I know a lot of you have had a wonderful time guessing who my mystery photographer is. You assumed because she photographed so many subjects and different designs that perhaps she actually lived here. The truth is the day she came to visit our shop it was hopping, it was the weekend we did 7 weddings. Mystery girl took the time to capture us all in action and I love the images she took of our shop. The above photograph was taken outside looking into our flower room. Many years ago our flower shop used to be my family room or our great room. Now the french doors provide us with lots of light to see our creations and easy access to the gardens.

 

 

Here I am being the conductor, I am either saying "no I want that, or do it like this." We have 3 other work stations in this room and one other station in the water room, but for some reason everyone likes to stand together at this table. Probably if you are working at another station you miss a lot of the conversation.

 

This is designer Debbie and you can see she is concentrating on her creation. Bringing a design to me for approval has become a bit of a joke. One of my new designers hums the death march as she brings designs to me for approval.  My designers always do a beautiful job, but often the vision for a design is totally in my head. If I reject one of their designs its not that it is unattractive, it's that it does not match my vision for the client. Often I need  to have my vision or design created by someone else's fingers, this of course is no easy task. The longer the designers work here the more they get to know my style or they need to develop ESP.

 

We used this "dine with us" sign for the buffet station at Melissa's wedding in June.  I just can't seem to erase the message, every time I look up  and see this sign I think of her. I guess I want to keep a little of Melissa with me everyday.

 

I love how awesome even the simple pictures are from this shoot, the ribbon, the scissors, the vases. Mystery girl did an incredible job photographing our shop, and the mess. Debbie is going to be really disappointed when she sees here beautiful ribbon display. I didn't  know the ribbon was such a mess until I saw this picture. We get so busy that we forget to put it away nicely, in truth by the end of the day we are all so tired we slam it up on the wall and hope it stays.

 

It has been so much fun to bring you these blog posts that have featured our very talented mystery photographer. Tomorrow I will reveal her name to you. I am incredibly grateful that I got to meet this photographer and I am so thrilled to have such awesome documentation of our shop and our designs.

 

See you tomorrow with my girls name and website.

 

Today is the day the mystery is solved. Many thanks to Anne Robert Photography for keeping my blog so pretty the last few weeks. Anne has a new updated website and a blog that will be released very soon… Follow this fabulous young lady and watch her fly.

Here is a little information that Anne sent over to me: 

I've been trying to think of things about me to tell you but sigh… I'm not sure how exciting I am- bah!
 
I've been taking pictures forever and finally decided- well my hubby talked me into buying a SLR camera- I was a cheapo and couldn't decide whether to take the leap (we were poor students:) we did, it was AMAZING!!! Like a new hot shirt from anthro in my hand every single day!!! I couldn't get enough of it! I wanted to be SOOO good and take amazing pictures. I enrolled in photog classes (I majored in exercise science in University- on my way to the medical field) so i had to start the learning process all over. I quickly upgraded my camera, knowing that I wanted to take pictures forever and hoping professionally! I mentored with an AMAZING photographer Jill Thomas.  My classes got me started, but Jill really helped me learn how to build my business and how to take my photos to the next level. I owe her everything. She has since moved to California so if you're in the West check into her because she will blow your mind! After that business was great in portrait photography and I LOVE it, but after shooting one wedding I couldn't resist my desire to want to be a wedding photographer! My first (very small) wedding was with an older couple that had been with each other ten years- they were SOOO ridiculously giddy and even though they had told me they didn't want kissing pictures- they just couldn't stop! I couldn't stop smiling they were so in LOVE!!! I love capturing true emotion and what a better way than on the happiest day of someone’s' life. Since then I have started shooting weddings but I needed a way to get my work into the wedding world- a new blog and website, yes that would help but when I contacted Holly for a recent shoot— this is such gooshy talk- prepare yourself– I think I  met the BEST WOMAN EVER! She has been nothing but the sweetest, and most helpful person, every time I see her I want to give her a running hug (like the hugs my daughter gives me, running at full speed with a huge grin on her face) but I gotta keep it semi cool and professional so I lighten up on the hug:) A HUGE huge thanks to Holly for introducing me to the "wedding world". 
 
A few things about my photography style- I love making friends with my clients- we meet for drinks, go over pictures they would like- meet to go over there pictures after engagements so we know what they LOVE for their special day! I edit every single picture myself- it's an art and I love to top off the art with my editing style. I love things stylish, vintage and natural, especially my colored pictures. I LOVE black and whites, foreign, and romantic. I love to capture real emotion. 

Anne has also been working with the following wedding industry professionals. 



Gustavo Mottola the makeup artist- has worked with Paris Hilton, Hayden Panettiere, Annette Bening, Warren Beatty, Melanie Griffith, Demi Moore, Julia Roberts, Angelica Huston, Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and many others.

 Julie Jackson “Hair by Jewels” has styled for Paris Hilton, the Scorsese family, Krystal Koons, Kelly Roberts and more.  

Jill Thomas- My mentor! She has been featured most recently in Martha Stuart 2010 issue, BRIDES regional, once wed blog, green weddings shoes blog and many others.




I hope you enjoyed meeting Anne, we wish her much success as she turns her focus towards the wedding industry. Make sure you take a peek at her website and look for her blog to be released very soon.

 

Many of you are trying to figure out who my mystery photographer is and that is totally fun, no one has even come close. My mystery photographer has been working hard to get her new website and blog up for her launch, so be patient. I simply started the mystery bouquet parade because I was dying to share her work with you and I could not wait for her website to be finished, so hang in there it will only be a little while longer…

The first bridal bouquet was created with deep red peonies, black magic roses, black baccara roses and lots of red feathers. The bouquet was bound with a black suede ribbon that I found in San Francisco. This bouquet has lots of drama to go along with the mystery.

The second bouquet was created with at least 25 mini white callas. We collared the bouquet with white feathers and bound the bouquet in satin ribbon. Both of these bouquets were created for my HollyWood inspired wedding. Mystery photographer happened to stop by the day we were creating them just in time to make them famous.



 

 

Pale pink peonies and white gooseneck loosestrife lysimachia, first go marching by. Mystery photographer captured the true beauty of this perfectly pink bouquet.

 

Creme de la creme roses are the featured bloom here, but orange asclepias and honeysuckle vine from my garden make this bouquet divine.

 

Soft and romantic… the vibe for this bouquet is created by blue delphinium, Elsa spray roses, cream and green hydrangea, along with lamb's ear and seeded eucalyptus, and a sweet splash of candy bianca roses.

 
 Bright as summer sunshine, this bouquet is composed of red gerber daisies, yellow billy balls, blue thistle, white gooseneck loosestrife, orange tulips, orange dahlias, white stock, feverfew, orange dahlias, red asclepias, yellow yarrow, and red tulips. 

Photo credit goes to…

This lovely bouquet was created with dark purple callas, hot pink hydrangea from my garden, pink astilbe from Jessie's garden and a type of leucadendron. We collared the bouquet with dark green gardenia leaves. I slammed this bouquet together in seconds, in hopes of providing our mystery photographer with one more bouquet to shoot. Much to my surprise the bouquet photographed famously, proving to me that our mystery photographer is caliente.

When I saw this next picture that our young superstar shot in downtown Leesburg, I knew for sure my girl was on fire!!

 
Does she have an eye or what?

 

This bouquet was created by clustering flowers together. There was a section of pink gloriosa lily, a section of yellow billy balls, a section of scabiosa pods, and a section of blue thistle. We collared the front of the bouquet with hot pink celosia and added a hot pink wire with dangling little succulents. This bouquet was beyond hot. 

 

The parade of bouquets continued when the photographer lined up several of the bouquets and shot them all with her killer lens.

My mystery photographer is super talented and we have many more awesome photos to share with you, coming up soon…

A few weeks ago a young woman contacted me via email. She stated that she was a professional photographer that was revamping her website and she hoped I would contribute some bouquets for her upcoming photo shoot, in return I would get images of my work. Me being me, I took the leap of faith without even knowing if I would benefit from the end results; lets face it, everyone is calling themselves a photographer these days, but I am sucker for helping people out. When she sent me the first photographs my thought was WOW who is this girl?!  To say I was impressed would be an understatement, I enjoyed her so much that she actually came out to my place for an additional shoot. Here are some of the amazing images that will be shown for several days in a feature called a "Parade of Bouquets!" The photographers name will be given to you the day her new website and blog is released.

The first bouquet was created of all blue hydrangea. I cut every piece of that hydrangea from my garden, I used several different varieties including my lacecap hydrangea.

 

The above bouquet was created by combining scabiosa pods, sahara roses, candy bianca roses, lambs ear, seeded eucalyptus, pee gee hydrangea, and green amaranthus tips.

 

This explosion of color was created by mixing green cabbage roses, yellow carnations, yellow billy balls, pink veronica, yellow carnations, blue thistle, pink nerine lily, pink snapdragons, green seeded euc and blue delphinium. Keep watching and I will give you more clues about our mystery photographer and a link to her new website and blog very soon…

Several months ago I was asked to participate in a photo shoot led by event planner and designer Kelley Cannon of Kelley Cannon Events. This shoot totally appealed to me for many reasons, I adore working with Kelley and her fabulous side kick Karla, the shoot was being held in Middleburg, it was horsey themed ( I grew up on a horse farm and I used to fox hunt) and it was being photographed by my baby girl Anne Robert. Anne is not my baby, but I take a lot of pleasure in her work and her successes and I LOVE having my work photographed by her. For some reason I call her my baby girl. It must be my age showing through. I met Anne last summer and ever since then I have been one of her biggest fans and I happily will work on a shoot if she is involved. We did a fun series last year on my blog called Mystery Photographer.

About my mothers concrete horse, okay so Kelley mentioned she would like to have a horse bust as part of our centerpiece. My head went swirling back to my youth. My mother had a concrete horse bust on the coffee table in our living room. It was one of those things that she just loved. I remember we used to slide it around the coffee table and I think we rode it a time or two. I have two sets of twin sisters and its a wonder we did not kill the concrete horse. I do think we broke its tail and I think we chipped its ear. I knew this horse would be perfect for our table because we wanted to use soft pinks and greys as our color palette, so I went in pursuit of the old concrete horse. It was found at sister Heathers house, thankfully she allowed me to take the horse on a little trip to Middleburg. This shoot will always be my favorite shoot because of mothers concrete horse.

The shoot began with an amazing bridal bouquet, a bouquet that I am totally proud of.

For days I had been seeing this beautiful white cascading bloom hanging from the trees and I knew I just had to have it for this shoot. Oddly enough several months before I had made a crown of thorns for our church. I had found thorny branches along the side of the road to use for the crown. As I reached up to snag the beautiful white blooms for my bridal bouquet, I was rewarded with a terrible scratch. It turns out the amazing white blooms were growing on the crown of thorns branch. It was such a surprise to realize something so awful could produce something so beautiful, and the fragrance was incredible. I have never smelled anything as wonderful as this thorny blooming branch. The branch was locust so the bouquet was created with cascading locust, white peony, jasmine vine, pink ranunculus, dusty miller and pink majolica spray roses.

Snapdragons, dusty miller and succulents were added to the maids bouquet.

Everything about this shoot was amazing including hair and makeup. Hair was done by Jewels Jackson, and makeup by Amie Decker Beauty.

Jewels used a necklace in the brides hair and it looked incredible.

The details of this shoot are completely dreamy. Kelley and Karla did such an amazing job!!!

Thanks mom for letting me use your concrete horse!!

I love designs that are rich, full, lush, and loaded with good stuff. I can't do inexpensive designs, I try and I just can't. My heart and my soul wants to help every single young lady that comes to me, but I can't create my look cheaply. I try to do inexpensive designs to help girls get on budget, but the good stuff costs. Lots of the good stuff really costs. Every time I discount my prices to help someone out, I create a design that I am less than happy with. In that instance, what do I do? I buy more flowers and I steal a little from one of my kids college funds. When I create a low price point design, I invariably have to put another flower into the design and then another to make it please me artistically. I can't let a design leave here profitable before wonderful, wonderful always come first. A piece or a design that makes my heart sing is far more important to me than a profitable one, it is simply who I am.

I am bringing this subject up because it is a common issue among true floral designers who are passionate about their work. I think it is important for everyone to know what the artist suffers if they are constricted by budget.  My look the Holly Heider Chapple Flowers look can't be done cheaply, unless Holly takes it right out of Holly's pocket. Holly Chapple Flower  designs are loaded in the yummy and need to be priced accordingly, not to mention the way we go over and over each piece. The time spent on a design in this studio is similar to the birth of a child. I have actually given birth to some of my babies faster than some of my bridal bouquets. Now that is saying something!! Not complaining, just changing, or better yet, just realizing completely who I am.

 

 All images on this page were taken by my mystery photographer.