Believe it or not, I cried over this bouquet!! Last April I created this amazing bouquet for my bride, Laurie. It’s hard to believe it has been almost a year since her wedding. It was the weekend of the Leesburg Flower and Garden Show and before I hit the show, I went into the garden to get my white lilac. Perhaps it was the sheer beauty of what I was creating, or the symbolism of making a bridal bouquet with my precious white lilac that had me in tears. I am not quite sure what pushed me over the edge, but I was indeed crying. I planted that lilac almost 18 years ago. I found my true love for flower design over the lilacs and the Leesburg Garden Show. The bouquet was also featured in Get Married Magazine last year.

The bouquet was created of white lilac (from my garden), sahara roses, white mini calla lily, white peony, and white stephanotis. Laurie brought me tiny crystals to insert into the bouquet and extra beading from her gown, which I used to wrap the stems.

We designed altar pieces with white callas, and white flowering branches.

The reception was held at my Whitehall, yes secretly in my dreams I am the owner of Whitehall.

This wedding also introduced me to the amazing talents of photographer Katelyn James. I just adore this fabulous artist, not only for her talent, but for her spirit, and her commitment.

A big huge shout out to Laurie, who made her own centerpieces. Stunning!!!

This Loudoun wedding was a beauty!!

Holly

On May 7th of last year Ashley and Nathan married at Whitehall Manor in Loudoun County.  The day was totally blessed with not only a lovely couple but a host of amazing vendors. Lisa Schulz of the Posh Planner did the styling and planning, Bob Updegrove was the photographer, Whitehall Manor provided the catering and the surrounding beauty and I, Holly Heider Chapple, provided the flowers.

The bride carried an all hot pink bouquet of peony, roses, ranunculus, spray roses, and orchids. The accent color of the day was black so we added black florets and black feathers to the design.

The aisle was lined with hot pink petals and hot pink pomander's.

Centerpieces were hot pink carnation balls elevated on glass pilsner vases.

I love this picture of the very tired flower girl…

but the ring bearer is wide awake.

This was a happy and wonderful wedding to work on.

Holly

 

Here we go again!!! This weekend is the start of our wedding season. We have weddings booked from here on out, and we are mighty happy about that. We were able to ease back into the pace; nice and slowly this weekend, with one lovely wedding. Our bridal bouquet was created with deep purple callas, deep purple carnations, and freeze dried purple roses. Little faux diamonds were inserted into the roses. 

Maids will carry bouquets of white carnations. Silver wire was woven through the bouquets for an extra fun twist. The maid of honor and the mothers will carry mixed bouquets.

Huge balls of purple carnations will be elevated on my silver stands.

l The low centerpieces feature groupings of 3 julep cups designed with balls of dark purple carnations. Everything is done and waiting "in the cooler."

So here we go again, another season is starting, and I feel confident that it will be as good as all of the years in the past. 

On a personal note, congratulations to my amazing daughter, Hannah, who just got her acceptance letter to JMU, go Dukes! This year I will be working for 2 tuitions to JMU. I hope the Flower Gods continue to shine down on this flower shop/ home.

Holly

 

Over the last few months we have been gathering fun antiques and props for upcoming events. We love, love, love, finding that special something that sends your event over the edge. Feel free to contact us if there is anything you need, if we don't have it, we can probably find it!!!

My latest and most favorite find our these sweet little silver platters and bowls. The base of the platter has been turned into a chalkboard. We know these will come in handy on guest book and place card tables. In fact we are trying to find enough to use them for table numbers. We LOVE this idea.

These sweet little tin urns are going to be a lovely touch to some of our garden parties.

These miniature milk glass vases have been added to my outrageous collection of vintage containers. They are so small I can use them on the top of a cake. We are dying to use these. Speaking of milk glass have you seen our collecting?

We've also been buying bling, lots, and lots, of bling.

These are hair pins that we found in NYC. Next time you see them they will be in the middle of one of my bouquets.

We even bought earrings that we will convert into adornment for our bouquets.

These little beauties are antique curtain fobs. These will be used in bouquets or to pin up place cards. Fabulous idea right?

We also have been practicing our decoupage moves. We are excited about using these containers next week.

These library card drawers will be used for my "library bride." We will fill them with flowers or mini bud vases. Yes I think we are off to an incredible start. Many of these items were gathered right here in Lucketts at On A Whim Antiques.

Holly

Last night we welcomed the new CEO of the Dept Of Tourism, Mr. Patrick Kaler to Loudoun County. The event was sponsored by some of Loudoun's finest industry superstars,  The Stables at Bluemont Vineyard, Celebrations Catering, Dandelion Patch, Reston Limosine, Fortessa, Fun Company and Events, and me Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD. Celebrations Catering will now be the in house caterer for events at the Stables. This is exciting and wonderful news for brides wanting a fabulous barn wedding, with an upscale dinning experience. I am personally thrilled and excited about this news, as I adore working with Celebrations. I know I can trust them to host an amazing event.

We had four different food stations! The first design featured an Argentiniean Themed table. I used peach cabbage roses, white stock, jasmine vine, cream roses, cream spray roses, and cream hydrangea to create the design.

The Italian table featured my sexy black pilsner vase, white open cut callas, phaleonopsis orchids, and lily grass.

We used sunflowers, blue delphinium, yellow golden rod, willow and aggies to create the American station.

French Parisian featured my new white chandelier, powder blue hydrangea, white ranunculus, and double white tulips.

One of the restoration projects was the new bridal suite. The suite is in the middle of two balconies, one balcony overlooks the ballroom and the other balcony takes you outside onto a beautiful deck. The view from the upper deck balcony is amazing.

Even on a rainy day Loudoun was looking mighty pretty.

Being a good Loudoun County girl, I decided to take the orchid and calla lily design to my friends at Tuskies. You can see this pretty piece there this week.

Holly

When we confirmed that we would be traveling to NYC for the chapel designers conference, designer Alicia Schwede suggested we try for tickets to the Martha Stewart Show. It just so happened that the show was taping the week we were visiting, in addition to that the offices were one block from our hotel. Again we were blessed with amazing coincidences and gifts on this entire trip. We lined up bright and early with coffee in hand.

Once inside we filled out questionnaire’s.

Me and Casey.

Alex, Isha, Robin, and Trish.

Cori and Alicia

The set of the show is truly beyond beautiful. Watching the process and the work that goes into everything was my favorite part.

After the taping there is a period where guests are allowed to take pictures, and ask Martha questions. Much to my surprise I turned around to see one of the Chapel Designers, Liz from Portland Oregon with mike in hand.

Being the motherly type I was so incredibly proud of this very young and new designer for standing up and telling Martha that the “chapel designers” had arrived in NYC but I have to admit I almost fell off of the chair. Due to the announcement that she was traveling with flower designers from across the country, we were offered a visit to the corp. offices of Martha Stewart. Before I could blink an eye, 15 of us were running down the streets of NYC in dress clothes and high heels. We ran 8 city blocks to make it to the offices in time for our impromptu tour, each one of us dragging a huge pillow from Macy’s and bags of loot from Martha. I would have loved to have a picture of us running down the streets, we had to be quite the sight!!!

Once inside the offices we stopped taking pictures as everything in the building is obviously private and or about to be published. We did take this one picture in the waiting room before the tour.

Now I will tell you how I fell in love with Martha on this tour.  I admire Martha and all she does, but honestly I am not a Martha guru simply because over the last 24 and a half years I have been a little busy having babies and building my own business. I did not even have cable until 5 months ago so I have missed a lot of TV, and magazines are something I would love to have a lot more time for. Seeing her offices and understanding how she works made me a Martha addict. The offices fill one whole NYC city block and over look the Hudson River. The restoration of the Hudson is also a foundation that is very important to Martha and yet another very cool thing about her. Natural light is present everywhere and we were told that if all of the windows were laid out side by side they would cover six miles. Another thing I loved was the fact that everything is under one roof; crafts, flowers, decor, cooking and all the magazines are under one roof just like one big diverse happy family and you know that felt like home to me!! A big huge thanks to all of the people that made this magic day happen. We were all so incredibly impressed and inspired. I have a new found love for all things Martha.

Holly

 

After a fabulous lunch designers were told about the goods hidden behind the secret curtain. David had set up a whole supply room full of props, linens, china, chairs, and vessels, all of these elements had been hidden behind the curtain during our first lecture and our first design class.

Designers were paired into teams of two and each team went about creating a table design for their chosen celebrity.

The Whoopi Goldberg table was created by Trish Van de Merkt and Isha Foss.

Our very Southern inspired table was created for Shirley McClaine. This was designed by Samantha Greenfield and Alicia Broehl.

The Dr. Seuss table was created by Luara Williams and Liz Rusnac.

Frank Sinatra was executed by Jennifer Ederer and freelancer Robin Buop.

Tom Cruise by Cori Christensen and Alicia Schwede

Sean Connery by Janice Wong and Alexandra Jusino

Martha Washington designed by Yasmin D’ Souza and freelancer Kristin Thompson.

Inspired by the royal wedding of Kate and William, flowers were designed by Katie Elfers and Courtenay Lambert. 

After our fun design time we went back into the offices and listened to David’s presentation from Engaged 10. We even meditated, yes we meditated, being still is really hard for me, and I even got caught opening my eyes by David.

The day ended with bubbly, and a surpise visit from Ed Libby.

The full class of Chapel Designers.

Luckily for us we were racing from our class to a cocktail party at the Ace Hotel. Amazing entertainment was provided by the Elan Artisits.

Our final day was all about Martha  and that will be our last post about our NYC trip.

Holly

 

Design time began after our amazing morning lecture.  David, Jeremy, and I got the ball rolling by starting some simple creations in rectangular vases.  After we completed a few designs the Chapel Designers started their pieces. Each designer was allowed to pick from the blooms we had gathered at market. This was totally fun for the designers because they could choose whatever color combo or bloom they felt like using. Since we are all wedding designers we are used to designing with the colors chosen by our brides, the freedom was thrilling.

It was so much fun to be at the design table with David and Jeremy, but quite honestly it was a bit intimidating. Here are the three designs I winged out for the class.

I also created this fun and bright happy bouquet for the designers.

Here are the individual designs created by the Chapel Designers. I hope to be adding the names of the designers to the pieces throughout the day.

Laura Williams owner of Loda Floral Designs

Alexandra Jusino owner of Exquisite Weddings

Precious Pear, Janice Wong, our designer from Canada…

Liz owner of Fleur:ol0gy

Freelancer Robin Buop

Katie Elfers owner of Inspired Florals

Trish Van de Merkt owner of Grapevine Floral

The next pleasure of the day, was our amazing lunch catered by private chef and boutique caterer Liana Rae.  This girl is one seriously talented chef…

I am still craving the incredible food from this luncheon. I was in love with the fresh baby kale salad, and Oh, that gorgonzola pear tart was beyond amazing!!!

All images taken by the totally wonderful Vicki Grafton.

Holly

After a truly remarkable visit to the market, the Chapel Designers headed over to the corp. offices of David Beahm. This office is where David and his staff typically meet with customers.  There are several work stations with computers for his sales staff, a beautiful board room, and then a design space where he sets up samples. We started the morning by prepping all of our flowers, which simply means getting them in water.

Here we are getting the flowers out of paper and into water.

This is lead designer Jeremy, in front of our mountain of flowers. BTW we love Jeremy big time…

While the flowers got hydrated we slipped over to the board room for our first discussion with David. The board room is a beautiful space complete with …

Pretty chandeliers…

a wall of magazine covers…

Yep, he did that wedding also…

and lots of room for our class.

David is an absolutely lovely person and being with him is so easy and comfortable. He showed us several of hig really big events and discussed his philosphy about life and business.

As you can see by the look on my face, I completely love and adore David!!!  Finding an amazing, creative, superstar talent that was willing to help with the first ever Chapel Designers conference was a one in a million find.

I have lots more to post about our day with David Beahm. Once again thanks to Vicki Grafton who photographed our journey!!!

Holly

The NYC Flower market offered us many treasures beyond the blooms. We found endless supplies and props for this years events.  We even found some fun home decor items for my booth at On A Whim Antiques.

Our shopping list was seriously long, sorta like my kids Christmas list, endless…

Like a kid in a candy shop!!

Even these silk flowers caught our eye, so we gathered some up for a very special bridal bouquet. Miss Casey is dying for anemone and they just happen to be out of season on the day she is getting married.

Today we received via Fed- Ex, boxes and boxes of treasures we gathered in NYC. My brides and grooms will love the many things we found at the market. Next stop, the offices of David Beahm and a little design time…

Photography by Vicki Grafton of My Simple Details

Holly