Okay, so maybe this was my favorite wedding of last year. My handsome, gorgeous, amazing, son married his childhood sweetheart the  lovely and enchanting Mallary last October. The wedding was the weekend of their 9th anniversary together. Seeing them marry was one of the greatest joys of my life. It also hurt like crazy!! There are few days in my life when I have cried as hard as I did that day. There are so many delightful details about this wedding, so it may take me a few posts to share them all. Their wedding has just been featured in the Knot MD/DC/ VA issue so please be sure to go check that out.

Many thanks to Genevieve Leiper who photographed the wedding, I could only intrust her to capture this special family day. Thanks a million times over to Rachel Merkle, of Miss Merkle Design who created some of my all time favorite stationery, she truly branded this wedding. A million thanks to the fabulous Dot Shetterley who shared her home Silverbrook Farm with us, Joan Wolford of Savoir Fare for the incredible food,  Kendalls Cakes for that delicious cake, and a huge round of thanks needs to go to my flower shop family who pulled off one of the most amazing weddings, all while I was being mother of the groom. Our studio, did the design and styling, lighting and drape and the planning for this wedding. Many thanks to Kristen Lickey our in house wedding planner and one last huge round of applause for Victoria Stiles for making all the girls look pretty, Kim Trombly for helping us make sashes, table runners, and for recreating my mother of the groom dress, and to Don for all of his insanely beautiful dahlias, which were my children’s first and most important floral request!!!

One of my most favorite design details of the day was the ceremony area we designed for Alex and Mallary. I had envisioned a hanging canopy of bottles that showcased the dahlias that Mallary and Alex  so dearly love. Envisioning and making it happen, are two different things. I wanted terribly to come up with a design that was unique, one that had not been done or seen before. Up until just hours before the wedding all I heard was Evan saying “I don’t think this is going to work.” Evan feared that the rigging would not be strong enough to hold the bottles and that the unlevel ground would cause my dream structure to fail. Early that morning Evan did the set up of this space and when we arrived with the flowers,  the first thing I saw was that our structure was going to work. Me and the flower shop girls designed and decorated the barn first. Once the barn was done and while I was getting my hair done my amazing team began hanging the bottles. I remember looking outside of the upstairs window watching them hang the bottles and screaming with delight. Victoria Stiles must have thought I was insane, I remember dragging her and the curling wand that was tied up in my hair to the window. My idea was going to work and it was going to be drop dead gorgeous!!!

Dot, has this beautiful arch on the property and to me it’s perfection. I didn’t want to change this space very much, so we just added the dahlias to the structure and the vine that was already on the arch.

Old crocks were gathered and used to decorate the bases of the structure. The pots were filled with ivy and fern and dahlias.

I told you this was going to take several posts. I gotta go, I have bridal bouquets to make, and a flower shop to run!!! See you on Monday!!