I am SO beyond excited to share this Frida Kahlo Wedding Inspiration shoot, set at Ranchos Does Pueblos, with you today! The shoot was recently featured on Green Wedding Shoes and has since been spotted all over Pinterest, so if it looks familiar now you know why! This shoot was a labor of love created between myself and Nicole of Hint of Chic. Nicole is an amazing wedding planner + designer here in Santa Barbara, and soon after meeting we became fast friends. We knew we wanted to collaborate on a shoot and we wanted it to take place at one of our favorite Santa Barbara venues-- Ranchos Dos Pueblos. Always being inspired by painters, I suggested a Frida Kahlo theme and Nicole was right there with me! We conceptualized the shoot together, but what Nicole designed ended up being even MORE than everything I had envisioned in my head! Every detail was thought through, and all the vibrant colors were to die for! I could not have been more pleased by what was created and what was captured here! I hope this shoot will inspire brides, and help them think outside that typical wedding box! Check out the gorgeous images below!VENDOR CREDITS:planner, designer, stylist, florist + concept: Nicole Chapman of Hint of Chic // concept + photography: Ashleigh Taylor Photography // location: Dos Pueblos Ranch, triciafountaine@gmail.com // paper goods: JP Stationery // flowers donated by: Florabundance // bride’s dress: La Soie Bridal, Santa Barbara // bride’s necklace: Elsa Mora // bride’s rings: Calla Gold Jewelry // bride’s earrings + wrap: Anthropologie // hair + make-up: Page Berse, Absolutely Fabulous…Glamour on the Go! // rentals: Vintage Vignettes, triciafountaine@gmail.com and Town and Country Event Rentals // china: Anthropologie // glassware+chargers: Pier One Imports // linens: La Tavola // mexican loteria card cookies: Stone House Oven // models: Brandi Wolff + Nicholls Melancon
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The ceremony set up turned out SO spectacular. It truly looks like Dali painted it. I am endlessly impressed with the design by 
My BFF's Mandi + Dan agreed to model for this shoot! Which was perfect because not only do I adore them, they are also both actors so they really got into the characters of Dali and his wife Gala. But even better than all that is Mandi and Dan got engaged just weeks before the shoot!! Hooray! So actually you will be seeing more of them in the next year as I'll be shooting their engagement and wedding! :)
Mandi's real engagement ring is the most unique ring I've EVER seen! Truly a work of art! It's pretty surreal if you ask me, so it quickly became part of the shoot!
FIERCE!
Young Salvador Dali realness! It's almost eerie how much Dan looked like him!
Work it!
Mandi's attire is from the new 
My love Amber of 
Sigh.... the romance of it all!!
Every detail was perfectly coordinated by Olivia of 
The lovely cake was by 
It is no secret at all that I LOVE 
HBO's 
I make no secrets about it... I am a SUSHI FREAK! If I was rich I would probably eat sushi once a day. I really love it that much. Usually when I tell people I love sushi, they think I mean a California Roll or Shrimp Tempura Roll. Honey, please. I barely even mess around with that standard and safe stuff. I like to be daring in my sushi adventures and eat things some people may find kinda odd, such as uni (aka sea urchin), sweet shrimp with the fried shrimp head (yes I eat the whole head and its amazing), orange clam, or little baby squid as pictured above! It's DELISH! My favorite place to try new and wild sushi is 
Artichokes have always been one of my fave treats ever! I seriously think eating a whole artichoke, petal by petal, is one of life's greatest pleasures! So I couldn't be more thrilled that it is artichoke season! YUM and HOORAY!I have a pretty easy, fool proof artichoke recipe I'd love to share! I made it just the other night! It's heaven!Ingredients
I absolutely adore this 
If you know me, you know I love food. Well, let me clarify... I love GOOD food. And I am rather snobbish about what is and isn't "good food." Well, my friends, Olio Pizzeria here in Santa Barbara is good food. Like, really really really good! 
Materials
Ta-da! The project cost me about $125 for the two doors! I plan on doing this to all the other closet doors in our condo! It's such an easy, cheap fix and adds so much WOW factor!Hope you found this post helpful and inspiring! xo, Ash
Step two is buying the paint! My mother in law and I went back and forth on what would be the best way to paint these. She was thinking a fabric paint would be best because she worried regular wall paint would make the curtains look crunchy. BUT all the DIY instructions I read had suggested wall paint. So that's what I decided we should do. I am happy to report that the curtains really aren't crunchy or too stiff, even with wall paint on them! We bought the black latex wall paint at a home improvement store on sale, $25 for a gallon. With 6 panels, we nearly used the full gallon!Step three is the hard part. DOING THE MATH! Yep it turns out chevrons are very mathematical and to make each panel the same you are going to need to figure out some measurements. Unfortunately so much of the measurements are dependent upon the width and length of your panels, and your personal taste... so any measurements we found online didn't work! The basics that I remember of what we decided on was that each Chevron would be 14" wide and that from the high point to the low point of the chevron was 18". The measuring and taping was a real pain in the butt. There is pretty much no way to sugar coat it. That is the point in the project where you may want to quit, or kill yourself or go pay one million dollars for a designer curtain in a fancy store! But don't give up! You will get through it... or rope someone else in to help you. Like I did. Thanks to Sharon, my mother in law, for crawling on the floor taping and measuring! I would have gone insane without her!
Step four is the fun part! Painting! Once we had the chevrons all taped off we got to work on painting! One tip is to press hard on all your tape lines to make sure you will get a clean and even edge. Secondly, I did two coats of paint because I thought it looked better more even. Make sure to pull the tape off the panels when they are still a wee bit damp! And then hang them up!And then you're done! Woohoo!!
Here are some additional tips/thoughts on the project:
I LOVE the plate wall, which mixes plates my grandparents had collected from around the world with a few vintage pieces that Rachel brought! :) Oh, and that is also my grandparents antique banjo barometer!
There are no words to describe how in love I am with my DIY crystal chandelier and DIY chevron curtains!
On the left - our adorable sitting area with painted side table! And on the right - a detail of our bookshelves, which are from 
I am obsessed with our chair (the Cute as a Button Erin from 
LOVE this vignette on the coffee table (which is from World Market by the way).
The living room!
Without a doubt my favorite area of the room is my silhouette wall! My grandma had silhouettes of herself, my dad and me as a kid. I love the family tradition. I added to it by ordering some from 
The antique desk and chair were also from my grandparents...antique finds which they brought home from a trip to England! The table and chair are so meaningful to me because I remember it being in their home and the stories they'd tell me about bringing it back from London. My mother-in-law recovered the cushion though since the old fabric was worn out. Voila, so antique and so modern all at once!
Cute vignettes...
The living room couch and pillows on the couch are courtesy of my favorite store EVER... 
And now for my home studio!!!!! I adore the gallery wall of my work... a nice mix of matted + framed prints and canvas gallery wraps! The desk is from Target, the chair is Ikea and the lamp is an antique (again, from my grandparents)!
I LOVE this little window bench... but my cats love it even more! The curtains are 
We DIY'd those closet doors (more on that in another post) and the other wall houses all my work stuff! The best thing is that there is enough room in here to set up a back drop for shoots if need be! It truly is my mini home studio!
I totally underestimated how inspiring it is to work surrounded by my favorite photos and magazine features! It pushes me to take it to the next level!
Voila! My home! We still need to decorate the master bedroom, the guest bath and the third bedroom, but this is quite the start! I can't wait for you to come see it! :)Credits:Design - 
Tangerine is THE color for 2012. And I have to say I adore it. It's so me. I've always leaned toward the red, pinky, orangey bright hues. And tangerine is so hot and joyful how could you not love it? 
I ADORE this tufted chair from 
One thing you notice as you shorten the length of the chandelier is there is A LOT of extra, lose wire hanging about...and it is anything but clean and modern looking! So we had to carefully and neatly fold the wires to make it look like one piece and used clear packing tape to hold it together! Now it looks super clean and you don't even notice it!Next step is the crystals!Needless to say, you have to buy the crystals first! That's the funnest + easiest part of the whole project! Watch your budget as it is VERY easy to get carried away. I spent $150 on crystals, which is $40 more than Teal + Lime spent. However, I really like the look of the extra crystals... our final result is one lush and luxe looking chandy! And still the whole chandelier came under $225 which is much less than any one you can buy a brand spankin' new in ANY store I've seen.When buying the crystals look for different shapes + sizes! Varying lengths is so important too! I chose a mix of pendalogues of varying shapes and sizes, rectangular prisms, teardrop prisms, and octagon crystals!Hanging the crystals was another challenge that took some time to figure out. Luckily I have a smart + crafty mother-in-law to help me when it comes to projects like this! We decided to use 26 gauge jewelry wire and crimping beads. First we looped the wire through the hole on each crystal. Then we used a crimping bead to hold and just wrapped the excess wire around the hanging piece of wire. Once we had all the crystals attached to wires, we then looped the other end of the wire around the chandelier. Again using a crimping bead to hold and wrapping the excess wire. ...Hope I explained that well!Here's a visual on how we fastened the crystals...it should make more sense after seeing these details...
We made sure to balance out the shapes and sizes of the crystals and also to hang them at varying lengths! That is super key. A big tip is to stop every handful of crystals you hang, and step wayyyy back. Then evaluate where it needs more of what.The final result...
I'm so in LOVE with how it turned out! And my hubby is too! He compliments it almost daily, how about that?! With the paint up and my chandelier in place our room is really starting to take shape and becpming the place I dream of it being!I'll update more as things progress!xoAshleigh
