Elegant Taupe and Dusty Rose Hues Elevated This Intimate Backyard Wedding in Los Angeles

With just 30 days of planning, Caroline and Gene pulled together an elegant, intimate backyard wedding with a neutral color palette of dusty rose and taupe. The Los Angeles backyard microwedding included upscale bento lunch boxes wrapped in bojagi (traditional Korean wrapping cloth), an appearance from the couple's pup, Toby, and even an officiant who joined the event virtually over a video call. "The day was beyond amazing considering we were NOT going to have a wedding at all," recalls Caroline. "My fiancé and I thought to just do a small BBQ-type gathering in my sister's backyard for our Zoom nuptials since our online court date was only a month away. I'm not one to plan nor did I have the time to envision a wedding in such a short time so doing anything beyond ordering take-out was stressing me out. However, a good college friend of mine who is an expert wedding planner stepped in and put a wedding design and vision together for me within weeks. She vetted and searched for the right vendors to put together a wedding beyond my imagination. Our wedding was classic, soft, romantic and modern. The overall color palette showcased white, soft pinks, soft yellows, taupe and dusty rose," shares Caroline. 

"Food was an important part of the reception," says Caroline. "We knew we wanted to serve our favorite food, omakase bento boxes to our guests. Traditionally, bento boxes are served wrapped in furoshiki but we paid homage to that tradition with the Korean version, Bojagi. Bojagi wraps are used to cover food and presents that are given to friends and family on special occasions. Our planner was able to find the perfect fabric in the fashion district of Los Angeles to match our overall look. She not only cut the fabric to size to wrap each box, but also had acrylic custom name signs made to sew onto each bojagi wrap. Talk about a labor of love! I can't imagine the time she spent bringing this custom project to life. Our planner thought of everything, including utensils for the boxes, something I likely would've overlooked. She went out of her way to find the most beautiful wooden chopsticks to add to the final touches of the bento boxes. There are probably many more details that our planner thought of that I'm not aware of, but what I do know is that she was able to put all this all together beautifully in just a month!"

Despite the wedding being intimate and last-minute, the couple made sure to include personalization and details that spoke to them in the backyard wedding. "One thing that is great about a small wedding is that we were able to really focus the details to personalize many aspects of the wedding," recalls Caroline. "Starting with the welcome sign and bride/groom sign we can keep forever. It was custom laser cut for us and adorned with dried flowers that our wedding planner spent weeks pressing to add to the pieces. All of our guests got a piece of the action as well. They received a custom laser-cut name tag as part of their bento box. They could later use that same name tag to sew into their favorite jacket or onto their school backpacks. Our favorite part of the wedding was that we didn't have to worry about a thing. Everything from the decor, food, design, photography and day-of timeline was taken care of. The only thing we had to worry about was getting dressed up, showing up and just enjoying the time with our loved ones."

"I think being able to spend time with our family is and always will be the most important thing to us," says Caroline. "We are still living in the midst of a pandemic so it was even more special to have our immediate family members with us to celebrate our union. It had been months since we'd seen each other in person and we were so excited to finally see each other's faces."