Despite living only several miles apart in Los Angeles and working in similar jobs, Alyson Meyer and Leonardo Bravo met when they attended a museum educator’s conference in Bozeman, Montana in 1999.  Later, while hiking with friends in Yellowstone Park each thought the other to be interesting, energetic, committed and witty. Back in Los Angeles, Leonardo invited Alyson to visit his studio in Chinatown, and soon thereafter the two began dating.  Leonardo proposed to Alyson with a ring enclosed in a hand-painted scroll on Valentine’s Day.

Alyson, a graphic designer and owner of A Papier in Los Angeles, and Leonardo, a painter, let their personalities and artistic talents infuse every aspect of their wedding.  The couple created a memorable experience in a natural setting where artistic endeavor is valued and where their Southern United States and Chilean heritages were reflected in their choices of beautifully prepared food, floral design and attention to details.

The wedding was held at River House, an 1870s farmhouse located in the picturesque North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains.  River House’s food is considered to be among the finest in the South and Chef Bill Klein’s food has been featured in Southern Living.   Because Alyson and Leonardo wanted a west-coast modern style to their country wedding, they chose to use and import Los Angeles vendors along with vendors from North Carolina.  The result was an inimitable mix of the urban and the rustic, the chic and the charming, and a look that was distinctly Alyson and Leonardo.

With their impeccable taste, the artistic couple each chose a color to guide the look and feel
of their wedding: Carolina blue and chocolate. These colors were used throughout, from the invitations, floral design and gift bags, to the groomsmen’s bow ties.  Alyson created her own invitations using baby blue paper imported from a century-old paper press in England, a blue hydrangea, and chocolate crystal.  

The unique wedding weekend was attended by friends and family from all over the world, including Chile, Los Angeles, North Dakota and Texas.  Alyson and Leonardo welcomed each guest with a gift bag, including a traditional Moravian beeswax candle, trail mix, herbal soap made in the mountains, and a CD of their favorite driving tunes to listen to while cruising along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Southern party began with a reception at the 1920’s summer mountain home of Miriam and Robert Lovett, the bride’s godmother and her husband.  Guests sampled local North Carolina wine on the stone veranda and enjoyed a meal of traditional Texan gumbo and Georgia cornbread.

The casual Southern Barbecue rehearsal dinner at River House served up North Carolina deep barbecue pork, local vegetables, and cornbread.  Leonardo’s cousin from Chile, who is famous for her catered empanadas and ships them to clients as far away as France, gave a lesson to the River House chef Bill Klein. Guests sampled seasonal cobbler with blackberries on the veranda and enjoyed the Appalachian mountain tunes of Wayne Henderson and Co., a local bluegrass musician, who has played at Carnegie Hall in New York.

By the wedding day, guests had gotten to know the bride and groom even better and felt completely immersed in their breathtaking setting and the region’s culture.  The spreading branches of a 400-year-old Sycamore on the bank of the ancient river framed the outdoor wedding and emphasized the unifying theme of the natural environment in the couple’s wedding commitment to each other.  The scene provided a metaphor for the various remarks guests made as a part of the ceremony, as well as the toasts offered to the couple at the wedding dinner later.  The picturesque vignette was embellished with the couple’s signature Carolina blue and chocolate palette.  Florist Pam Carlberg, who formerly owned a boutique floral design studio in San Francisco, selected hydrangea, hastas, and gardenias from her own picking garden at her husband’s farm in Ashe County.  The bride’s bouquet was created from light blue and white hydrangea, surrounded with cascading hasta leaves, and gardenias in the center for fragrance.  The bride wore a gardenia in her hair and the maid of honor carried a pomander, a round arrangement of blue hydrangea hanging from a chocolate velvet ribbon. 

The quaint and moving ceremony was followed by culinary art blending the couple’s two heritages.  First, a tasting and cocktail hour by the river’s edge featured buckwheat blinis with smoked salmon, goat cheese and spinach crostini, mushroom tartlettes and chilean pisco sours, the national drink of Chile.  Following the reception, guests had a tapas style dinner, including tomato salad with frisée, sherry vinegar and basil oil, Chilean sea bass with melted leeks and sauce marechal, green apple sorbet with mint to clean the palette before the final entrée dishes, and coq au vin with grilled polenta and wild mushrooms.  The traditional wedding cake was made from not- so traditional, orange walnut with chocolate genoise, grand marnier and buttercream.
The couple created a limited edition art piece for their literary and artist friends, using a hand-carved woodblock made by Alyson’s father in 1955, antique wood and metal letterpress type.  As a reminder of the gathering under the ancient sycamore tree, by the river’s edge in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Alyson and Leonardo selected the poem, Trees, by Sara Coleridge (1802-1850):

 The Oak is called the king of trees,
 The Aspen quivers in the breeze,
 The Poplar grows up straight and tall,
 The Peach tree spreads along the wall,
 The Sycamore gives pleasant shade,
 The Willow drops in watery glade,
 The Fir tree useful timber gives,
 The Beech amid the forest lives.

Just as the poem unites art and nature, so did this exquisite wedding in the Blue Ridge mountain unite these two people, representing as they do the northern and southern hemisphere, as well as their friends and family from the east and west coast.