Pulling off a floral extravaganza takes many, many hands. The fact that I did not have to think about my camera this past weekend as we worked like crazy to pull together this melange of floral color made me eccstatic. The photography was in the hands of Jill from Person + Killian. Knowing that she was on the other end of the lense gave me such ease and I could hardly wait to see her photography after the event was over. This morning as I opened a zip file from Jill, I was left as I always am when looking at P + K photography, breathless and yes I admit a tear in my eye reflecting back a week ago to this amazing wedding.
The design process of my creative firm is mostly the same with every bride. It starts with discussion and the bride giving me inspiration through her throughts and images that she has gathered. From there, I get to work pulling the things that a bride likes from her images to come up with an an original design. My sketches of weddings give brides a very real look as to what the color and the scale will be to their wedding details. From there, once we have worked on the sketch we are able to go live. When Erika came in for her live demo, she loved how we pulled together a modern and romantic feel with the flowers. She asked if I could change up the color of the flowers a bit and add some purple and eggplant to the colorwary. This was such an easy request. In the end I am happy that she did request this. The pops of bright color, especially against the plum bridesmaids dresses was sensational.
As I look through all of the photos, it is her bouquet that I fall in love with so easily. The heady scent of gardenia is always a hit and I filled her bouquet with it. For a touch of sophisticated Asian flair, I added phaleonopsis orchids to the bouquet. I thought that it complemented the stunning looks of the bride perfectly.
In the busy flurry of the day in the big city, I loved that I got a moment to chat with the bride moments before the ceremony was to begin. I scooted into the limo next to her and she and I shared a special moment of fun chatting about her bouquet and the lovely David Yurman, purple amethst earings that her fiance had surpsied her with that morning.
I designed the flowers so we could put on a lovely display at the church and because we had a few extra hours between the ceremony and the reception at The State Room. I sent a team back to the church to pick up the flowers and to bring them to the State Room where they would be put on display for the guests. After Hauling up the flowers, linens, candles and many other details to the wedding we got organized and got ready to bust a move. No easy task with loads of staff and the bands sound check. As the band hammered out old school AC/DC, we got to work dressing up The State room. I loved how the three different designs perfectly complemented each other and filled the space and always brought your eye to the best feature of the State Room, the view.
Over the years I have built a company that can pretty much offer the best from the world of wedding design. The linens from my own rental company were lovely in a crushed ivory shimmer with an ivory bridal satin napkin looked really elegant. There is such a huge difference between ivory cotton and the more glamorous fabrics that we can provide for party table tops. I am glad that I brought this idea to idea to the bride at the demo. The linens and platinum gold chargers were the perfect palette to showcase the printed details.
The menus and table numbers from my partner Kelli at à deux: bespoke bridal paper looked modern and provided just the right pop of color to the tables. The bride and groom had asked for a something a little different with the table numbers and the menus that were to be at each place setting. I thought that adding a layered effect, white on plum, would not only provide a pop at the table, but would further tie in the brides request to add subtle nuances of color through the wedding.
I am never anxious to see the cake arrive at the venue, especially when it is in the hands of Jennifer Williamson, from Jenny's cakes. She has been able to interpret my designs in such an incredible way. I am glad that the bride, Jenny and myself decided to add the circular detail to the cake but not to do it in the purple as I had drawn. I love how the flowers almost steal the show, just until you see two adorable french bulldog bride and groom cake toppers. Way too cute. I love the family dog made it to the wedding and then was artistically represented on top of the cake. Woof!
