Today we worked on 3 different weddings. We have 2 red Christmas weddings and one plum and champagne toned wedding. Everything turned out beautifully, but once again my pictures are not so hot. The new sexy camera I bought needs a special flash which I have yet to obtain so forgive the horrid pictures yet again!!!

In addition to the designing the gang surprised me with a birthday party. My birthday is next week (on Christmas Eve) and the whole gang got together and made a fabulous lunch for me and an incredible cake. It was so very nice of everyone and I was very thankful!!!

One of our bridal bouquets features red peony, red anemone, red tulips, cabbage roses roses and gold accents this bouquet is very special and absolutely beautiful!!!

This is a maids bouquet and the color is lovely for this time of year. The bit of cedar is a nod to the season.

Altar flowers.

Centerpieces.

Centerpieces

Our taupe, champagne, and sahara toned bridal bouquet.

Our rustic Christmas bridal bouquet!!

Flowers waiting to be designed.

This week has been loaded with fun surprises we even had a visit from Santa!!! Tomorrow we will get our weddings delivered and then I will start shopping for this very big clan. It’s almost time for me to morph from designer into Santa!!

Goodnight everyone, I’m off to bed!!!

Tonight we had the pleasure of working on a very spectacular event designed by the Gala Design Group.  The party was a black and white Hollywood themed party and the decor was absolutely perfect. The room was completely draped in black and the room featured amazing chandeliers, a wall of classic movie memorabilia, a movie screen draped in gold curtains, my flowers and even a life-sized Oscar Award.  Linens and chair covers were custom ordered for this event by Gala Design.  Guests will walk the Hollywood walk of fame as they enter into the party. Yes, this one was outrageous!!!

Sexy right!!!

Our yesterday was about a holiday decor installation at a private residence. On this job we met a buffalo.

The foyer design and the kitchen design were incredibly clever. I loved the evergreen, pine cones, and magnolia on the outside of the vase. These pictures are very deceiving, this is a 24 inch tall vase so this is a really big design. This piece graced the foyer…

and this design decorated the kitchen.

We also decorated this fabulous entryway mirror.

We will be retuning to this home next week with centerpieces and buffet pieces. This house is about to host an amazing holiday party!!

Please note that all flowers have been delivered and there is nothing “in my cooler.”  Good night!!!

Many of you have noticed a new rose in my cooler. The rose is called peppermint it’s the darkest rose in the picture above.  It’s a notch or two stronger in tone than sahara and it has been a joy to design with. This rose brings a very taupe green color to my designs but it also has a hint of blush. It’s so neutral that I have been pairing it with everything. Another very similar variety is silver finesse. The finesse rose is far more fluffy but the color is about the same. I love them both.

As you can see she is a lovely rose and paired with pepperberry, tuber roses, lady apples, seeded euc, astilbe, queen annes lace and sahara roses it’s magic. This design will be used to decorate the place card area.

Our wedding this week is all about the romance, and we have added some bling for our very special bride.

Our elevated designs also featured gold painted apples, these apples have been hanging with us since our October 15th wedding.  I got to use them for that wedding, my Thanksgiving centerpiece, and now they are gold for tomorrow. With time to spare we were feeling mighty creative this week.

For our altar we have designed a wall of sheer gold fabric and hanging crystals. The gold and bling together is amazing.

Everything is so beautiful, I can’t wait to see my bride!!

Our cooler is also sporting some beautiful holiday decor and one vase of amazing white ranunculus.

It’s been a crazy and honestly painful week. The lessons I have learned are still stinging but I look forward to our wedding tomorrow and to our annual visit to see santa at our elementary school. The kids are most certainly thrilled about that. Thanks for all of your comments and support this week!! Watch my tweets tomorrow, because our wedding is going to be very pretty!!!

Well our flowers are pretty, but my camera is not. I am sad to say my camera died somewhere along the way today and I lost all but the above picture.  The rest of the images are not formatted correctly but hopefully you get the idea!

This is my cousin Greta who made it out today for some celebratory flowers. Greta is the Program Manager for Foster Care and Adoption In Alexandria. Tomorrow is the Alexandria Adoption Day Celebration. We were happy to donate flowers for this very important day, but mostly we are really proud of cousin Greta and all she does for these youth!! My cousin Greta is amazing!

Here is one of our very pretty bridal bouquets. I am hoping and praying we can get the camera working before tomorrow because we have some lovely things to record!

Mothers bouquets.

Our incredible color blocked bouquet. I was in love with this design.

This bouquet is so rich, and elegant, I could hardly stand it!!! The magnolia and pheasant feather made this bouquet rich, rich, rich!! Of course mountains of garden roses certainly added some mega charm!!

Maids bouquets!!

Oh boy this is a really messed up post, one that is depressing me incredibly. All of my pretty pictures are destroyed. Hope this problem goes away!!

 

My life often seems like a dream, like a crazy story that I am actually living. The weirdest things happen here daily. I am really thankful for my open door -open heart policy.  Several weeks ago I received this email…

In the Subject line it said “From Russia With Love”  ( I thought it was spam)

Good day, Holly

My name is Olga and I’m from Moscow, Russia (this phrase looks exactly like a perfect beginning of any letter which we learnt form English – Russian grammar books J ). Somewhat a year ago I accidentally came across your website and blog in some LJ community. I was simply astonished by the combination of flowers that you compile, the style and beauty of your wedding bouquets. Now my every morning starts with fresh news from your blog (which google translator kindly translate into Russian for me): latest wedding photo reports, your troubles with suppliers and the process of making bouquets.

Each day I’m amazed by your energy, imagination and the team you formed. Each wedding that you create flower decoration for  looks like a theater play or a book with its own story and characters.

Recently me and my friend Tania opened an internet bouquets store (here is the link www.flowerbazar.ru). Almost a year we incubate this project and during this time we both got married and on our own experience realized how hard it is to find a fresh, stylish bouquet even in Moscow, not mentioning some smaller cities of Russia. This was the last point where we decided to solve the problem radically – and created our own on-line flower shop where we try to make simple but beautiful bouquets at realistic prices.

In future we definitely want to grow and do wedding floristic as well as decoration of various ceremonies and parties because it gives us an opportunity to implement our creative ideas into life, make people happy and make events bright and memorable.

So now all my above writing leads to the following point: from October 22 to November 6 me, Tania and our husbands will be un US in a road-aferwedding trip across your country. And I thought that I can not miss this chance to meet you in person! I do not want to insist, of course, but perhaps it can be possible that you can show some short master-class for me and Tania or perhaps we can take part and watch how you do your preparations for some upcoming event? We would love to agree to any form of communication with you, if you allow it.

So we are waiting for you answer.

And once again thank you for the ideas and creation that you give to people all over the world!

Olga Beleckaya

Is this amazing or what? How could anyone be reading my little blog in Russia and why would anyone want to come here? I quickly wrote them back and explained that I was a normal person, a home based business with a bunch of kids and they said “we know we read your blog everyday” but they still wanted to come. So today was the day, and in spite of any fear I may have had about letting some Russians stop by, I opened the door and I let them right in. These four young people were beautiful inside and out and it was such an honor and true pleasure to be a stop on their journey through the United States. I am not sure how a trip to Holly Chapple’s house gets on the agenda of people touring the United States but sure enough they fit me in, right after NYC, Boston, Niagara Falls, New Orleans, Miami, Key West, and Holly Chapple. I told you this was crazy!!!!!!

This was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!! All four of them were truly interested in this business and I was completely enthralled with them. I showed them how I stored my props, showed them images, showed them how I buy and they literally video recorded the whole visit. I even discussed with them the importance of their husbands being supportive as the girls moved towards their goal. These husbands were wonderful. What a fabulous pleasure to meet these young people, I am so thankful for this blog and the many gifts it brings me!!! My new friends brought me caviar and a beautiful little Russian nesting doll, each doll was holding a different type of flower. I feel like a movie star!!!

I am pretty excited about how this day turned out. Right after our new Russian friends left I did a fun little fall photo shoot with photographer Geneveieve Lieper and after that I headed to DC to do today’s wedding at the Carnegie Science Institute.

This was my beautiful bride right after I gave her her bouquet!!! This wedding was so important to me because the brides parents chose me on behalf of the bride and groom and I knew this was an incredible honor. I loved working with this family and I loved today’s designs.

Here are a few more beauties waiting “in the cooler” for tomorrows weddings.

Good night Russia, good night USA, good night Chapple family!!  Whoops, one last thing… I am counting on a man named Russ from chicago to pull a miracle out of a hat for me!!! Are you reading this Russ, where are my anemones???????????????????

It’s true, today was our last day with Don!! The first frost kills our weekly visits with Don, the first frost and the end of dahlia season signify that my current wedding season is wrapping up. For today I am going to pretend that snow is not looming over tomorrows brides and I am going to pretend I will see Don next week. My heart can’t take anymore than that!!

We have three wonderful weddings to deliver tomorrow and all the flower shop ladies were done designing by 4:30 today. All of our lovelies are waiting in the cooler and we are happy to call it an early night. This has been one heck of a week for a slow week!! These last two Iphotos are of wedding today in Maryland. The designs were created and styled here in our studio and delivered by a team of designers in Maryland. Thanks to My Petals N. Bows flower shop for helping with this event.

Time to take the teenager out for his Friday night fun!!!

Just got this beautiful image from photographer Genevieve Leiper from last nights wedding. Love you Gen.

The week started out really awesome with a free day for me and Evan. We made it to Ikea for our very first buying trip in search of some new finds. We were in hot pursuit of some lanterns for some upcoming events. Wow, talk about sensory overload. We also popped by a car dealer ship to check on a new cargo van for our business. Much to my delight the day ended with us buying the new cargo van for our studio. Things have been going really well here since Evan started helping manage the business so this new van was quite a surprise and a reward. I would have never dreamed 3 months ago that things would be going this well. Here is a fun photo of me and the flower shop girls in the new van. 15 minutes later it went on its first job to daddies farm to get….

hay. As you can see we are breaking the new van in fast and furious.

We made lots of lovely and inspired designs this week. We arranged in vintage wooden boxes, silver tea pots, moss containers, iron candlesticks, and I finally got to design in my antique copper pots.

We used peacock feathers in one wedding and another wedding featured pheasant feathers. We had lots of designer thrill going on around here.

Midday today I delivered this beautiful wedding to Whitehall. The wedding featured 3 different types of centerpieces. Once this was set up I headed out to the Plains Va., where Evan also known in my eyes as Mr. Wonderful was hanging lanterns. Yes, the lanterns we bought at Ikea. When I arrived I truly cried. What Evan had created was so beautiful I could hardly believe my eyes. Of course the table that Lisa of The Posh Planner designed also was a beauty. I got to do the flowers or should I say wheat, thistle, and potted herbs.

The rehearsal dinner was held at a pavilion at a private residence. Evan had strung over 60 lanterns for this dinner. The table went on for 44 feet. Guests dined while watching a polo match and they enjoyed fresh rolled cigars.

After we finished setting up the rehearsal dinner we went to check out the ceremony site.

To create this ceremony space, I hit up daddies horse farm and farmers market. We moved in 30 bales of straw and boxes of pumpkins and gourds to create this beautiful space.

Evan and I completely designed this space together and it was truly so much fun. I absolutely love this picture of Evan, you can clearly see that he is enjoying his creation. Designer buzz!!! He is so getting hooked into this.

In addition to the lanterns and the ceremony site. Evan completely covered the garage of this estate with white twinkle lights, and fabric. He is so talented, I can barely stand it!!

Tomorrow we will be setting this wedding up and then heading to Whitehall for our pheasant feather wedding. I should actually do an In The Cooler post on Sat. night as well because we have two more really wonderful and fabulous events on Sunday. So as you can see we had another calm and relaxing week around here. Nighty night!!!

We did it again, another incredible record breaking week!!! We have so many designs created that I am absolutely astounded at all that we accomplished.  At one point today we had flowers in the living room, in the driveway, in the shop and of course in the cooler. This week did have it’s challenges with two of our designers sick, and of course more delayed product but we pulled it off again. We did however miss Debbie and Megan completely. By 8:00pm tonight we had 3 vans loaded and ready for our 7:00am delivery tomorrow to the VA. Gold Cup Races. We also did two weddings today and we are ready for all of our weddings tomorrow.  Thanks to a late shipment from Fed Ex, I just stayed up late to whoop out two more fantastic and inspired bridal creations so we are ready!!!!!!!! Here are some quick pictures of our creations, the shop, and some of the happenings!!

This was for our dietitian bride, this bouquet and bout was so much fun to design. I used carrots, brussels sprouts, string beans, okra, purple peppers, asparagus, cabbages, sage, mint, rosemary, roses, dahlias, nasturtiums and berry to create these designs.

This wedding was for our fitness bride, she married at Lansdowne Resort today!!

Some of the girls.

Gold Cup Designs.

Grace supervising the late arrival of my David Austin roses, via Fed Ex at 8:30pm tonight. Talk about pins and needles. Thankfully they have now been converted into bridal bouquets.

Yep, I know amazing!!!!

Now I am headed to bed, I get five whole precious hours of sleep. Wish us luck tomorrow and safe travels. I will have lots of petals on the road tomorrow and being the mother of so many creations can be a little scary!!

 

Seriously we have so many designs “In the cooler” this week we started hanging them from the ceiling. Inside these plastic bags are beautiful purple, plum, and lavender pomanders. We have 8 total, and they will be placed on shepherds hooks down the aisle on one of our events. The designs were bagged so that they would not drip water onto the arrangements below them.

This design is going into a boat, yes a boat!!! It will be the backdrop for the wedding ceremony.

This bridal bouquet was for our wedding today.

We also created centerpieces in birch vases for today’s wedding.

This was our MOB bouquet.

The maids bouquets were so pretty!!

These designs will be placed on the altar and then they will be used on a king table.

As you can see we have many different styles and colors in our cooler.

These vases are lined up and ready because we will be designing more tomorrow!!!

Today was awesome!! In a earlier blog post today I announced our Chapel Designers 2012 NYC trip. I am excited to say that we had lots of interest in the trip and many designers have signed up. The trip to NYC had us totally excited today but the real gift or buzz of the day was the arrival of almost 200 dahlias from Don. This shipment was super fun because we got to see some varieties that we have not yet worked with. We are doing an orange, hot pink, and red wedding on Sunday and because each design can be slightly different we bought the dahlias in bulk. This shipment of dahlias is the second delivery from Don this week or actually maybe it’s the third.

This dahlia was the star of the day. It was so big that we were comparing it to Gabby’s six month baby bump.

In addition to our bright colorful wedding, we have a beautiful soft peach and green wedding.

These flowers will become the bridal bouquet first thing tomorrow morning. Yep, that’s right I am waiting until tomorrow to design this bouquet.  I am such a slacker!!!

A really LITTLE place card arrangement!!

Here are the bouquets for our wine and taupe toned wedding. Unfortunately the rest of this wedding is hidden in the back of the cooler and I could not get you a sneak peak!!

We also have an orange, white, and gray wedding.

As you can see it was another full and amazing week here at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers.  Oddly enough I will end this post with Sami’s bouquet from last weekend.

This bouquet was taken out of water and given to our bride Sami at 2:30 in the afternoon last saturday. At the end of the wedding the wedding planner asked me to bring the bouquet back to my flower shop. We arrived back in the studio at 1:30 in the morning. The bouquet was out of water almost 12 hours.  3 days later my friends at Waterford Past Thymes were contracted to pick up the bouquet. When they came to get this bouquet it had been out of water for 12 hours, been used for countless photos and of course was a part of an important ceremony. It was 5 days old and it still looked incredible. This photograph and this story speaks so strongly about the quality of our designs. I am so proud of all that we create, accomplish, and design around here!!