With our growing inventory it became very clear that we needed a new shed. My business has completely filled the flower shop and the whole basement.  Evan and I purchased this shed in Lisbon MD. The arrival of our new storage space,was quite an exciting step for Holly Heider Chapple Flowers and for my little boy Sam. We now have enough room for all of our inventory and we will soon begin to offer some of our props as rental items.

 

The shed was delivered by one man.  He had a remote control device that actually shimmied the trailer around and then slowly the shed fell into place. 

 

Sam and designers Debbie and Jessie all had fun going inside for the first time.

 

With only two small weddings last weekend we were able to create all of the designs and  put them safe "in the cooler".  Once the weddings were finished we started the process of cleaning the shop and moving into our new shed. We removed tons of vases, lots of shelving and most of the furniture. A crew of men including my husband painted the shop over the weekend while we delivered the weddings. Today we have to get the rest of the stuff out of the shop so that we can clean the floors. Big Ughhh…

 

Here is the new color and some of our big mess.

 

This is the part of the post where I want to gag, I am embarrassed to admit that I do not like the color we painted the room.  When I left for the wedding delivery I returned to find the room half painted, at that point I knew I was not happy. When you have a team of men standing around they really don't care about your creative thoughts, they look at you like "come on lady  are your kidding me,  you don't like it". It took 6 people working all day on Sat. and 3 on Sunday to get the room painted. Guess what I have to live with it and every day I will be annoyed because it was almost right. If this had been for a client, I would have ripped the room to shreds. Since it is only for me, I will have to be grateful the room is at least clean and fresh. This happens all of the time when we are designing flowers, when I look at something and realize it is not perfect, I just add another element or remove whatever is offensive or quite frankly start over. It drives the designers crazy, but they understand my need for perfection and always oblige.  The painters and my husband Evan were not as willing as my flower shop girls, and honestly I did not have the guts, the funds, or the time for a redo.  First mistake I made was, picking the color in 5 minutes on the internet, but that is how my life goes sometimes. I did not know I was painting on Saturday, I got offered a team of men on Friday at 4:pm and all of a sudden I was off to the paint store. Picking paint takes time and a plan. It also takes an amazing eye, and for the life of me, in spite of the fact that I am extraordinary with color, I just can't seem to pick paint.  Perhaps I am only good with natural things. I am hoping when we get some fun furniture into the space that we can soften up the very bright green glow.  If not, you will hear me screaming in DC.

Here are a few of the designs from the weekend. The camera was buried in the shop when it was time to leave for the deliveries so we only have a few bouquet shots.

 

This bridal was created of yellow gerbers, hot pink gerbers, yellow callas, cream hydrangea and hot pink gloriosa lily. The lily was imported from Japan. Even with the volcanos last week, we were able to get every single bloom we promised. Super big success. 

 

This next bridal was created with lilac, pink peonies, purple carnations, hot pink ranunculus, purple freesia, lavender and dark purple stock, pink mokara orchids and hot pink roses. The colors were magnificent, the photography is not.

 

 

Maids carried bouquets of green viburnum from my garden, green cabbage roses, green spider mums, green berry and green hydrangea. My shop is about the color of this bouquet.

It is time to start a new week and begin life in our new shop. As many of you know, I lost a dear friend last week. I am trying to be grateful for the color I can see, the lunches I get to pack, and the true pleasure of just being alive.

I have been dying to share these images with you for months.  In January I got to help plan and design flowers for a photo shoot in Richmond with Ashley Baber events. The photography was done by Julie Renee. Much to our delight our beautiful shoot was featured here on Style Me Pretty.  I hope you enjoy our feature. Here are just a few more images from the day.

We are off to a very busy day, but I will check back in later with “in the cooler”.

The cabbage rose or garden rose is one of my favorites. What defines this rose is the dense and ruffly petals. A cabbage rose spirals to a very unique center as well. 

 

Cabbage roses are larger than the average rose. This rose is a great substitute for the peony when it is unavailable.  Expect to pay at least 3 times as much for this type of rose. The cabbage rose  does not last as long as a regular rose. It is easy for moisture to get trapped into the center of the rose, which often causes them to brown in the center. This is one flower that definitely benefits from time in the cooler, the heat is particularly hard on this rose.

 

This bouquet consists of both regular roses and cabbage roses and clearly shows the difference between the two. I love mixing both varieties of roses together and think the texture is amazing.

In this storm…

We have designed and delivered amazing flowers to our bride. 

We have received over 5,000 stems for one of our favorite non-profit organizations. 

We have filled and prepared  140 vases for our client. 

We designed pieces in the vintage containers I have found.

We have prepared for power outages.

We have made homemade chicken salad and bread.

We have tended to the children.

We got our first phone call from someone with  Martha Stewart.

  I have always hoped that someday Martha Stewart would take notice of our home based flower shop. This year it honestly was my goal. I got that call today, of course the call came in the middle of the largest snow storm to hit the DC area since 1922.  The executive saw my website and wanted me to deliver flowers for her mother in law. Nothing would have made me happier than to design a Holly Chapple for her. However I am afraid I will not be able to deliver. We are completely snowed in. For now I am just going to be really grateful that my bride has her flowers, that my flowers for this weeks event are safely in the cooler, that we still have our power, and that everyone is safe. Martha please, please, please, find me again. 

 

White freesia

 

Brunia
 
 

 

Green cabbage roses and green button mums.

 

White cabbage florets.

 

Arbratonoides

 

Eryngium or blue thistle

 

The amazing bridal bouquet. My bride was so thrilled and relieved when she saw her bouquet, she said I completely made her day. Notice her family cameo is the crowning glory.

 

The grooms boutonniere. This bout is my favorite part of Tricia's wedding story (besides the snow of course). Notice the little black stone on the bout. That is Tricia's necklace she was wearing this the first time the groom kissed her. He bent over and asked to see her necklace and then went in for the kiss. So sweet.

 

Maids bouquets have little hints of pussy willow. I loved these bouquets and know they were stunning with navy dresses.

 

Each centerpiece was designed in a different vintage compote bowl. The bride collected them for the wedding.

 

Vases lined up for this weeks event. I need to get 140 centerpieces to The National Harbor.  I think I will be missing the flower shop girls more than ever.

 

Thousands of carnations will be used on this job and yes I will make carnations look beautiful.

 

Just for me!

 

I have been gathering vintage containers for my brides, I took sometime yesterday to play with my new vessels. 

 

This is what I saw when I opened the sliding glass door.

 

Our cars and our dog.

 
 

Please remember me Martha, I live and breathe flowers, family, and fun.

I thought it would be fun to share these images from one of my trips to the wholesaler. For the next few months my work will be more about paper work and computer work than actually designing. This is the hardest time of year for me; I actually go through a mini flower withdraw.  I might just have to take a peek at these pictures every once and a while to keep me going.  We do have several events this winter, and we have weekly deliveries to maintain so that I can get little fixes. I just will not be rolling in roses again until wedding season hits.

 

Each one of these packages contains 25 roses. The roses are stored out of water in the cold (in the cooler)  to stop development. When the roses are purchased they are shipped to the flower shops, or to designers like me. Each rose is freshly cut and then placed in buckets of screaming hot water. The hot water helps to open the stems and allows the rose to get a really good draw of water. We also use a flower preservative in the water to help keep the water clean and to offer nutrients.

 

This picture shows just how large the flower cooler is at the wholesaler. Better get your coat if you are going for a visit.

 

Have you ever seen this many tulips? This is a fabulous time of year to get tulips. Holland has awesome varieties ready throughout the winter.

 

These gerber daisies just make me want to smile because today these are the only flowers I will get to have. I need to start weeding though a ton of emails, voice mails and contracts. The first days back to work after the holiday break are very difficult. If I was designing today I would be running back into the shop; instead it is a total computer day. One bright spot will be uploading last years weddings on to the website. I will see lots of flowers there. And you should come see them too.

Holly

 

This was most certainly a bittersweet day. Today was the last day that our friend Dahlia Don will be able to bring us his precious beauties. I want to be happy. We at least got this one last delivery; however, not seeing his smiling face and those glorious blossoms is going to be a real bummer. We have been praying that we would get his dahlias this weekend for one special bride, and we were so lucky. He actually suffered a 90 percent loss of his crop with the first real frost.  We will have to say goodbye to so many of our local treats. I should be happy as we move to a slightly slower season, and yet I am also very sad. We will be completing a lot of work this week that I have looked forward to for a long time. My back is sore, I am completely exhausted and I had a beautiful baby 8 months ago that I hardly can remember having. With all that said, I still will be sorry to see this week pass.  What we have pulled off this week is nothing short of a miracle. We managed to get the last of the dahlias for Dharma and Amy.

Carrie helped me reorganize my office so that I could begin to get through the sea of emails and paperwork that waits for me when this weekend is finished.

 

Here is my new desk that we got at On A Whim Antiques. This weekend the store has a huge sale that benefits breast cancer. You should definitely stop by if you have a little spot you need to freshen up.

 

We received this incredible thank you that gave us the courage to start this work week. We have several designers out with colds, so we have been facing mountains.

 

We prepared bouquets for a photo shoot with Genevieve Leiper Photography. 

 

We have battled the flu, sinus infections, and all other lovely forms of illness. Every one of my kids is sick, and that is a lot of sick children. And God love my flower shop girls; they have come to work and created amazing things in spite of my children and their runny noses. We celebrated designer Debbie's birthday today. No restful day off for her; we worked until late into the night. We have already delivered our first event, and we are ready for our first wedding. Here are some of the lovely things resting in the cooler.

 

I know you are peeking Dharma!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Holly

 

 

Click hereto see our post with Brides.com.   We were asked to create a design with golden accents for Brides.com in New York. This bouquet was featured in their story "15 golden ideas for your wedding".  The Regeti's photographed the image, and I am so grateful to them. I love seeing our work published, and it is only with the help of my fabulous photographer friends that I can make that happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also would like for you to see this post on the circus rose. It is one of my favorite roses. Check out my blog post all about the circus rose here.  Remember you can see more of my flower posts on the Wedding Aces Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a little peek at Jessica's wedding from last weekend. We have decided to only share a few pictures that were taken at my house until you can see them through the real photographer's eyes.  Maybe you will even see them published.  Jessica went to incredible lengths to make certain every detail of her wedding was perfect. I was blown away by the look and feel of her special day. The wedding took place at a private residence in Loudoun County.  The estate home greeted guests as they arrived and headed to a perfectly decorated tent and ceremony site that overlooked the water.  The bride and groom married on a dock overlooking the water. The site was picture perfect.  Am I teasing you? I hope so. This wedding was amazing, and I look forward to sharing the real images with you in the future.  Here are a few shots that will not give too much away. I just had to let you see these very unique bouquets.

 

 

 

 

 

The bridal bouquet.

 

 

The maids.

 

 

 

 

 

The boutonnieres.

 

 

We will have lots to share with you in the future about this wedding.  We also will have a very large "in the cooler" post for you today.

 

Holly

 

 

 

 

This bouquet was created with hydrangea, zinnia, and lambs ear from my garden. The grass is roadsidius–or cut from the side of the road. Roadsidius just sounds more sexy. We wrapped the bouquet in bark wire. Genevieve photographed the bouquet in one of the copper pots from my booth at On A Whim.

 

This bouquet was created with fern I found while taking a walk with my daughter. We used fall colored roses, scabiosa pods, mini poppy pods and a foliage called safari sunset or leucadendron. We wrapped the bouquet in burlap and photographed the design in a old wooden box.

 

This little vase was created as a sample to try on our new shepherds hooks. We thought it was so cute we took it along to the photo shoot. The design is a simple vase with ribbon wrapped around the vase. The ribbon will actually be our way of hanging the vases on the hooks. We used bright green spider mums, green roses, lavender mums and green hydrangea.

 

As I have mentioned before my daughter Hannah is showing lots of talent as a photographer, so she caught this great image of Genevieve at work. The following images are my bouquets through Hannah's eyes. 

 

Many thanks to Genevieve for feeding me so many images this week.  We will post "in the cooler" later today, as in really late today.

Holly

I just wanted to share with you a few really great things that my bride Jessica sent me.  Here is her inspiration board, which can be created by going to Bridal Canvas.

As you can see, Jessica has a really great look for her wedding. However, her color combinations are not your average wedding tones.  By creating this board she was able to explain perfectly to me what she was looking for.  I think this is an awesome way to provide a sense and a feel of look to your vendors. The inspiration board also can give the bride visual comfort if she is trying to bring together unique tones. I have to say, I am really looking forward to making this board come to life for Jessica.

Another great tip from Jessica was how she created her seating chart.

For Jessica's wedding we are having a long banquet style table. It is important for me to see this layout to make certain we have our centerpiece count correct. We are not simply designing one centerpiece for each table. With this wonderful visual layout I was immediately comfortable choosing how many centerpieces we would need. 

I also know of all of the things a bride must do, the seating chart is the absolute, flat out, hardest part. Many a bride has stayed up late into the night getting her seating correct. This system is remarkable and is from my good friends at Wedding Wire. This system allows you to assign a number to each person and see your end results. Wedding Wire has endless resources for the bride; the technology they share with their brides is amazing. The seating chart link can be found here.

Now about "let them eat cake." One of the great things about doing what I do is the relationships I develop. Quite frankly, we enjoy doing all of our hard work, but the icing on the cake is always the friendships we make. It is not the balance paid when the job is done. I am incredibly touched by my brides and their families. I have so many wonderful memories of this year. So many girls and their moms (you know who you are) who truly cared about me and my family. 

I love arriving at the wedding and hearing "Holly we love you" or "give me a hug" or" we knew we could trust you." The incredible faith my customers have in me is so rewarding. In truth it is very often surprising as we may sometimes appear a little crazy or even flighty. Well, I am a little flighty; in flight is a perfect way to describe me.  I often feel like I am that good fairy flying about in the Disney Movies, tapping her wand at this, and then off to handle that. I am always off to something else. I never have just one thing to do. I am often hard to reach by phone or email. I am always running through the house: upstairs, downstairs, and "in the cooler."  It does not seem to scare my clients, and I love them for that.

I am always shocked and amazed at the kindness. Just yesterday, one of this weekend's brides called to ask if she could stop by. I have to honestly say my first thought was, "Did I forget something: a piece of lace or a flower girl basket?"  In spite of how crazy it may sound around here, we do not forget things, so I was perplexed as to why they needed to come by. I immediately asked, "What's wrong?" She replied nothing; we want to bring you and your flower ladies a little treat to have while you are working.  I mean really who gets that kind of love and support; this was seriously an amazing chocolate cake. We are really lucky at Holly Chapple Flowers. So keep on loving us, and we will keep on loving you right back. 

And remember, yes, it is crazy here but as flighty as I might seem, we always bring rockin', awesome, over the top flowers to each and every bride.

Thanks so much,

Holly

Everything starts with the arrival of the bridal bouquet.  Laura married this past weekend at Lansdowne Resort. The first thing we do when we arrive at the resort is deliver the bridal bouquet. We then move on to decorate the ceremony and reception areas.  
This was an incredibly fun weekend for me; our family was also staying at Lansdowne. This allowed me to get a inside look at all that is going on in a huge resort like Lansdowne. Our family wanted one more special time together before big brother Alex leaves for college. Sports and school activities also officially start this weekend. So on Friday night, I tucked Laura's bouquet in the cooler and headed to the resort. On Saturday morning I went home to check on all of the flowers and later that day Jessie and Albert met me at the resort. I wish I could do this every time I have a Lansdowne wedding.

We created two large arrangements for the ceremony. We also added a mountain of petals down the aisle. 

We dressed the unity candle with greens and filler flowers.

We headed over to the clubhouse to set up the reception.  This piece was designed for the place card table.  The bride gave us small dragonfly's that she wanted placed on the branches of the piece.

The reception was a mix of high and low centerpieces.  Our bride should be commended for all of her hard work. She chose the upgraded linens, chairs and napkins all by herself.  Actually, her wonderful mother helped. The end result was amazing.

The elevated centerpieces were created with white Hydrangea, dark blue Delphinium, purple Larkspur, purple Carnations, blue Thistle, white Lily, and lavender Roses.

The low centerpieces were full of the white Hydrangea, lavender Roses, purple Stock, blue Thistle, blue Delphinium and the purple Carnations.

We had miniature arrangements for the cocktail hour that Designer Debbie created. She floated small delphinium blossoms into the base of the vase with green leaves. These were so pretty. 

To bring an event this beautiful together takes a fully devoted team. I love working at Lansdowne Resort because of the attention to detail. Before each wedding or event there is a huge team meeting with Lansdowne's event planner, head captain and wait staff. This ensures that all of the client's wishes for the night are fufilled.

 

This is Millie. She is one of the Head Captain's at the Resort.  I am afraid I don't have a picture of Lansdowne's superstar catering manager Lindsey. Lindsey is absolutely a dream to have on your team. She is like having your own personal wedding coordinator on site.

The wedding cake was created by Lansdowne's pastry chef. The bride loved butterflies and dragonflys. The cake was a piece of art.

Here is my bride and her maids. There were seven maids total.

The bridal bouquet was created of purple-blue Hydrangea, white Roses, white mini callas with a purple center and a white Cymbidium Orchids.

 

Here were two maids that had no trouble posing for the florist.

Here is the amazing Joylyn Hannahs: photographer extraordinaire. I know photographers hate to have their picture taken, but I love to show them in action.

Since we were staying at the resort, we watched the wedding from our room.  With seven children this was a much safer view.

I will post about the rest of our weekend at Lansdowne in the next post.

Holly