• NEW Wedding Ideas

We gather here today to witness the beauty of this Hallows Eve wedding inspiration that features little nods to all things dark and spooky. It’s Halloween after all and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate this spooktacular holiday than with Ariele Chapman Photography and a team of talented vendors who brought this hauntingly beautiful wedding to life.

From Beetle Juice to Harry Potter, Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas, this shoot celebrates all things Halloween and transforms them into a gorgeous and stylish wedding we can’t get enough of. Can you spy all the nods throughout? Catch all the boo-tiful details below and in the full gallery. Happy Halloween!

From Ariele Chapman Photography

Halloween is one of the world’s oldest celebrated holidays. More than 175 Million people celebrate Halloween, and I am here for it! Halloween is wicked and beautiful. Its darkness radiates emotions down to your very core. Halloween is something so many of us wait for every year, it’s a countdown that starts the very next day after it ends, which is why we wanted to create a hauntingly Halloween themed wedding. Which is why Dark Matter was the perfect name for this shoot. We found bits and pieces of all the parts of Halloween that give us so much Nostalgia, it’s hard to not point at something from this shoot and say “YES, OH MY GOSH!”.

Haunting table decor

For the Reception at Ebell, we had a lot of DIY projects, from custom red velvet skull cakes on every place setting, to custom names that give odes to Halloween, such as Freddy Krueger, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Lydia Deetz. We wanted to incorporate the most notorious Halloween characters from famous Halloween movies into our shoot somehow. We kept the table settings matte black, and added hints of rustic metals seen with the candlesticks. We mixed and matched candles for an added effect, and to bring dimension to the photographs. We added chains, and potion books, and even made potion bottles and filled them with various objects for the visual effect. We hung witches’ hats from the ceiling, for an ode to hocus-pocus as well. Cauldrons and mortar+pestle to use for potion mixing also made appearances for our shoot. The sweetheart table was adorned with beautiful florals, and the beautiful couple sat in chairs that would honor the late Beetlejuice if he were to see them today. Just say his name three times. We had darker florals to really pull together the elements of Halloween. Nothing says evil beauty like some black and grey roses.

sugar and booze

From custom made Neon signs, saying LOVE YOUR GUTS, made to replicate the real shape of the human heart, to a Bettlejuice wedding cake that mirrors each other perfectly, featuring the infamous sand worms from the movie, to poison apples and cauldron cakes, and Jack Skellington cake pops, we wanted our dessert table to really be the center of the evening. After all Halloween involves lots and lots of sugar. The only thing that goes better with sugar is booze, and custom booze at that. Sabrina Spellman got her own drink named after her called Sabrina’s Spell, (we are so excited for the new season)! and Beetlejuice had to have his own cocktail.

under a full moon

For the ceremony, which was photographed under a full moon, we wanted to do something that had not been done or seen before when creating an arch, so we had a custom arch built in the shape of the Deathly Hallows. The arch was surrounded by matte black pumpkins and died black pampas grass, as well as candles. This beautiful one of a kind arch brings back so many memories of the importance of magic to us. We paired it with a shimmering gown by Watters that glowed under the moonlight. The ceremony location had previously burned down due to a fire, where the trees were scored. We wanted to share that beauty can be found anywhere, and utilize an area that had become eerie yet delicate.

budget breakdown

the venue was 250 per hour X3
the desserts cost around 400
the props cost another 500
florals cost around 400
dishes costs another 150
the arch was 200 to build
We spent close to 2400 putting on this amazing production!

• Event Planning & Design: Stephy’s Bride Guide
• Wedding Photographers: Ariele Chapman Photography
• Cake Pops: Ca bakerycafe
• Custom Built Arch - @olivemill also helped: Kody Farfield
• Drinks/Bar Service: bottles and blooms
• Flowers: fleur.ish
• Furniture Rentals: Ebell of Long Beach
• Groom & His Men: Friar Tux
• Hair, Makeup & Beauty: _Nicquelxoxo
• Jewelry: Ring Crush
• Neon Sign: Neon Pros
• Paper Goods & Calligraphy: Hand Written By Cat
• Red velvet skulls, cauldron cupcakes, and the Beetlejuice Cake: Sweet Traders
• Vintage Candle Rentals: miscellanrentals
• Wedding Dresses: Styled by TC
• Wedding Dresses: matthew christopher
• Wedding Dresses: Watters