Anne and Matt married this past Sunday at the Ritz Carlton in DC. The wedding was a gorgeous and classic affair, and it was a huge success for our studio. Working with this couple and the mother of the bride was truly delightful. Pleasing them was extremely important to me. From the very beginning it was clear how important this wedding was to the bride’s mother and to the bride. The bride’s mother clearly wanted the bride to have the wedding of her dreams; this was lovingly offered to the bride without any of the tension I sometimes see between families. That alone made this very special. Watching mother and daughter relationships is a fun extra I get to experience, and it always makes me consider exactly what kind of mother I am being.

Having this wonderful and large wedding in the middle of our off-season was such a gift and a blessing, but I will now admit that it came with a lot of fear. You all know how much I care about my brides. I pretty much worry about each one of them from the day we agree to work together until the breakdown of the event. A February wedding date is a true blessing and a curse. My head worried endlessly about the potential of bad weather. And to add to that, it was also the week of Valentine’s Day. Most people do not realize how scarce flowers are that week. Unfortunately, almost every single flower on a growing farm is cut and sent to market–even if the blooms are not mature. The designer on the receiving end must be prepared to receive anything. In years past, I have received flowers that didn’t even show a speck of color or flower heads so small that they were half their normal size. In addition to that the wholesalers are dealing with so many orders that the chance for error always increases. Most of my wholesalers worked for 11 days straight. That means sales reps, pickers, and truckers are all dealing with some serious exhaustion. I did several things to protect this wedding: first, I ordered the flowers a month in advance. This meant product could be secured before all of the Valentine’s orders came in. That product was then taken out of inventory and guarded as mine through the holiday. Second, we agreed that if bad weather was scheduled the week of the wedding, we were moving the flowers and our studio to DC. I also did not allow my husband to leave me, even though my dad and all of my sisters’ husbands were having a men’s fishing retreat. I just knew if a snow storm came, I would need Evan here to calm my nerves. Of course, by being proactive we had no drama, no stress, and we received perfect flowers. Many thanks to my wholesalers, my designers, and Evan for making this wedding so perfect. Another amazing person I need to thank is Meredith Sorkin from Bella Cosa Events. Thank you Meredith for introducing me to this family and thank you for executing an absolutely perfect event. A big round of applause also is due to Robert Issacson Photography, Meant To Be Calligraphy, DC Rentals, Blue Sky Films.

The Chuppah was created with birch poles, 25 bunches of willow, and hundreds of white dendrobium orchids. This is one of the many structures Evan designed for our studio.

Anne’s bridal bouquet was created with white patience cabbage roses, lavender sweet peas, silver brunia, silver dusty miller, white freesia, white ranunculus and lavender amnesia roses. I bound the bouquet with platinum silk dupioni ribbon.

Maids carried bouquets of plum ranunculus, seeded euc, amnesia roses, lavender roses, lavender spray roses, lavender tulips, dusty miller and silver brunia.

The aisle was decorated with a custom runner, and we scattered the petals from 400 roses down the aisle.

We created this beauty of a design for the place card table, and we made the vase by wrapping it with green sheet moss.

Cocktail designs were placed on this very pretty linen in the foyer of the reception room.

Low centerpieces featured purple artichokes, lavender roses, amnesia roses, silver brunia, dusty miller, spray roses, stock in lavender and purple, hydrangea from New Zealand, purple lizzy, aggies, plum ranunculus, green cabbage roses, green dianthus, and tulips. The green amaranthus was flown in from California. This particular flower was one the family loved but the crops of this bloom froze in the fields from my normal source. Lucky for me I have lots of farms to work with.

Elevated designs featured green hydrangea, the lavender purple hydrangea, green cabbage roses, spray roses, stock, larkspur, purple dendrobium orchids, dianthus, lavender roses, anmesia roses, dianthus, and hanging green amaranthus.

There were 18 elevated designs, 9 of which had a grouping of 3 at the base of the vase. There were also 18 compote bowls as well. The ballroom looked spectacular.

This picture is so shameful; four other people are busy loading up the vans so we can leave and me and the girls are posing!!!

Happy married life Anne and Matt. Your wedding was a complete pleasure!!!