My first design class in Atlanta felt like a huge success, and I hope my students thought so as well. I was so honored to be at Laura Iarocci’s new Faith Flowers School in Atlanta. I can’t believe I was chosen to teach in this amazing new school and I am so honored that students traveled from Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee to visit with me in Atlanta. Our wedding workshop class sold out in just two weeks. I am truly humbled and pleased that other designers are actually following this blog and me. Thankful beyond anything I can ever explain.

Our class began with a tour of Cut Flower Wholesaler. Many thanks to mark who lead our tour. I was very impressed with the process at this wholesale house and the extra lengths that are taken to ensure a super fresh product. Instead of having boxes stacked on the floors in the cooler, Cut Flower Wholesalers places the boxes on racks so that cool air can circle around each box. Some wholesalers simply stack the flower boxes, this concept make a lot of sense. Flowers also come directly off a refrigerated truck and go straight into the cooler.

Cut Flower Wholesale sorts their flowers by color making it easier for designers when they come to buy. This was really helpful.

The finest of everything was available. I loved the ranunculus and peony selection. I almost died and went to heaven right in the cooler.

Pepper berry, and ilex berry were the first of the Christmas berries to arrive at the market.

This variety of pin cushions had me swooning in the tropical cooler.

Here is designer Peggy Sherwood checking out a huge stem from a banana tree. Peggy and her son Hunter came from Kentucky to design with me and I was so honored to finally meet them. Peggy has been a great cheer leader on my blog.

Our trip to Cut Flower Wholesaler was amazing. FYI designers, Cut Flower Wholesalers ships product to surrounding areas so please keep them in mind when you are doing your flower orders. Also the Cut Flower Wholesaler website features you tube videos and an extensive flower image gallery.

When we had completed our flower tour we headed back to Laura’s beautiful new flower school. I spent time with the students discussing some of my philosophies and beliefs and we looked at images of my work. Students even got a sneak peak of Alex and Mallary’s wedding.

Next we discussed the table scape I created. We talked about the linen, the vases and my favorite parts of the design.

Next I focused on how I design the bridal bouquet, I shared some of my personal secrets and I hope this will be of help to the designers. I love the picture above because it looks like the bouquet is spinning out of control. We found its very hard to photograph a person in constant motion!!!

When the bouquet was complete everyone wanted to take a picture with the bouquet. This of course made me very proud!!!

I think after bouquet making and before hair pieces we stopped for a very lovely lunch but the eating part was a bit of a blur. The day seemed to race by and I felt as if I could stay with the students all day.

During the day I also discussed bouts, and corsages and I created a centerpiece for the class as well.

Here is a pretty up close shot of the bouquet.

Many thanks to Laura for hosting me as a teacher at Faith Flowers. Spending time with Laura was amazing and it reminded me of our time together in Europe. Remember I went to Europe with Faith Flowers, so if you are interested in studying floral design abroad please go with Laura.  I am grateful to all of the students that signed up for the class. It was a very important day for me and an important part of the future of our studio. I would also like to personally thank Peggy and Hunter Sherwood, Anna Stouffer from Urban Petals, Katie Pollard from Color My World, Eatherly from Floressence and Paula for being such big fans of the blog and traveling to see me in Atlanta. I also must mention the amazing Abbey glass. Abbey is with me in the last picture. Abbey is working with Laura at the flower school but she is also an accomplished fashion designer and I know she is going to be famous some day. Check out Abbey’s work here.  Abbey and I have something fun brewing so watch out world!!

Last week I spent an entire day with my first official students.  My purpose for this first class was to develop a training manual and to spend some quality time with Amelia and Margaret. Amelia is the pretty strawberry blond, she has been interning here with us all summer. Due to the hectic nature of this studio and the fast pace we keep here, I really wanted Amelia to have just one quiet day with me.  The amazing Margaret is a delightful young lady that I met this summer and she hopes to have her own wedding and event design studio one day. My time with both of these girls was so very special.

First we spent time discussing the different tools, tapes, and glues that I use. Then we headed to the garden. We harvested most of the flowers for this class from our property.

Back inside we started with boutonnieres and corsages.  We even worked on flower girl halos.

After lots of talk and lots of sharing about business we broke for lunch. I should have taken pictures of the lunch Evan made for us. He served us sliced London broil, homemade corn salsa/salad, a garden salad, and nice cheeses and crackers. For dessert we had ice cream.

After lunch we worked on arrangements in foam and arrangements designed directly in water.

First the girls worked on greening out their designs. I call the greening of the design, either the bones of the piece, or the foundation of the design.

The above pictures were taken by my friend the amazing and super talented photographer Genevieve Leiper, from here on out the images are mine, so watch out!!

Look at this design created by Margaret. It is super gorgeous!!!

Miss Amelia hit a home run with this lovely creation.

Margaret’s second piece was created with scented geranium, 3 white astilbe that were leftover from a wedding, and  flowers from our garden.

Amelia’s second piece was created with roses leftover from a photo shoot and then greens and flowers from our gardens. I was truly proud of the designs each of these lovely young ladies created.

Of course I had to take their picture “in the cooler” and in front of our red door.

This was a very special day for me and a surprisingly relaxing day. It has been such a pleasure to get to know both of these women. I must also say having Amelia here this summer has been one of my all time favorite experiences. I keep opening up that big red door and every time I do, I am blessed with the most amazing people. What we are doing here clearly works!!!

So its official, we just had our first farm tour!! I can hardly believe the things that happen here on a day to day basis. When I was asked to host 25 youth at our home/studio/farm, I simply said yes.  So I was a little panicked late last night as I realized that the tour was tomorrow. With my open heart I had said YES, but I didn’t think about cleaning up the place, or exactly what in the world I should share.  So since the tour was really happening I just dove in like I always do and I made it work. One things for certain I was in the garden until dark last night and back at it again at 6:00 am. I tried desperately to get the weeds under control and to be ready for our visitors. Thankfully Sadie took on the roll of the official greeter.

There was no shortage of Sadie petting.

We spent time in the garden discussing the business, and how I became a designer. I took all 25 kids on a tour of the property explaining how I use different plants, trees, and flowers in my creations.

Of course a trip to Holly’s house always includes a visit to the cooler and an “in the cooler” photo.

I showed Loudoun Counties young future leaders some of our designs, our latest photo shoots, and I gave them piles of magazines that featured our work.

This was a mighty fun morning. I am kicking myself for not taking their picture in front of the red door. You know how I love to get those group shots.  I loved doing this tour and I hope there are many more in our future!!!

Perhaps the lack of several blog posts last week was a clue to my readers that we are very busy here. With Evan as a part of our team we have decided to add to our responsibilities, instead of chilling out like any normal person would have chosen to do. We have been busy in the garden, very busy!!! Evan is also building amazing props for our clients so this has been an exciting spring.  Here are a few pictures from our garden, and our weekend. If I were to guess I bet we have over 700 blooms of hydrangea on the property right now.

And we planted 8 more hydrangea bushes yesterday.

This seedling bench has been holding our babies as they grow. When the plants are big enough they are moved into the gardens. We have planted 100’s of plants that we started on this bench and yesterday I started 100’s more. We had so many things we wanted to grow this year, its been hard to get all of the seeds started. For now I think the last seeds have been planted.

I planted seeds, while Evan cleaned up an old garden. This spot had been abandoned for several years. We are going to make this space pretty again by adding in some of our seedlings. Our biggest issue is the deer. The plants the deer prefer have to get planted in the fortress that Evan built. Thankfully they don’t like zinnia, or celosia. However the deer will eat our gladiolas and sunflowers down to the ground!!! Several years ago they started eating our hydrangea so we got Sadie dog and she seems to have that part under control now.

While we work, they play!!! Thankfully under Hannah’s watchful eye and camera lens!!!

On Saturday Evan played soccer coach for Eli’s team. Although it was not a championship game Eli believed it was and we must have heard 100 times about his championship game. Eli scored 4 goals in one game so it was super exciting. Thankfully the game was at 9am and I got to go to the game before all of the days weddings.

Go Eli, go coach Chapple!!!

The above images would have been your in the cooler post if I had gotten that done. They show the preparation for last weekends events.

Our Chuppah had a a really big weekend. First it went to the Eastern Shore with Evan on Friday, and then it went to Lansdowne Resort on Sat. At Lansdowne it was draped in orchids, crystals, and butterflies.

Here I am with designer Theresa and our lovely intern Amelia.

Another shot of our Amelia. We are loving having her with us this summer.

Our head table at Lansdowne Resort.

Place card design for our Lansdowne wedding.

Here is an iPhone shot of our beautiful bride Jenn, and her ceremony at the Decatur House.

Are you getting tired yet? A lot sure goes on here in 3 days!!!!

Here is Lindsay’s bouquet.

Felicia’s bouquet

and Abby’s bouquet. I will share some images from Kelly and Jennifers wedding tomorrow. Hope I didn’t just exhaust you!!!

On Thanksgiving morning I arrived at mothers house, with pie, cookies, homemade cranberry jelly, grandma Heider’s blue cheese ball, and a pumpkin cake. I didn’t make a floral centerpiece because quite honestly I just figured nobody cared like I do about flowers. The first thing mother said was, “where is my Thanksgiving centerpiece?” Back to my house I went, completely unsure of what I could throw together. Thankfully I had tuber roses, and amaretto roses from last weekend and I knew I would begin there. I also knew I could gather some nandina foliage, and my hydrangea leaves are an amazing burgundy right now. As I started the design I remembered the apples from one of our Oct 15th weddings the leftover fruit has been in a sealed container in the cooler ever since.  We also had rose hips, privet berry, odd pieces of ornamental grasses and 4 stems of orange spray roses. One last miracle leftover in the studio was raununculus. I mistakenly received red not orange ranunculus last weekend, and white not light pink ranunculus, so we had ranunculus everywhere. This piece is luscious!!!

I can’t get over how pretty this design is and every single flower is at least 8 days old. Thank goodness for the cooler!!

Hope you had a happy turkey day and I hope you are enjoying this time with your family!! We are off to grandmas house for a big breakfast!!

We are busy, busy, busy this Friday designing for this weekends events, but I wanted to share with you the contemporary wedding flowers from our wedding last weekend at the Congressional Country Club in DC.  We had the pleasure of working with event planner Lauryn from Table 6 Productions on this wedding and we are excited about seeing the professional images. Until then I wanted to show you some of our very pretty designs. These pieces show our clean and contemporary side and we do this look perfectly as well.

Non fragrant flowers were chosen for this wedding due to the brides allergies. We at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers had the challenge of making football mums, and carnations sexy and I think we pulled the look off perfectly. Orchids and callas were used to enrich the designs.

Happy Friday we will be back later today with “in the cooler.”

Last October I created this truly inspired and amazing bouquet. It’s my baby, my love, my creation!!! This was to be the third and final bridal bouquet I would be designing for this family. I had been fortunate enough to design for each of the other sisters. I knew the bouquet had to be truly special. The week of the wedding I happened to be in New York. While touring the NYC flower market I found these tiny little succulents which I had been searching for. My bride had hoped to have succulents in her bouquet but my local wholesalers could not provide the smaller varieties. Finding these in NYC was a total miracle. The mini succulents were purchased and placed in my suitcase and lovingly brought home to my bride. When I started the process of designing this bouquet I suffered some type of creative block, probably because I truly wanted it to be more special than anything else I had ever created. I made the bouquet twice that day and it was indeed beautiful but it was missing something, some magic I had hoped to convey. I was disappointed in my work for the first time ever and I made a promise to myself that I would sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning. During the night around 2:am I woke knowing instantly the ingredient I needed to finish my art. I had tuber roses in the cooler and I knew they would most certainly send the bouquet from lovely to extraordinary, I knew intuitively that it would be a masterpiece.

Tonight I received a text from a wedding planner who knows my work by sight. She sent a picture of this very bouquet featured on the pages of a magazine. The text read “isn’t this yours Holly?” I have to say in that moment my knees buckled a little in excitement because I am always so honored and humbled when my work is featured. To see my art celebrated brings me such joy, but she went on to say that no credit had been given to me as the designer. This was a crushing bit of news, one that filled me with a certain sadness. I’m sure that there was an error or oversight on the magazines part, but it still caused a hurt that I can’t even really explain.

Unfortunately this is something that happens commonly to floral designers. I am not quite sure why or how this happens but I would really like to see this practice changed. I would love to see floral designers come together with a code or credit system that protects our art. We need to start honoring our florists. Imagine a wedding, a photo shoot, a table setting, an aisle, an altar without flowers. In almost every wedding that graces the pages of a magazine there are flowers. Flowers are the beauty, the color, the design, and the style of an event.  This is not a job or a game to me, this is my passion my love, my god given talent, and this is my art!! As I mentioned this was not just any bouquet, this was a bouquet that I poured my heart and soul into, one that I personally gathered ingredients for, and one that I lovingly made. The was a Holly bouquet, and the moment I created it I knew it was unique and special. On behalf of floral designers everywhere please do not publish our creations without clearly placing our names by the stems we have so lovingly bound together. No matter how small or insignificant photos of our designs may seem, I can assure you that hours of thought, design, and labor went into each creation. Please give us credit where credit is due.

This image was taken by photographer Kristen Gardner

As I may have mentioned we were rocking it again last weekend. We were at Whitehall twice, a polo field in the Plains VA, like maybe 100 times, we had two pick ups, one delivery at our little church and two weddings in Rockville Md. Oh boy was it a busy and wild ride!!! The above bridal bouquet went to Chetwood which is the polo field wedding. We also did a huge rehearsal dinner at this venue on Friday night and you can see that in my “in the cooler” post from Friday. Please go see that post because Evan did an amazing hanging lantern display. I am so proud of him!!!

The couple married at this altar Evan and I created. Yes, in addition to everything else we did last weekend we were slinging hay, straw actually. We also used big mums, pumpkins and gourds from my fathers country store.

They dined at this amazing table that was 88 feet long. Yes you heard me right 88 feet long, seriously outrageous!!!!  The wedding was planned and designed by Lisa Schulz of the Posh Planner

Evan was hired to turn the garage at Chetwood into a fun dance space. The Cake cutting and cocktail hour happened here as well. The little garage over looked the pool and the farm. Evan made it so beautiful!!!

I adored our place card design we created!!!

As soon as I finished at Chetwood I headed straight to Whitehall for our golden pumpkin, pheasant feather wedding. We also did a wedding at Whitehall on Friday that is also in the Friday post. Told you were racing!!!! The above bridal bouquet features a little grass called bunny tails and I just love them.

This wedding was such a soft and romantic representation of the fall. I loved this look and I can’t get over those golden pumpkins. I really had my thinking cap on when I came up with that!!! I am off to a consult so I will give you Sundays weddings tomorrow!!!

Yesterday we did a fun little photo shoot right here in our yard. Some of the girls from WeddingWire were kind enough to come spend some time in HollyHeiderChappleFlowerLand. We created 5 different table designs, aeach look was so beautiful. Many thanks to OnAWhimAntiques and PartyRentalLTD. for allowing us to use some of your amazing linens and furniture.  Here are a few quick pics from one of the designs. The rest of the images will be seen soon on the WeddingWireblog.

Happy Friday and we will see you later tonight with our “in the cooler” post.

We are super busy this week, lots has been going on. I had a huge increase in my responsibilities as I dealt with the damage from the storms that hit our home. Handling insurance claims and trying to get the vehicles and cooler repaired has taken up a lot of time. We have some super sexy and fun designs being created this week and I hope to share those with you later tonight in the “in the cooler” post. Here are a few lovely little designs I created last week in the midst of the storms that ravaged our home. These designs are the epitome of the calm during the storm. There was something ironic and odd about creating these things of beauty as I watched the storms swirling through my yard.