Wedding in Los Angeles

Gabriel & Tabitha

Lebanese Wedding at LA Live in Los Angeles - Image by Rene Zadori Photography - Black & White Wedding Design

A Message From The Bride

Describe your experience with wedding planning: You look forward to your wedding pretty much your entire life; all of the flowers, the dancing, the laughter, music, memories, and etc. It's something all of us girls dream about from such an early age, and when the time finally comes it's very exciting, but so stressful at the same time.

Figuring out a way to put it all together is very overwhelming. However, thankfully neither myself nor Gabriel were alone in this as we had the best wedding planner in the industry on our side, Kat Minassi of Kat Minassi Events and Design.

Our wedding planner, along with our families, especially my amazing sister-in laws, helped bring our dream day to life.

We had an amazing time planning the wedding and all leaned on each other for ideas and thoughts regarding even the smallest of details. Having that sort of expertise and team behind us really helped the process pass smoothly and we will both be forever thankful.

We also had a wonderful team of vendors working with us that really put everything together and helped us achieve that WOW factor. Inna from Butterfly Floral Events, George from Party Palace Rentals, Ben from Upstage Productions, Rafi from Rafi's Cakes, Rene Zadori from Rene Zadori Photography, and the whole team at Noble Diamond all contributed to making our wedding day perfect.

We really cannot thank them enough and would highly recommend any and every couple to work with them.

It took us about a year to plan a wedding that I've been dreaming about my entire life, but my final takeaway is to just remember to enjoy all of it because it's part of the process and is completely worth it on the big day.

Describe your experience with finding your wedding gown: This was probably the hardest and most difficult part of the whole wedding process. I went into countless stores in both New York and Los Angeles trying to find the perfect dress for me.

Unfortunately, I had no luck and panic started to creep in. Luckily, most designers are on Instagram nowadays and I was able to find inspiration from looking at thousands of photos of lavish Lebanese weddings online.

“Our Cinematic Wedding Film blew us away, and reminded us of our best day ever, and all the hard work that went into making it so special for us surrounded by our amazing family & friends from all over the world!”

I had it made up in my mind, that the only way to get the dress I wanted would be to take a little bit from some of the dresses I saw online and fully customize my own.

Then one evening in the middle of the night, I found my amazing wedding dress designer Marwan & Khaled Couture based in Beirut, Lebanon. I immediately fell in love with their work and knew that they would be able to create my dream dress.

A month later me, my mom, and aunt were on a plane to Lebanon to meet with the team that would design my dress.

A few months later, and some sleepless nights from both excitement and worry, my dress arrived to Los Angeles. It was everything I hoped it would be and more!

How did you meet?: The two of us have a few mutual friends that are a part of the same community, but never knew each other because I was living in New York and he was in California. It was at a wedding in Los Angeles of one of our mutual friends that the two of us were able to see each other for the first time.

You're probably thinking this is one of those love at first sight stories, but the truth is we didn't even speak and really only saw each other for a brief minute during this first encounter.

It wasn't until he later flew out to New York that we connected, and before we knew it he was flying out every two months to spend time with me. I know it sounds like a cliché but I knew he was the one on our second date and well the rest is history!

Describe the moment he proposed: The day he proposed is one I will never forget. He told me that he had a client party in the evening that he wanted me to dress up for and accompany him.

I immediately entered into a frenzy thinking I had nothing to wear and did not want to go last minute. It was at that moment, I entered my room to find a somewhat nicely wrapped outfit on my bed with a note. I was very surprised and still unsuspecting of the imminent proposal.

After getting ready he told me we had to make a quick pit-stop at the hotel where our wedding was being held in order to finalize something.

As we were walking along the hotel I noticed a cameraman up ahead taking photos and thought maybe a celebrity had been spotted (this is LA after all). It was only when I realized the photographer was taking photos of flowers that I began to wonder.

Gabriel then started to laugh a little and began to express how much he cared for me as we were walking closer to the amazing setup he had prepared.

Once I was surrounded by the flowers he arranged for us and the sign he made of roses, he got down on one knee and asked the question.

Wedding Reception Design Theme: We wanted something that hasn't been done before so that our wedding would really stand out.

Luckily our wedding planner came up with an amazing theme centered around arches where "architecture meets design." She utilized everything beautifully and gave us a look that shocked us.

Wedding Reception Design Inspiration: The inspiration for our design came from the notion that we wanted something very elegant and timeless. That is why black, white, and clear colors were used along with chandeliers. It was truly a magical layout!