Bel-Air Bay Club Wedding | Pacific Palisades, CA

Natalie and Chris’s Bel-Air Bay Club wedding truly embodied the spirit of a melting pot, bringing together guests from 3 continents, 10 countries, and 16 states to celebrate a weekend filled with diverse customs and cultures. Their wedding weekend began with a beautiful Thai ceremony bursting with bright colors reminiscent of Thailand’s vibrancy, and ended with a Western wedding at the Bel-Air Bay Club that celebrated the venue’s unique seaside location with timeless cream and white tones, accented with gold and baby blue hues. These two separate events that made up their wedding weekend allowed Natalie and Chris to embrace two unique aesthetics with the merging of two distinct cultures.

The Florals

“The Thai ceremony featured bright blooms that carried a lot of meaning. In Thailand, jasmine flowers represent love, happiness, and loyalty. We were blessed to have specially handmade jasmine garlands, called phuang malai, which our parents laid over our shoulders as part of our water pouring ceremony, called rod nam sang.”

The Fashion

“Both of our Thai outfits were custom made in Bangkok. Chris wore a Raj pattern outfit with an ivory silk Nehru-style shirt. My formal dress was made in the jakapatdi style. It was a two-piece silk outfit with a folded front skirt and a floor-skimming sabai over the shoulder, all intricately hand-beaded. I accessorized with traditional jewels like an arm wrap bracelet, shoulder belt, waist belt, and hair pin. The whole thing probably weighed 10 pounds, but it was so worth it! Having grown up in Bangkok, my family has many photos of me as a child wearing a version of this traditional dress for holiday celebrations. To be able to share it with our friends and family in LA was so special to me.”

The Venues

“We always knew that we would have a multi-day wedding weekend, with a Thai ceremony and a Western wedding. Having two events allowed us to lean into two different aesthetics. Thai culture is colorful and bright, so we wanted the beauty and brightness of the temple to shine through in our Buddhist ceremony. My bridesmaids celebrated in a rainbow of traditional Thai outfits, which looked stunning against the gold decor and exterior of the wat.

For our Western ceremony, we wanted to highlight the seaside location as it was a destination wedding for our guests. We leaned into mostly white tones, accented by gold and baby blue. The Bel-Air Bay Club is so stunning with its views of the Pacific Ocean, so we wanted to let the natural setting speak for itself.”