules just don’t apply.  You can wear whatever color shoes you want now, mix up the order of events and play with every element of the event to make it uniquely yours.  I love that.

What is your favorite season for a wedding and why?

I know you all expect me say Spring!  However, my favorite season for an urban wedding is winter.  I like that it gets dark so early and you can really make use of fireplaces, candlelight, umbrellas, and Dungeness crab.  I love shrugs for the brides and overcoats for the grooms… flower girls in little pea coats.  The moodiness and calm of winter encourages you to slow down and really take in every moment of the event. Also, because it is a slower season for weddings you don’t have to compete for venues, vendors or your favorite photographer; and it is the best time to honeymoon in some of my favorite beach destinations.

For wine country weddings my favorite month is February.  All the reasons I love a winter wedding still apply, but the weather is usually beautiful.  I also have a thing for blooming magnolia trees and mustards, both are at their peak in February,

How would you describe your style?

I just read the book Parisian Style and loved it! It was as though someone wrote a book about my style.  Chic, timeless, effortless Parisian lady with a touch of haute hippy.  There always has to be one juxtaposed element that makes it all work.

Any tips for folks looking to throw a great party?

Start with a letterpressed invitation in the mail, and finish with a hand written thank you note.  Always have too much of everything, but keep it streamlined… a great music play list, plenty of candlelight and flowing wine always make a great party.  I like to serve something sweet at the end of the night, and have a small-bite and drinks ready the moment guests arrive. I always play with the décor… two things are constants though, fresh flowers and mood lighting.

Describe your most favorite event to date?

My wedding was the best event I have ever been to.  It was a small wedding and the love was palpable.  Frankly, anything could have gone wrong that day and I wouldn’t have cared… I married my favorite person in the world.

Any trends we should keep our eyes out for this season?

I am seeing the return of old-world glamour, and influences from the Elizabethan era in flowers and décor.  Alongside that, I think that we are going to see more high-fashion style focused weddings.  The vintage wedding is going to morph into natural and organic, which is always in style.

For paper it is letterpress everything, and the thicker the paper the better.

Any fun facts about your product or company?

I once had a wedding magazine collection of 265 magazines (at last count).

Tell us about the name of your company and its origins?

How did you get your start?

How would you describe your style?

Big Band Jazz / Swing/Revival/Jazz and Blues

Describe the clients you love working with?

We love working with anyone who enjoys fantastic and innovative music and entertainment.

Any tips for folks looking to throw a great party?

Hire MegaFlame Big Band and Cabaret!

Any fun facts about your band?

We love to create our shows around a theme, such as 1920′s Speakeasy, Murder Mystery,  Zoot Suits and Feathers…..That really seems to get the party started.

Tell us about the name of your business and how it came about.

Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard was established in 1975 by Ken Burnap. He wanted to make the best Pinot Noir possible in California and felt strongly that the best place to do that would be the Santa Cruz Mountains.We are still working with Pinot from the same part of the mountains 37 years later.

Our sister brand, Quinta Cruz, was created to feature only grape varieties that originally come from Portugal and Spain. The name Quinta Cruz comes from the fact that in Portugal many wineries are called “Quinta do ________”. I wanted it to be an obvious sound reference to the parent brand, Santa Cruz/Quinta Cruz. “Quinta” means “fifth” and historically comes from the fact that vineyards in Portugal had to pay a fifth of their income in taxes. So vineyards came to be called Quintas.

How did you get your start?

I came to help bottle one day in 1979 through a friend of a friend and never left. Ken and I spent 25 years together in what could be called a collaborative apprenticeship, where over the years I did more and more and Ken did less and less until he retired fully in 2004. I took over the business after that, being basically ineligible for a “real” job by that point.

What is your most unique wine?

Unique is a word that is usually misused, unique meaning the only one of its kind. Though I would hesitate to say it is the only one like it, I’d say the rarest and most unusual wine we do is a bottling of 100% Graciano. It’s a rare variety originally from Spain hardly ever bottled on its own (usually bottled with Tempranillo in Rioja). This one is grown in California and is on our sister brand, Quinta Cruz. It has flavors and aromas unlike anything you would be used to from drinking French and Italian varieties.

How would you describe your wines & wine-making style?

I believe a wine’s first duty is to dance with food and cellar well for many years. That means I make very European-style wines without high alcohol, with great structure and acidity, and subtly integrated oak nuances, not oaky at the expense of fruit. They are big wines in complexity, not big by being brash. I approach wine as an integral and important food item that has to be complex and interesting enough for you to want to come back and take the next sip.

Describe the type of clients you love to work with.

Fun-loving food/wine hedonists who aren’t all full of themselves. I love to work with folks who understand the value of a sense of community.

Any tips for folks looking to throw a great party?

Don’t stress about the details. You’ll never get it all done and be fully ready for the party, and it won’t matter a hill of beans when you look back on it.

Any trends we should keep our eyes out for this season?

You’ll see a gradual but steady decline in the popularity of ”raisin-bomb”, over-ripe, high-alcohol wines. Americans are understanding and enjoying good quality food more and more and there will be great growth in the understanding of subtly and nuance in both food and wine.

Any fun facts about your company?

Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Sirah is famous for aging gracefully well into it’s third decade. Especially with Pinot Noir, in California there are only about a dozen wineries that can claim that.

Quinta Cruz was the first wine brand in the U.S. to feature only Iberian grape varieties now grown in California. Many wineries are doing California-Italian or California-Rhone type wines, but no one else was (or is?) doing exclusively varieties from Portugal and Spain.

Looking for a super unique gift to give your friends who have it all? Head over to see Sunflower Poppy in our Marketplace at Locally Grown Love and check out the oh-so-amazing monogrammed creations that Ashli Reitz is producing (on everything – glassware, blankets, jewelry boxes, you name it!). Take a peek at some of her products below and learn more about Sunflower Poppy below!

What are the origins of your business’ name?

The name of my company is a combination of the state flowers from the two states I have lived in – Sunflower: Kansas, Poppy: California

How did you get started?

I decided I wanted to do something creative and fun outside of my day job and so Sunflower Poppy was born after taking a class at the Techshop.

How would you describe your product?

Who is your ideal client?

Favorite season for a wedding and why?

We are always on the hunt for gorgeous artwork from up and coming local artists, and one of the first places we go is Secession Art & Design in Bernal Heights. Owner, curator and artist, Eden Stein, has assembled a knock-out collection of beautiful and unique work from very talented folks. Supporting local businesses has never been easier, or more beautiful! Eden will be joining us in the marketplace with a specially curated selection for Locally Grown Love, whoo hoo! And…don’t forget to chat with her about a new service that Secession will be launching this summer – an art registry where your guests can help contribute to purchasing a fantastic piece of artwork for you & your sweetie!  

Tell us about the name of your company and its origins?

Secession Art & Design’s philosophy and name come from an artist movement called the Vienna Secession, founded in 1897. The Secessionists were a group of makers of different mediums working together to create artwork and design directly inspired by the collaborative process and community. Learning of the Secession movement spurred a trip to Vienna, a wedding, and a store opening that pays tribute to the past and present. Our retail location is now a gallery, boutique, and workspace combined to create an untraditional storefront that allows us to explore and grow together through different mediums.

How did you get your start?

In 2006, I planned a wedding at Dog Patch Studios. The wedding and location were my blank canvas. Fearing that we would receive five coffee makers as wedding gifts, my husband and I instead asked our guest to contribute to purchasing the art that hung at our wedding. One hundred guests contributed to an oil painting of the Vienna Trees by Ivy Jacobsen, and another original painting by Sidnea D’Amico. Everything for the event was locally sourced, bartered for, and turned out beautifully. Our wedding was my first gallery installation, and Secession opened one year after the wedding.

What is your favorite wedding or celebration trend?

Every wedding is beautiful in its own way and full of its own traditions, so it is hard to say. What stands out in my mind from my own wedding was the canopy that we stood under called the Chuppah, of the Jewish wedding tradition. Ours was orange silk with photo transfers of our parents, and grandparents. Having our family and ancestors above our heads made us feel connected to the important people that make us who we are. Our families went to town with our Chuppah and planted flowers in painted pots at each post the day of our wedding. They wanted it to reflect growth and life.

What is your favorite season for a wedding and why?

Fall because of our Indian Summers here in San Francisco and the beautiful sunsets.

How would you describe your style?

My gallery is a dear reflection of the styles of art and design that I love. For fashion I trend towards reconstructed vintage, one-of-a-kind items. Wearing independently designed clothing of which I know the maker makes my day when picking an outfit. As for art, each piece that I buy marks a time in my life. I know when a piece speaks to me because I feel like I have a crush. My home gallery has grown since ownership, and these pieces are a living timeline of my curation and dedication to owning art. Art makes our home an oasis.

Any tips for folks looking to throw a great party?

Choose what is most important to spend your money on – whether it be food, location, or photography – and then run with it to make it your own!

Describe your most favorite event to date?

My wedding! Two other contenders are the opening party and the 5^th anniversary party for my store. What made these events memorable were the people, art, and sense of community. It can be difficult to reflect upon an experience within the moment, but it is important to live, love, and learn from these monumental life milestones.

Any trends we should keep our eyes out for this season?

Yes! Keep an eye out for new visionary art exhibitions at Secession. The month of April will bring the calming and tranquil romanticism of Jeff Klarin’s new series of mixed media artworks on natural wood. The show, “Horizons: A Long Walk,” captures a special moment in landscapes and vast possibly.

Any fun facts about your product or company?

This summer, Secession is launching an art specific wedding registry on our brand new website. Using this feature will allow your guests to contribute toward the purchase of artwork that will symbolize the memory of your special day.

Tell us about the name of your company and its origins?

The name “Brown Pigeon” came to me one day while working in my studio. I noticed a gathering of pigeons outside and amidst the mass of gray pigeons there was one brown pigeon. This occurrence resonated with me. It seemed like a metaphor for the wonder of art–it opens your mind to see beauty in the ordinary. I love that.

How did you get your start?

After obtaining my BFA in printmaking at Weber State University, Utah in 2005, I moved back to my home state of California and pondered my next adventure. I decided to start making stationery and journals printed with my own hand-carved stamps. After selling at a few craft shows, I noticed that people seemed to be more interested in the printed designs than the products themselves. It hit me! There was a need for stamps! I began taking custom orders and created a line of stamps that has now evolved into a collection of over 40 designs. I’ve also just written a book on stamps called Put Your Stamp On It and I continue to do custom work.

What is your favorite wedding or celebration trend?

I love that brides are embracing a do-it-yourself attitude. Handcrafted items have so much appeal and whether you buy them on Etsy or make them yourself, you are creating a memory that not only you, but your friends and family will cherish and talk about for years. I think color has become a really fun part of weddings too. I just love it when I see wedding pictures with bright palettes or quirky combinations that you wouldn’t expect. It’s so fun.

What is your favorite season for a wedding and why?

End of Summer. My husband and I got married at the end of August 2010 in his parents’ backyard. It felt like an exciting time when one season (and a chapter in our lives) was about to transition into another.

How would you describe your style ?

I would describe my style and my stamps as fun, cheerful, handmade, and modern.

Any tips for folks looking to throw a great party?

Create a inspirational collage or vision board of things you would like for your event. It will help you stay focused and true to your personal style.

Describe your most favorite event to date?

I would have to say my favorite events are craft shows like the Bazaar Bizarre, Renegade and Locally Grown Love. I love to see all the creative businesses out there. I think the bay area especially has some really creative business owners and innovators. It’s inspiring to be around all of it–you can’t help but get excited and want to throw a party of your own.

Any trends we should keep our eyes out for this season?

I think stamping is going to really surge as a fun way to personalize many parts of your wedding including invitations, save the dates, favors and decor. Letterpress has been popular for a few seasons but I think people are looking for a more accessible, affordable and versatile option.

Any fun facts about your product or company?

We are proud to use all USA-made and supplied materials to produce our stamps