In celebration of Wedding Wednesday AND Halloween, I am so very excited to share this AMAZING Day of the Dead Inspired Wedding with you today!

Honestly just working on this post made me so happy this morning… between the cheerful, vibrant color palette and all of the crafty, creative details like button flower bouquets, embellished Orangina bottles, and feather-button-guitar-pick boutonnieres. More impressive yet – everything was designed & styled by the bride herself – Alison – and brought to life with the help of Heiko (the groom) & their friends and family … nice work, everyone!

I’ll let the gorgeous images – as captured by the talented Melanie Duerkopp – do the rest of the talking. Read on for lots more of them, followed by all the fun creative details from the bride!

PARTY DETAILS, as told by the Alison…

“Our wedding was the day before Halloween, so we decided to go with a Day of the Dead theme. (I am pretty halloween/horror movie/etc. obsessed so it seemed appropriate). The bridesmaids and I made all the feather centerpieces, feather-button-guitar-pick boutonnieres, and button-flower bouquets ourselves. Heiko and I collaborated on the invitations and save the dates–the invite included a watercolor portrait I had done of the two of us and of course his mad computer/design skills.

My dress was made by Siri  (actually a bridesmaid dress I had made in white), a San Francisco designer. I had a local seamstress add tons of tulle because I couldn’t find a petticoat in exactly the right cream color. The girls wore Lynn Lugo dresses we were lucky enough to find in a sample sale and had altered to add variation. All dresses came through The Wedding Party in Berkeley, CA. We wore Seychelles shoes. I borrowed a pair of earrings from a bridesmaid and wore a handmade headband/fascinator from The Hat Shop in Berkeley. The boys wore H&M suits, except for Heiko, whose suit was Ben Sherman. Ties were custom-made by Etsy vendor MeandMatilda.

For favors, we gave out two buttons to each guest, which looked so cool pinned to everyone’s suits especially. One was a sugar skull, the other our ‘logo’, a heart with typewritten h and a in it in different colors. We put them in a glassine envelope with confetti and tied them to Orangina bottles. Heiko and I don’t drink, so we used the Orangina for toasts.

My mom, MIL, MIL’s partner, and I worked together to make favors and cupcake tree, which held cupcakes by Love at First Bite in Berkeley, CA. Table numbers were hand painted by me, and held by sugar skull photo holders. We (me, Heiko and the moms) created a ‘guest book tree’ out of manzanita branches and cut out patterned paper for people to write their messages on.

My dad was not able to walk me down the aisle–because he was playing the processional as part of a brass quartet! The song played was Phil Philips’ ‘Sea of Love.’ The groomsmen played the same song (singer, electric guitar, and bass) during the recessional. My dad got traditional day of the dead papel picadas to line the aisle at La Borinquena Mexi-catessan in Oakland.

We had been praying to the weather gods all week, and the rain actually stopped right as the wedding was scheduled to start. All of the guests put away their umbrellas as my brother walked me down the aisle. I loved the giant Redwoods that served as an altar behind us. We were married by a judge friend of the family, who was so warm and helped make it special. Heiko and I wrote our own ceremony and vows. Our friend Jim read ‘Love’ by Roy Croft.”