My husband and I got married 14 years ago today! I was finishing my interior design exams in London and hubby was working in San Francisco! So I did a fair bit of commuting that year! We arranged our wedding via emails and phone calls. I saw pictures of the Swedenborgian Church and fell in love with its architecture and interior space and was inspired that Bernard Maybeck designed and built it!!
Although I am not a huge lover of Arts and Crafts for residential interiors, I do appreciate the beautiful interior of the Swedenborgian Church and it's grounds. We had the fire blazing and the candles lit. It was very intimate and romantic.
Maybeck also built The Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. It was one of ten palaces at the heart of the exhibition, which also included the exhibit palaces of Education, Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Varied Industries, Agriculture, Food Products, Transportation, Mines and Metallurgy and the Palace of Machinery. Maybeck took his inspiration from Roman and Greek architecture in designing what was essentially a fictional ruin from another time.
After the ceremony we headed to the Ritz Hotel. Our guests (five in total) sat down for some pink champagne while we quickly checked into our room. The receptionist told me that there was a problem with the booking and they had to move us to another room but it had a prerequisite. Looking rather perplexed, she told me I had to be able to play the piano!!! Then she started laughing - they had put us in the Presidential Suite. We gathered our guests and moved the champagne reception to Suite 910! It was amazing and funny to see my friend, Annette, laying on the piano, my Mum sprinkling petals into our bed and my Dad just taking it all in. We later went downstairs for a beautiful dinner.
Outside of The Ritz Carlton Hotel, San Francisco
The Ritz Carlton Hotel's dining room
The Presidential Suite #910, The Ritz Carlton Hotel, San Francisco