Once Upon a Cline: A Vintage Chic Santa Barbara Wedding with Just the Right Amount of Color

May 3, 2023 Megan Hageman

Chris and I have always been drawn to vintage. Living and building our first home together in Palm Springs vintage was easy and we sourced so many things from local shops. When Chris was ready to propose he immediately began searching vintage and estate jewelry for the perfect ring. He surprised me with a gorgeous vintage engagement ring (and wedding band) that is originally from the 1950s. After a Covid cancellation of our original Temecula Winery wedding and a move to Santa Barbara we set out to plan our perfect vintage Santa Barbara wedding.

We fell in love with the downtown location and ambiance of Villa & Vine immediately and knew booking our ceremony at the Historic Courthouse made perfect sense. As we started replanning our wedding we cut our guest list in half (48 total in attendance) keeping it to our nearest, dearest family & friends, and set out to curate an intimate introduction to our new home.

Chris and I have always hosted big, family style dinners in our backyard and wanted our reception to feel like an elevated version of those dinners. String lights...beautiful wine...great music...warm laughter. The dress I fell in love with is made of gorgeous lace and bead work that, while a modern cut, felt vintage. That was the jumping off point and from there we used my grandmother's wedding china as our mood board to create a vintage vibe. My grandpa passed the china down to me in 2020 right as we were replanning our wedding. It has gold detail and bold, jewel tone florals which inspired the bud vases and bouquets our florist created. We worked with Otis & Pearl to curate an eclectic mix of vintage china, gold flatware, and vintage champagne coupes for the table top then introduced plenty of candlelight with brass candlesticks and floating candles. Going back to our dinner party roots made it easy to create long family tables and select a family style meal of lamb, swordfish, a Greek salad, and mashed potatoes...it was also kismet that Villa and Vine is owned by a Greek man since Chris is half Greek! Chris and I spent hours curating a playlist for our DJ filled with the standards, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sinatra, for our cocktail hour and dinner before moving to the outdoor dance floor.

We chose to keep the ceremony simple and shared our vows privately during our first look with our dog, Hogan, watching close by. After the ceremony we invited guests to walk with us from the Sunken Gardens to Villa & Vine, up State Street. Chris had seen this done while traveling in Greece during high school and loved the fun it brought.

For us the most important part of the day was celebrating our love with our closest family and friends. Our bridal party was made up of my 2 best girlfriends, Chris's best college friend, and Chris's 3 kids: Lucy, Molly & George. Lifelong friends sat side by side with new friends. They shared memories and made new ones which is really all we could have asked for.