Wedding Wednesday: Our Engagement Party

I’m so excited to share my Wedding Wednesday: Our Engagement Party post with y’all! Two weekends ago, Edwin and I had the most fun, special, raucous weekend because we invited tons of family and friends out to Los Angeles to celebrate our engagement with us. We had a jam packed weekend of festivities that started promptly at 4pm on Friday after work and didn’t end until after dinner on Sunday night. The highlight of the whole weekend though was our actual engagement party on Saturday night at the Beach Club in Santa Monica. The Beach Club is known for their Mai Tais so we welcomed guests into the party with trays of Mai Tais and white wine. Outside on the beachside patio, we served passing hordeauvers of ahi tuna poke, coconut shrimp, pineapple chicken skewers, and quesadillas. We had the cutest little band playing music and a very busy open bar as well as two specialty cornhole sets for our guests to play (a gift from my parents with our wedding date and hashtag on them). Cocktail hour was such a whirlwind blast of seeing so many of my favorite faces! After cocktail hour, the party migrated inside (including the band!) where we had a huge build your own taco bar and another open bar. We had various different seating arrangements with open seating because we really wanted to go for a more casual vibe since our wedding will be seated and plated. Edwin’s dad kicked off the speeches with a hysterical and touching toast. My dad followed with an equally funny and heartwarming toast. Finally, Edwin gave the best toast ever as he thanked all our friends and family for coming to celebrate us! I was so proud! My Dad then served as MC of the ‘Shoe Game’, which he did in a hysterical fashion… let’s just say he threw us under the bus with more than one question! Instead of traditional dessert, we had a s’mores station setup outside with a beach bonfire. It was one of the most fun nights of my life! The biggest thank you in the world to my parents for such a beautiful party!

I wore a midi length Tory Burch sequin skirt and a cropped ruffle tank with a pair of Stuart Weitzman silver sandals (also love these, these, these, and these). My skirt is still available in blue here and also available in pink here, here, and here. I love the top I wore so much that I’m tempted to scoop it up in the white and red version too! Edwin wore a Banana Republic suit with no tie to keep it a little more casual.

We were so happy to have Valorie at the party taking pictures! It took all the pressure off of having to take my phone out to take pictures. Instead, I kept my phone away all night (I didn’t take a single photo!) and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the party!

Our invitations were designed by Sugar Paper (I don’t have a photo but will add one to the post). Coming from someone who loves paper, I can’t even tell you how obsessed I am with the way they turned out! The Beach Club is very beachy blue and white so we kept with that theme with our invites and I’m so happy we did. Our custom cocktail napkins are from Pink Poppy Weddings. She was so lovely to work with and let me do multiple edits to get the font and sizing just right. Our custom cornhole (not pictured) was from Cornhole Worldwide (one side had the South Carolina flag on it and the other side said Charleston with our wedding date and wedding hashtag). I can’t wait to have the cornhole sets in our backyard one day!

Photography by Valorie Darling