Katie and Chris married this past weekend at Lansdowne Resort. Event planning and design was created by Laura from Events In The City.  This wedding was an event I have been dying to design.

All blue bouquets were designed for the maids.  We used blue hydrangea, blue delphinium, blue veronica, blue aggies, nigella love in the mist, blue thistle, and blue hyacinthus. The bouquets were stunning.

The bridal bouquet was created with a mix of the same blue flowers and vibrant, rich, bold, red peonies were added to make this bouquet the superstar.

We constructed a huge arch of baby’s breath for the ceremony site, 700 stems total were used to make this 9 foot high ten foot wide ceremony area.

A martini themed place card area was arranged for guests to find their seating the mini martini shakers were the favor of the day and also held the seating card. A blue ice cube was in each shaker and at the end of the night guests were dancing with their drinks aglow.

Laura chose red chairs, and blue linens and the Lansdowne ballroom looked AMAZING!!!

Elevated designs were created in all white of hydrangea, orchids, peony, roses, hybrid delphinium, and stock.

Low centerpieces featured vases of red peonies, cabbage roses, and tulips. This looked amazing with the red chairs and red napkins.

The head table featured 2 elevated designs and then masses of smaller designs. I loved the silver beaded chargers.

I simply loved the way this wedding looked everything was so beautiful!!

The wedding cake was designed by Lansdowne Resort, I snagged this picture while it was waiting in the cooler. Red roses and red peony blossoms were placed on the cake just before it was presented to the guests.  Other fun parts of the evening featured a performance from a Neil Diamond impersonator, a carriage ride for the bride and groom, and a big shout out to the amazing band Go Go Gadjet that had everyone on the dance floor all night long.  This wedding was a huge success.

1st image via Facebook by Holly Senn.

 

This lovely bridal bouquet was created for my bride Meg. I used white peony, blue scilla from my garden, white ranunculus and believe it or not nandina berry in bud form. This berry turns a bright red as the season progresses.

Maids carried white peony, white phlox, and a few hits of the blue scilla.

The couple married under a chuppah that they made. We provided a garland of green italian ruscus, lemon leaf and plumosa grass.

We added guinea hen feathers to the bouts.

The very lovely and charming photography was done by Kate Headley.

Happy Friday, see you tonight for "in the cooler"

HC

I adored Toby and Aaron, I mean it, I really adored them. When they came to my house for their first flower consult they were accompanied by Toby's parents. They discussed with me the types of flowers & colors they hoped for and I just happened to have all of those flowers "in the cooler."  When Toby and Aaron confirmed that I did indeed know exactly what they were looking for, I never heard another word out of them.  Toby and Aaron each picked up one of my little boys and started gaming on the iPhones. I went about figuring out the numbers and order with mom and dad. The whole time we were planning I kept looking at the end of table at this gorgeous couple and thinking OMG they are wonderful. They were the sweetest!! To this day, if you come to my house for a consult Sam says " hey lady, do you have a game phone?" They were forever ruined by this Toby and Aaron's amazing kindness.

Pale yellow cabbage roses, peach juliet coral roses, and white cabbage roses were used to create Toby's amazing bouquet.  The maids carried peach spray roses called illsa, creme de la creme roses, milky way roses and cream hydrangea.

The cabbage roses were chosen because they were absolutely perfect with Toby's dress.

The couple married under our wonderful chuppah. This structure is so beautiful and I love how many different ways we can decorate it. This one featured a lot of moss and in fact that was one of the elements the family loved. So we…

even used moss in the bouts and corsages.

Place cards were displayed in my iron moss baskets.

Large elevated stands displayed huge balls of blue hydrangea, and all the roses of the day. The baby blue hydrangea was added into the reception.

The wedding took place on Sunday afternoon. We did five weddings on Saturday, one wedding Sunday morning and then this wedding was number 7. This was our famous 7 wedding weekend. When I look at these pictures, I am blown away by the quality and the care that we consistently give. Instead of giving a little less because we were completely exhausted we actually brought in all of the extra grasses and the place card stands because we had them from one of the Sat. weddings. So instead of being tired and producing a little less, we did a whole bunch of extra. That is so typical here, and of course when we love a couple we are insane.

All images were photographed by the amazing and super talented Kate Headley Photography. Wedding venue, Woodend Sancutuary.

You may have noticed I have skipped a few blog posts, but in addition to being in full throttle wedding season, I am still trying to be a nice host to my French floral designer Elodie. With our work schedule the way it has been, its been hard to get out of the flower shop and show Elodie a bit of the United States. Here are some photos that show just where we went and what we did last weekend.  Our weekend started on Friday night at the Thomas Birkby House. By the time Elodie goes home she will have assisted in close to 30 weddings. I think she will certainly have a good feel for an American wedding.

Our first wedding of the day featured purple and dark burgundy tones. This wedding was for Lysa at Rose Hill Manor. We got to work with our dear friend, and past bride, Cara Berger. Cara is an event planner and her business is called Celebrations by Cara.

We decorated grapevine wreaths with seeded eucalyptus, fall leaves, purple carnations, black baccara roses and brown hypericum berry. The wreaths were placed around lanterns that the bride had purchased. Centerpieces were placed on brown pin tuck linens.

I also added fresh flowers and greens to the unity candle. This is an area that people typically forget to order flowers for and we often place extra loose blooms in this space.

Corsages were created with tiny black beauty roses and mini red orchids.

Our next stop on Saturday was Whitehall Manor,  this was for our bride Lauren. Oddly enough she also chose lanterns and their colors were similar to our first wedding. They chose deep burgundy wine toned reds, or claret tones, the flowers could bend slightly to a reddish orange, but unlike Lysa's wedding, we did not move towards purple. Lauren used the same pin tuck linen but her accent color was navy blue.

Here are some of her bouquets while they were "in the cooler".  I missed getting a shot of the bouquets when we were setting up the reception.

I really liked this claret red tone with the navy linens and I loved the unique twist it gave to a Fall wedding.

This wedding was beautiful and I loved being at Whitehall on such a gorgeous Fall day.

On Sunday morning we were up bright and early to provide flowers for SaraBeth at The Belmont Country Club.  Our delivery was at 9:30 a.m. 

Her all orange bouquet was magnificent, we used Don's orange dahlias, orange yarrow, orange tulips, orange crocosmia, two shades of orange roses, orange globe amaranthus, orange ranunculus, and orange spray roses. This was an awesome orange bouquet.

Maids carried bouquets of orange roses, pink mokara orchids, green cabbage roses, Don's magenta toned dahlias, green hypericum berry, and orange spray roses. The flowers were bright, clean, and happy, against the maids dresses.

Boutonnorrieres featured hot pink orchids, and orange spray roses.

Low centerpieces were created in compote bowls, green hydrangea, orange roses, spray roses, purple stock, magenta dahlias, green roses, and orange tulips.

Elevated designs were created with spider mums, orange lily, wine toned snapdragons, purple asters, green button mums, spray roses, stock, and full sized roses.

We decorated the wedding cake and enhanced the head table.

I always bring a bucket with me called my doctor bucket. These flowers are my extras, in case of an emergency.  If I don't need them to fix any pieces I often will touch up undecorated areas. Using my doctor blooms on the head table was a great finishing touch to this lovely wedding.

We raced back home to the flower shop in time to pack up wedding flowers for our neighbor.  We designed 11 centerpieces, bridesmaids bouquets, bouts, corsages, altar flowers and a bridal bouquet but the family picked up the designs.

Here is Maria's bridal bouquet. We affectionately call this bouquet the Washingtonian Bridal bouquet.  This bouquet was featured in one of their past issues. It is certainly easy to replicate one of your own masterpieces. This bouquet is always so lovely.  We are also proud of the fact that, when you hit the link to the Washingontian Bride and Groom magazine, you can see another one of my fabulous bouquets.

This awesome bouquet is the cover page of the Washingtonian Bride and Groom home page. This was created last year for our bride Doreen and was photographed by my friend Kristen Gardner. It is such a pleasure and a honor to be on the Washingtonians best of list.

We got just a few shots of Maria's flowers "in the cooler" but all in all we killed it again this weekend.  We did a total of 5 weddings and each one was truly lovely.

Happy married life girls we loved doing your wedding flowers.

Last Sunday we provided Toby with a fabulous cabbage rose bridal bouquet.  The flowers were to match her cabbage rose dress. I was excited to be working with Toby and Aaron because our first meeting was so comfortable and easy. In fact I fell in love with them as a couple, they are so beautiful together.  I showed them a pile of flowers that I just happened to have "in the cooler" and they were sold. They literally each scooped up my little boys and spent the rest of the time playing with my very active sons. I was blown away by their ease with family, and I could clearly see them down the road as parents.  I spent the rest of the planning session talking logistics and order size with Toby's amazing parents. As it turns out, Toby's mom Deborah is a huge fan of my dad's pie, and that pretty much sold them on me because Deborah left squealing, "OMG you are the pie man's daughter." My father is Albert Heider and he owns Heider's Country Store in Lucketts. In addition to fruits, vegetables, plants, and seafood, he bakes pie. Apparently Aaron even drove out from the city to get pie for his mother on mothers day.

For the final touch on Toby's bridal bouquet, I added this lovely rose embellishment that I bought in San Francisco.

We created this fabulous chuppah with multiple clusters of lizzy, hanging amaranthus, spray roses, cabbage roses and hydrangea. 

The elevated centerpieces featured hanging votives and wheat grass.

The low centerpieces were surrounded by a bed of moss.

Elodie took this picture of me designing the cake through the window.

This wedding was a delight to be involved with, and when Toby came down the stairs to start down the aisle everyone was cheering for her because she was such an incredible bride. Yes, we loved working on this wedding and we loved Toby and Aaron, happy married life and thank you for allowing us to be a part of your wedding day.

 

Just a quick note for those of your trying to reach me, I am having huge problems with Verizon right now. When you call my number you will be told that the line has been disconnected. Verizon is supposedly working on the problem. (I will not use this blog to vent, I will not use this blog to vent, I will not use this blog to vent.) We converted to FIOS 3 weeks ago and we can't seem to get, internet, TV, and telephone with voicemail, all working at the same time. They assure me that they are working on this issue but in the meantime please do not worry. We are here and working diligently on this weekends events. See you tonight with my "in the cooler" post.

I had the pleasure of providing the wedding flowers last weekend for Katie. Her wedding took place at the oh so beautiful Woodend Sanctuary. I loved this wedding, and I am dying to share it with you. I tried to wait until the amazing Kate Headley had a chance to get me the images, but when she sent me this one sneak peek photograph I knew I would share it immediately with you. This wedding was designed by event planner Ashley Summers from Table 6 Productions. Ashley is one of 6 chicks that plans events for Table 6 productions, this company handles several different major markets and they are totally fabulous to work with. In fact you can find our Jamie and Brad wedding here, which was an event we did this Spring together in West Virginia. Ashley covers, the DC,MD,VA, West Va, and CO markets, she is a superstar.

Now here are the images we captured, but remember they are mine and when Kate's get here everything will look so much more lovely. 

 

Ok, I have to admit this picture is pretty amazing. Katie's bouquet was created with milky way roses, David Austin cabbage roses, white majolica spray roses, white freesia, white lizzy, white sweet peas, and white ranunculus. I never promise out of season blooms to brides, but I always ask my wholesalers for them just in case. If a particular bloom is found then I am able to surprise my bride. Katie loved ranunculus but I did not believe I would be able to give them to her in August. Lucky for us both we got ranunculus and I was so happy to include this Spring time flower in her bouquet.  We wrapped the bouquet in lace from her grandmother. I loved, loved, loved, the finished design.

 

We created four very lush and rich designs, these were used at the ceremony and then they became the elevated designs on the long head tables.

 

This photograph shows the table before the large altar pieces were added to the head tables.

 

All of the designs were created in my vintage milk glass vases and placed on these amazing linens. I can't get over how incredible these tables looked!

 

 

This picture of my bride seeing her reception for the first time says it all. I heard she shed tears of delight which was awesome, because I shed tears over her bouquet as I placed the lace on the bouquet. There was no doubt in my mind that Katie's wedding would be perfect.

You may have noticed I skipped " in the cooler" last night, we happen to have the weekend off. It is amazing to me how blessed and lucky we are, because my schedule seems to keep working out.  I never even had an inquiry for this date and of course it was meant to be, I have two kids getting ready for college and this is the last weekend we are all together.  Not to mention the fact that we are still reeling from last weekend, we had a wedding on Friday, 3 on Saturday and one on Monday of this week, so the wedding Gods, knew after five events last weekend and with the kids leaving for college I would need a little break. I think we are headed to the zoo.

 

I had the pleasure of providing flowers a few weeks ago to Lindsey Truitt. Lindsey's sister is the famous Kendall of Kendall's Cakes. I absolutely am in love with the photographs taken by Love Life Images and making these inspiration boards was so much fun. I have several more events this season at Woodend Sanctuary and I am dying for them. 

Happy Friday, we are off to a wedding today and it is going to be a real peach!!  See you "in the cooler" tonight.


 
 

 

 

 

 

This weeks creative and inspirational designs actually began late on Saturday night. Yes, Saturday night after doing 7 weddings, and in spite of my exhaustion. My daughter Hannah challeneged  me to come back into the flower shop. She wanted to see if I could create boutonnieres like they do on ETSY. I thought she had lost her mind pushing me back into the shop but we actually had a lot of fun. I think she wanted to see if I could be as cool as the designers on ETSY, and I made her proud. Each one of the boutonnieres were created with dried elements, feathers, or goods from the flower shop. 

 

I really love these pieces and I am always amazed that I can do this stuff.

 

My next big thrill for the week was my trip to Don's Dahlia's. I have been missing Don since the last frost and saying goodbye to him and the dahlias last year was truly depressing. Happy days are ahead, the dahlias will be blooming in full glory in just a few weeks, lucky for me I was able to get a few early bloomers for this weeks designs.  I love Don and seeing him again was so exciting. Here are a few of the goodies I claimed and some of the designs I created with them.

 

This bouquet features hydrangea, and asclepias, yarrow, coreoposis and gooseneck loosestrife from my garden, Don's dahlias, scabiosa pods and a peony left over from last weekend. I designed this for a photo shoot that I was doing with Amber Karson Events and Photographer Abby Jiu. The shoot took place in PA, at a Frank Lloyd Wright home called Kentuck Knob.

 

This centerpiece was the coordinating design to the above the bouquet.

We had a blast creating several different looks for this shoot and I can't wait to show you the real images taken by Abby Jiu. For now you will have to live with these sneak peeks. The below bouquet featured several of Don's dahlias and a whole host of others, such as black mini callas, red roses, black scabiosa, purple hydrangea, red bouvardia, purple allium, purple carnations, and red hanging amaranthus.

 

The boutonniere was a mini piece of art as well, it featured the black purple calla, the scabiosa and the red amaranthus.

 

We also tucked Don's copper colored dahlias into this fabulous design of cream hydrangea, orange unique roses, sahara roses, hypericum berry, spray roses, and vendella roses. Don't you just love this piece?

I am off on a little mini vacation with my husband so there is no "in the cooler" this week. I am finding all types of new inspiration on our little trip, I just can't seem to shut my mind down. Have a great weekend and a great fourth of July.

I had the pleasure of  teaming up with some super fabulous vendors for a photo shoot. The shoot was really an Inspiration Challenge Contest that became known as ICcontest. Our shoot was featured this week on The Sweetest Occasion blog and here are some of our great photos. Thanks to all of the fabulous vendors who brought this awesome vision to life and a huge shout out to Vicky from My Simple Details. Vicky worked like crazy on this concept. 

 

This awesome veil became my total inspiration  for the bouquet and boutonniere. I am thrilled with the results, but you should have seen us in the shop trying to dye feathers turquoise. Lets just say that we have not mastered the use of Rit Dye, in fact we failed epically and the feathers were spray painted teal. 

 

Our couple truly were high school sweethearts, so it was fun to pick up that theme.

 

Vicki's attention to detail and her concept development was stellar. 

 

 

I absolutely loved the idea of leaving a message for the bride and groom, and yes Vicky thought of that also.

 

Christina from Paperzest wowed us with her paper products. She is quite the artist.

 

A huge thanks to the very talented Kate Triano for her amazing photography. How could we possibly have so much fun without a fabulous photographer. In my mind the photographer is the most important vendor of the day. Don't tell the florists I said that.

 

 Vendors:

 

My Simple Details
Holly Chapple Flowers
Kate Triano Photography
Paperzest
Unveiled Bridal Designs
Julia Juliette
Vintage Mama
Byrdie Graphics

{Photos by Kate Triano Photography.}




See you tonight for "in the cooler"