This California Wedding's Cool Blue Palette Fit the Oceanfront Terranea Resort Venue Perfectly

Arthika and Tony celebrated their marriage with a waterfront wedding at  Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verde, California, filled with multicultural details and a cool, chic color palette. "Tony is Chinese-American and I am Sri Lankan-American so we wanted to incorporate as much of our cultures as possible while being authentic to our journey and shared experiences," explains Arthika. "A lot of that came through in the food of the day, but gold is a shared color of celebration in both our cultures so we wanted that to be a part of our palette. We also knew we wanted to embrace the coastal coolness of having a wedding in California so blue was a natural accompanier, and our amazing planners created a Cali-coastal-chic design that perfectly fit with our personalities—we wanted a classy affair but one that didn't take itself too seriously and encouraged everyone to have their best time."

To exchange vows, Arthika and Tony chose an outdoor ceremony overlooking the Pacific Ocean. To frame the space, the couple commissioned a fabric-draped backdrop in a soothing shade of bluish-gray. "We chose a venue we loved but every picture ever taken of couples getting married at the resort featured a wooden structure that I knew I didn't want visible," says Arthika. "Our amazing planners and design team suggested draping the structure which was absolutely perfect and we had never seen done before."

As for the reception, the couple opted for to host festivities both indoors and outdoors. "We knew we wanted to dine outdoors (because...California!) but have dancing and dessert indoors. When it came to floral decor, we ended up picking some soft white blooms with greenery accents and some white anemones with blue centers to beautifully complement the color palette."

Looking back on the wedding, the couple points to a few details in particular as being highlights from the celebration. "One of our favorite elements of personalization was probably the hand-calligraphed chopstick holder name cards that contained our wedding favor, a set of golden chopsticks for future dumpling nights," says Arthika. "We also hired an amazing team of lion dancers for the event that blew everyone away—including some of the resort guests who got to peek in from above. Lastly, our custom dessert trio was also a perfect fusion of Tony and my cultures, and all of them tasted amazing despite being very unique requests—vattalapam from Sri Lanka, egg tarts from China, and chai panna cotta for our shared love of panna cotta after visits to Italy together."

Arthika goes on to explain that she especially enjoyed the couple's first dance. "We have a history of singing Whitney Houston's 'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' together and both love to dance (in informal capacities only) but wanted to do something we would remember and take forward with us forever that incorporated all of that. So we took lessons for 3 months and had a super fun-but-simple choreography that we still break out when we hear the song play."

The couple explains that balancing and sharing wedding planning tasks helped them bring the event together seamlessly. "Sharing the stressors and burdens of planning was what made it all manageable. There were days when Tony was leading the planning charge and responding to many emails and tried to make decisions that took a lot of time and thought, and during those periods I tried to help relieve the anxiety and offer perspective so we could make decisions we would feel good about before, during, and long after the day's affair. When I was able to get more involved as we neared the wedding date, Tony did an amazing job of keeping me focused on the tasks that were worth an investment of time when we had so little left, and on the things that were going to bring me the most joy on the day of. If you can make it through planning the wedding of both your dreams, you can make it through almost anything in life together—you've just got to maintain perspective, and that's what your partner is for."