Part of my job as a wedding planner is being able to take my clients' ideas and bring them to life for them. I love taking the vision they have and putting it on a table or creating their perfect ceremony design. But it's usually their ideas and vision that I am executing. Of course, I add my suggestions and thoughts, but I want their wedding to be totally “them.” So it is very rare that I get full design control over a ceremony & reception.

This is one of the many reasons why I was so excited to be asked to be a planner at the second I Do Sodo Wedding Tour! As a planner, you get assigned a fabulous venue in the Sodo District and then you get to build a team of vendors around a design at your space. My task was to create an urban chic party at Canvas Event Space where you can experience some of the best vendors in Seattle and leave with some inspiration for your wedding! Canvas is a large, modern event space that's perfect to party in! It is a blank canvas – pun intended – to create any design that you want.

The hexagon theme came to light when I was in San Diego at Better Buzz Coffee and they had the cutest hexagon tile floor! That was last June when there wasn’t a hexagon wedding to be found. Then it just so happened that the geometric shape blew up! By the time February rolled around I was perfectly on trend. Maybe I should start doubling as a trend forecaster?

Once I had the idea of using hexagons, I knew I wanted to build a custom piece for the ceremony backdrop. I cut out the over 100 12” diameter MDF boards with my husband and dad in my parents' garage in Montana over Thanksgiving. Then I painted them black and white and combined two 4x8’ plywood boards for the background and painted them metallic copper. Then I used a brad gun (like a boss) to secure the hexagons on the plywood. I attached the base of the backdrop onsite at Canvas so that I was able to actually move it. And yes, it is as heavy as it looks! It was the first thing I’ve ever built (and it will be my last), BUT I loved how it turned out!! And it served as a fun photo backdrop for guests to partake in thanks to The Snap Bar. I donated it to the venue if you want to rent it from Canvas! It already has a few dates to be rented out – I’m pumped people liked it so much!

I am loving that copper is the new ‘metallic’ on trend, so I incorporated it in the paper goods, escort card holders, and votives, and I had a few custom wood pieces painted copper as well. I added a few brass, gold, and rose gold pieces as well to create a warm mixed metal vibe. I wanted to keep it simple, so adding it to the black and white color palette was just what I had in mind.

I put together a PHENOMENAL team of vendors to help achieve the vision for the event. Each vendor is crazy talented, friendly, professional & fun! And they let me do some crazy things like, put a car inside of Canvas (thanks British Motor Coach), use ridiculous names for our table settings (Barack Obama and Ryan Reynolds, for example. Their invitations must have gotten lost in the mail!), and put a gorgeous model in a two-piece gown with a black leather jacket and a floral cuff.

Katie Parra captured the event beautifully and was able to showcase each vendor who worked on it and how everyone's details came together perfectly. A full list is below… I hope you enjoyed the show!