Ivy & Howard's Harry Potter Inspired Wedding

DTLA Downtown Los Angeles Wedding Urban — Innovated Captures Photography

We’re so happy to be part of Ivy & Howard’s wedding planning journey! After a whole year of planning while Ivy worked two jobs and going to school to get her Masters degree, and Howard also in school full time, we produced the most fun wedding inspired by their favorite Harry Potter books and movies. We kept the reference to Harry Potter very subtle, just a hint of reference here and there from the invitation to a wedding scavenger hunt. It was so awesome!

Pre-Wedding Getting Ready

The wedding party got ready at the LA Hotel in Downtown LA. The beautiful bridal gown was from The Ivory Suite in South Pasadena.

Ivy & Howard opted to not see each other before the wedding ceremony but did a “first touch” moment at the hotel.

Catholic Wedding Ceremony

Ivy & Howard had a Catholic ceremony at the Holy Trinity Church in Atwater Village with Filipino traditions of coin, veil, and cord symbolic ceremony.

Harry Potter Inspired Invitation

La Design Boutique designed a beautiful invitation suite using the wedding colors. We came up with the silhouette cutout pocket merging Hogwarts School into Los Angeles Cityscape and Ivy & Howard’s initials. The invitation card had feather quill design (referencing the Levitation Charm). The reply card had a wand design. The wedding party info card had loose tea leaves (referencing Professor Trelawney’s Tessomancy).

Harry Potter Wedding Invitation Hogwarts Los Angeles Cityscape Silhouette — Innovated Captures Photography

Harry Potter Inspired Tablescape

The wedding reception was held at Seventh Place, an event venue in Downtown Los Angeles Art District. It’s got an indoor and outdoor space with a wood panel patio walls, greenery, garden tunnel, exposed brick wall, bistro lights, and a garage door that opens to reveal the indoor area. The venue rental includes tables and chairs. We brought in all the rentals from La Pinata Party Rental. They even built a tented kitchen for the caterer to prepare for dinner reception.

Table decor included a cluster of vintage paper scrolls, vintage books, LED pillar candles, and simple floral centerpieces.

The guest book is a gold manzanita branch with hanging crystals. Guests can write a message to the couple on a pre-cut tag with gold wax seal and hang them on the branches by the alternating purple and yellow ribbons.

We decorated the bar with a vintage mirror tray filled with Harry Potter inspired potions.

Catering Concierge connected us with Platters by Design for wedding catering. This amazing 12 ft long grazing table is inspired by the feast in the Hogwarts Grand Hall in Harry Potter stories. There were fresh fruit, deli meat, olives, cheese, bread, and crackers galore! Mel also added decors such as an owl, mermaid’s egg, and a giant time turner.

We designed the wedding cake table to mimic the Hogwarts dorm room with 3 separate tiered cake and a vintage gold frame behind the cakes like the paintings in the Harry Potter stories. Ivy & Howard ordered the cutest custom figurine cake topper that totally looked like them! Cakes from Porto’s Bakery.

We hid 15 Harry Potter items throughout the venue for the wedding scavenger hunt. The guest had fun mingling and searching for the items, including Golden Egg, Snitch, Mermaid, Potions, Deathly Hallows symbol, Philosopher’s Stone, Broomstick, Hedwig, Horcrux, and Wands.