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San Francisco-based Events of Distinction is honored in 2010 for this wedding on the shores of Lake Tahoe, Calif., where the couple met while snowboarding. "Lift ticket" place cards help guests find their dinner seats.
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Glendale, Calif.-based Your Great Event hits a home run for die-hard baseball fans with a wedding on the field at Dodger Stadium. Temporary flooring protects the grass; the menu includes "Dodger Dogs" and champagne. Photo by Joey Ikemoto Photography.
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Future Affairs Productions of East Rumford, R.I., wins the Gala Award in 2009 for this wedding honoring the heritage of an Irish bride and a groom raised in Hawaii. Entertainment mixes hula dancers with Irish step dancers. Because the couple did not want a tent, 35 huge, spandex "sails" shield guests from the sun.
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With background music from the film "Psycho" and "Lurch" from the "Addams Family" TV show serving as doorman, this Halloween-theme wedding from Magic Moments of Norcross, Ga., brings shivers of joy.
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Wedding Design 3 of Marietta, Ga., is honored for its "Great Gatsby" take on an elegant wedding at 1919 landmark Oheka Castle in Long Island, N.Y. Guests can don feather boas and long strings of flapper-worthy beads.
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Calgary, Alberta-based Experiential Events brings home Gala gold in 2008 for this masculine-yet-romantic wedding for a same-sex couple. In place of one large cake, servers carry individual cakes to guests, who cut their cakes in unison with the grooms.
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VP Events of Westlake Village, Calif., creates a "garden paradise" wedding for a traditional mother-of-the-bride and her modern daughter. When the guest count dropped from 800 to 275, the team deftly changed the tables to rounds for eight rather than 10, and brought in extra bars and 15-foot-tall trees to rein in the space.
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The Wedding Belle of Oklahoma City, Okla., honors a couple often separated by military engagements. The bride and groom use a third-generation saber to cut the cake.
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Events of Distinction wins top Gala honors in 2007 for this Tuscan-style wedding at a Napa Valley winery. The couple honors their Italian heritage with touches such as Frank Sinatra songs and authentic Piedmontese dishes.
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The Precious Moment of Taipei turns a classic Chinese ballroom into a midsummer night's garden via multiple layers of gold voile on the ceiling through which star lights shine. A traditional gold dragon overlooks the scene.
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Napa, Calif.-based Sasha Souza Events turns to tones of gray and plum to evoke San Francisco's legendary fog in an event staged in a local mansion with views of the Golden Gate bridge. An underlit ice bar adds to the fun.
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Creative Occasions with a Personal Touch of La Jolla, Calif., wins the Gala Award in 2006 for a wedding staged at the private school where the couple met when enrolled there. Guests arrive at the 10,000-square-foot tent on the campus quad by following a path strewn with rose petals. It was the first time the school permitted such an event.
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Creative Occasions earns a Gala nomination for this "country chic" wedding at the couple's ranch. The barn, stables and surrounding gardens serve as the reception site, with decor accents including ivory satin linen topped with burlap overlays and hammered copper tins brimming with wildflowers.
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Events of Distinction is honored with a nomination at The Special Event 2005 for this wedding honoring the couple's Chinese and Japanese heritages. The wedding ceremony is set to the music of "Madame Butterfly"; at the reception, guests dine at tables named for esteemed Asian virtues such as "Tranquility," "Benevolence" and "Honor."
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The Precious Moment wins the Gala Award in 2005 for this Chinese wedding mixing old and new. The reception area features pillars wrapped in red and gold murals with calligraphy accents. In the ballroom, guests find six floral chandeliers fashioned from 1,500 strings of glass beads and more than 10,000 pink dendrobium orchids.
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Encino, Calif.-based Yifat Oren & Associates is honored for this celebrity wedding that re-creates a Paris living room in a southern California back yard. An eclectic mix of French furniture, rugs and tea rose centerpieces is set among trees festooned with chandeliers.
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EJP Events of Portland, Ore., is nominated at The Special Event 2004 for this Boston wedding mixing the traditions of the Barbadian bride and the Irish Catholic groom. The invitations feature batik motifs while the traditional reception venue plays host to a Caribbean dance troupe.
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Atlanta-based A Legendary Event wins the Gala Award in 2004 for this "Last Tango in Paris" wedding reception. Distinctive elements include tango dancers, a 2-1/2-foot tall ice Eiffel Tower offering three varieties of champagne, and a vegan menu complete with soy wedding cake, each layer decorated with black lace and red roses.
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Someone's in the Kitchen of Tarzana, Calif., is recognized for this elegant beach-themed wedding. After a ceremony on the sand, guests dine in the reception tent, where centerpieces of off-white roses, blue hydrangea and yellow tulips represent sand, sea and sun.
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Carolyn Dempsey Design of Port Chester, N.Y., wins the Gala Award in 2003 for creating the feel of a garden inside a country club. White chiffon panels disguise a wall of dark windows, while serpentine garlands of white hydrangea and celadon cymbidium orchids add bright accents.
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Chicago-based Frank Event Design creates a "contemporary winter" theme for a December wedding with a mix of table shapes dressed in silver satin with striped chiffon overlays. Ice blue lighting shines on centerpieces created from hundreds of white tulips.
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Xena Productions of Dublin pleases a client who asked for a Christmas theme wedding with features including cinnamon incense in the church, a 12-member choir singing carols, and a wedding cake made of gingerbread men.
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Magic Moments lands a Gala nomination for this romantic wedding at an antebellum home. Maypoles topped with "love knots" of roses line the path leading to the reception, where guests are presented with fondant cakes designed to look like gifts and hatboxes. The cakes are then replaced with elegant white boxes filled with imported chocolates; the guests depart with the fondant cakes as take-home treats.
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Denver-based Nancy Chase Weddings & Celebrations stages a wedding in a 100-year-old church followed by a reception at a dramatic red rock cave. Guests dine under wrought-iron chandeliers suspended from the cave's ceiling.
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Pura Vida Productions of Annapolis, Md., wins the Gala Award at The Special Event 2002 for this mountaintop wedding with Native American elements including a Navajo-Apache flautist, shaman officiant, a blanket ceremony and the circulation of a book in which women guests write advice for a long and happy marriage.
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Art of the Party of Burnaby, British Columbia, wins the Gala Award at The Special Event 2001 for an intimate wedding at the bride's family home. Guests dine at one large oval table inside a clear tent, with flowers and candles towering above the table.
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