We are so excited to be named Editors Choice for Brides Magazine DC. I must admit that I love gathering my awards and this one is oh so sweet. The newest issue of Brides Magazine Washington DC features a very small and select group of best of DC wedding vendors, and we are on the very short list. Hurray for us!!! I know it’s a deadly sin to be prideful but oh….. I just freaking love this!!

This fabulous Holly Heider Chapple centerpiece design can also be seen in the latest issue of Brides DC Magazine. Many thanks to photographer Anne Robert who took the image, and also to Allison Jackson of Pineapple productions. Allison was the event planner and stylist on this event and she had these linens custom made. We love having our work featured!! It’s a happy day here today!!

It’s 12:30 a.m., and we are just calling it a day here at Holly Chapple Flowers. Many thanks to designer Debbie, who stayed super late to go over all of the flower orders and contracts for next week.  This was one busy day and we are bone tired!!!  I am envious of people who will be enjoying a long holiday weekend, we will be working, working, working!!!! Here are some of the lovely designs created for this weeks weddings, and one of those weddings happened to be today.

Now I am off to bed, tomorrow is a big day for me!! I get to go shopping with our oldest sons fiance, we are looking for a wedding dress. So exciting!!!

Katie and Mike married last August at Woodend Sanctuary. The day was captured by the amazing Kate Headley Photography and the event was designed by friend and new mommy Ashley Summers of Table 6 Productions.  Today this wedding is being featured on Style Me Pretty and you can see the whole wedding here.

Katie carried white cabbage roses, white ranunculus, whte lizzy, white freeisa, white stock, and white spray roses. The look was very soft and romantic.

Pomanders or kissing balls were created with spray roses and baby’s breath for our little flower girls.

Maids carried peach juliet roses, sarhah roses, scabiosa pods, pink spray roses, dusty miller, queen annes lace, white ranunculus and seeded euc.

Cream hydrangea, spray roses, scabiosa pods, and lots of roses were used to create the centerpieces.

The head table featured elevated designs. These designs were also the same arrangements used back of the aisle during the ceremony.

Please make sure you stop by to see the full post on Style Me Pretty, the details from this wedding were truly remarkable. Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD. is a Little Black Book member of the Style Me Pretty blog.

Many of you know I went to NYC in March, while there I found and fell in love with Harvest Roses in NYC . I  am a total quality snob, seriously, I am pretty hard to please when it comes to the perfection I expect from a flower, after all they are a thing of nature and blemishes happen. I am in constant pursuit of new product, new ideas, and new inspiration, this natural desire for more, or better, keeps us at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers always reaching a little higher.  Thankfully I found Harvest.

This first lovely, lavender, pink rose is called Lady Moon. Her formation is magnificent!! Just 2 days ago I sat with a bride who needs these, sold, sold, sold!!

This rose is in search of a name, but for now it can be purchased under the code of HAL6113. I think the name Holly Chapple sounds wonderful for this rose, it seems to have my name written all over it!!!

This beautiful white rose is called Snowball, I am always in pursuit of a worthy white rose. She is a winner.

The absolutely orangest rose I have ever seen. They call her Orangina.

Now here is a beauty beyond belief, El Fuego. The “Peruvian wonder” designers, said this  name means “the fire” I think that is ridiculously perfect for this rose.

One last treasure, I am also purchasing my freeze dried roses from Harvest.

If you by chance need dark purple roses, black roses, or any other impossible to find option, consider using these freeze dried beauties from Harvest.

To my friends in Chicago who have yet to purchase from Harvest, I just had to tempt you to make the call to Harvest. Just don’t tell my friend Niv if you are a Bears fan, for some reason that is a problem for him. Personally, I could care less about football and team loyalties, just get me the roses!!! Go Chapel Designers!!!

If you would like to read more about Harvest roses and their varieties, check out this blog post on the Martha Stewart blog. I guess she found them first!!

In October 2009 almost 2 years ago, I provided the flowers for Lauren’s wedding at Whitehall Manor. It was one of our favorite weddings that Fall, we loved the  unique blend of pee gee hydrangea, and peach tones. Lauren and her mom Jackie, have made a point to stay in touch with us and we consider that a huge honor. Lauren’s mom Jackie is one of our all time favorite MOB’s and she is one of our greatest fans. We recently designed the flowers for Lauren’s baby shower, baby number 1 is on the way and it was so fun to get to help with that project as well. We are so excited for this growing family.  Here are some pictures from Lauren’s wedding.

The couple married in front of a huge arched window at Whitehall.

Lauren carried pee gee hydrangea, dill, sahara roses, champagne roese, vendella roses, white spray roses and white stock.

This wedding was loaded with lots of fun little details, wonderful people, and beautiful flowers. We loved this wedding and this family.

All photographs were taken by The Pro’s.

We have a busy week ahead of us with the potential launch of our new blog, the 86th running of the VA. Gold Cup and one very special bride.  We will be designing, designing, designing. I wanted to quickly show you some of last weeks creations. First up, the rehearsal dinner flowers for one of our events. They were so lovely!!

This event had a really unique and wonderful theme, but I am keeping it a secret until it's big release!

I made this lovely bouquet as an extra bridal bouquet for our Friday bride. I simply could not resist these tree peonies growing in my garden. Once I had finished the design we feared that the huge pollen area of the tree peony could potentially mess up my brides Monique Lhuillier gown. Being always diligent we decided to literally seal in the pollen. We used a paper funnel and spray on acrylic and the pollen could not budge. I loved this bouquet so much I just had to create it. Casey and Miriam got to do the doctor work of adhering the spray.

Our first wedding of the weekend was at the Sunset Room at the National Harbour.

Our bride and groom married on this pier. Photographer Abby Jiu was there to capture the day and I will share the real images from this event very soon. I loved this bride and her mom, we had so much fun designing their wedding. It was also a pleasure to work with Design Cuisine, Chris Laich, and Frost Lighting.

The Place card design.

We designed with 3 different types of centerpieces our first design was a square glass cube. All of the centerpieces featured viburnum from my garden, purple carnations, stock, baroness cabbage roses, tulips, and spay roses. Orchids were added to our taller designs.

Half of the elevated designs were in pilsner vases and half of the designs featured manzanita branches with hanging votives. This was a beautiful wedding.

Saturday's wedding was at Strong Mansion in Dickerson MD. This is such a beautiful wedding location, possibly one of the prettiest views and reflecting pools I have seen.

The ceremony is in front of the reflecting pool. The bride can walk out of the woods or come down the aisle.

I was able to capture this image of the bride and groom right after their "first look."

The bridal bouquet was created with deep red peony, purple hyacinthus, purple phlox, astrantia, blue privet berry, aggies, lavender lilac, purple anemones, and deep purple vandas.  A vintage brooch was pinned onto the bouquet.

A pink peony bud with black privet berry was used for the grooms bout.

Maids carried bouquets that consisted of all the flowers of the day.

Each table featured either our crystal stands, glass votive holders, mercury glass, or vintage glass containers.

Our place card table was to die for…

and the cake was simply stunning.

We may be blogging a little less this week but we will be here working, working, working!!

HC

As I anxiously await the next issue of Bride & Groom by Washingtonian Magazine, I am reminded how much fun it was to work on the last issue. You may not know this but we were asked to supply the bouquets for their big photo shoot in Waterford VA.  The shoot was titled Chapel Belles and being a Chapple, I thought that was very fitting.

We invaded the dark and sleeping little village of Waterford at 6:00 am. This is known as "Call time." The props, dresses, makeup, and flowers were all set up in the basement of the Church. Let me also say that Editor in Chief Jill Hudson Neal and most of the Washingtonian staff were also on site at 6am, extremely impressive. Knowing how much work goes into one of these shoots gives me a whole new and huge appreciation for this fabulous magazine. As models, artists, editors and directors got acclimated, scaffolding was built next to the church so that lighting, smoke machines, and photographers could all get where they needed to be. Waterford is a a small historic community in Loudoun County, and the residents are known for being very particular. It was so fun to see the people of the village a buzz with all of the excitement. Villagers gathered on porches to drink coffee and watch the production as if it were a movie.

In the basement there were racks and racks of dresses, tables of makeup, jewelry, props and of couse my flowers.

I was requested to bring some white maids bouquets and I think some pink bouquets. This shoot was always to be about the dresses and the bouquets were merely props, but I wanted the crew to have as many options as they did dresses. So, being the over achiever that I am,  I raced home and grabbed buckets of flowers from the studio. I also whipped up some other fun bouquets. I used the leftovers from the weekend and flowers from my garden to create some more selections for the shoot. I love having lots of options.

I made taupe toned bouquets with scabiosa and seeded euc.

I loved these white bouquets and the stem treatment I used…

Burlap and pearls.

Dahlias from my man Don!!!!

Green cabbage roses, green dianthus, green amaranthus, green berry and white tulips were wrapped with bark wire.

I certainly made way more bouquets then the magazine needed but I take every opportunity I get to impress my industry and I also love the chance to create for creations sake. I had so much fun working on this and I was so happy to be able to help with something this incredible. Being on the Washingtonians Best of List as Editors pick has been one of my greatest accomplishments, and quite frankly anytime they need flowers I will happily bring them buckets full.

When I came back to clean up for the day they were finishing one of their last shoots and this image shows just how many people it takes to bring something like this together. One other fun little side note, editor Jill Hudson is so freaking beautiful that she was actually an extra model for this set. It was so fun to look up on the hill and see her modeling.

Design Army of Washington DC was the creative/art director for the shoot and this particular shoot actually won a gold award at the DC Addy's and also a silver award at the District Two Addy's. Here are the pages that were produced in the little village of Waterford. By the way Waterford is just a few minutes from my home and in fairness to all of the other wonderful florists in the DC area probably the reason why I got the gig.

Oddly enough some of my favorite images of the day were created with the additional flowers I ran home for, absolute proof that you should always put in that extra effort, it pays off ten fold. There are no excuses for not putting your heart into something and always doing more than you were asked to do. We provided the flowers for this shoot on a five wedding weekend, managed the kids, and were still able to design with passion for this. One last fun image from the day, my sweet baby Grace in the car at the shoot, but unfortunately she missed the activity.

Be looking for the next issue of Bride and Groom, follow Design Army on Twiiter and Facebook and follow me, I am Holly Heider Chapple, Editors Pick.

Photography for the shoot was by Cade Martin.

HC

 

This is it!!  This is the week that we start designing full throttle and we will be pushing petals non stop from now until Thanksgiving. We are happy to be back to work and in full swing because it means we will be surrounded by incredible blooms almost daily, but this is also the week when I try and get all of the balls I juggle back up in the air.

I juggle and I juggle a lot, but these first weeks back in charge of everything, is an awkward dance I do. It's as if I am learning to juggle for the first time. I have to get all of the balls back in the air and jump in under them and pray they don't hit me on the head. The Winter allows for a slightly calmer time in my life, as if a house with 7 kids and a home based business can ever be called calm. In the Winter months we do not have to produce or write recipes. We primarily do consultations and contracts which happened to also be a 7 day a week job. Now that we are "live" again, we will be spending days writing recipes for our "flower buys", and we will spend many days a week standing at the design tables. Add to that chores like mowing the grass, planting, harvesting, end of school year activities, and actually delivering the wedding flowers, and well, you simply have a full schedule.  It may seem from the outside looking in that we do all of this flawlessly and I will admit the designs are yes, pretty much flawless, but I am not.  Tonight I burnt the peas. I was talking with a designer who needed me, working on the computer, half way watching my baby Grace as she spun around the house, and I forgot to juggle the ball of peas, so they got burnt. In fact I was not even making dinner I was just apparently supposed to be protecting it, and I blew that job.

Wedding vendors everywhere are all getting ready for the start of yet another wonderful wedding season. There is much talk right now about the royal wedding, but no wedding is as important as your wedding, the weddings we will be crafting for you. Wedding vendors are all hands-on craftsmen and they will be physically creating something for you, so please excuse us if we are away from our desks, or at an event. We wedding vendors will be trying to get all of the balls we juggle back up in the air, and watch out because some of us are human. Luckily it's always dinner that suffers, and sometimes the vacuuming, but not your designs! I burnt the peas last night!!

HC

It's officially Spring and it's now full throttle wedding season. Here we go again!! From this day on we will be working, working, working, on bringing many amazing weddings and events to life. Great things are in store for this business and we are excited to face this season with a new found strength and an even stronger team. Big things are coming our way and we will be sharing those things with you here.  Look for a new blog to launch very soon. You will also start to see more involvement from my amazing husband Evan. We are ordering pipe and drape this week and we will be offering lighting options as well. I hope you had a truly lovely holiday and that you were surrounded by friends and family.

Photography taken by Katelyn James, styling by Janie Medley of the Brides Cafe and me Holly Heider Chapple.

HC

We are asked to do many things here, but this was my first official request for a Crown Of  Thorns. I gathered branches from the side of the road to create this wreath for church. Surprisingly enough I found beauty in this piece. This was one very painful creation and it truly made me stop and think…

HC