I am headed to NYC today. I will be spending time with some of my favorite designers. I hope to find new resources and ideas for Holly Heider Chapple Flowers. Just before I packed up my computer, I recieved this note from one of my favorite ladies, Betty Franzen of Waterford Past Thymes, Betty is a floral preservationist and she has been preserving my bouquets for years. Betty is a constant friend and supporter of my business, and when I got this note from her today, I just had to share it with you all.  My note from Betty said:


Well, now you've done it!!! You are officially better than the US postal service…remember the old saying? "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds". My revision reads "neither rain, snow, sleet, hail, 9/11, pregnancies, new babies, graduations, college trips, flower shortages and…and….FROZEN SOLID bouquets can stop Holly Chapple. Yes, we successively, were able to preserve and SAVE every single flower of the most beautiful bouquet and boutonniere, mother's corsage, and father's boutonniere…..When asked if we could do it if the flowers were in the freezer overnight, my response was "no way…flowers are ruined" then, I asked the all important question…"wait…who did your flowers?"…when she said Holly Chapple I said "bring 'em on….all things are possible with Holly flowers" Yep…saved every one!!!! CONGRATS again on a job miraculously done well!!!

I have to say I am pretty proud of the way Betty summed up my business, but the best part is, its all true!! I hope to report from NYC but if not I will share everything when I get back.

Some of you may recognize our bride Julie. Julie is a teacher in Loudoun County but she also helps us periodically with Saturday wedding deliveries. This last Sunday it was Julies turn to marry. We loved getting these very sweet and moving pictures of our bride Julie.

Julie married at the Bluemont Vineyard Stables, I love the view at this venue, it always takes my breath away.

Doesn't our flower shop/teacher bride Julie look stunning?

In addition to providing flowers for Julie and Erin on Sunday, we delivered bouquets, and loose flowers to a nearby village for a huge photo shoot. The shoot started at 6:00 a.m., which meant I was up and in the flower shop at 4:30 a.m.  We were so excited to be working on this project, and we hope to see some of our designs published in the future. The bouquets were being used as props and the feature was more about the models, and the attire, but we shall see how this all works out.  For now, we are simply thrilled that we could be of service to one of our favorite publications.

As you can see it was quite the busy weekend once again at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers. We are so pleased with all that we have been producing. We are back at the design tables, getting ready for another really fun weekend.

We are in love with this picture of our Sunday bride Erin. She gave us the big thumbs up just before she went down the aisle. I think that pretty much sums up the whole wedding. A gorgeous bride, an incredible dress, and an awesome family (her MOB is super wonderful) partnered with the historic Belmont Country Club and Holly Heider Chapple Flowers,  we had a remarkable wedding.

We decided to use copper and gold toned flowers with a subtle mix of green and blue. We were inspired by the tones of the peacock feather and because the maids were wearing stunning royal blue gowns we knew we had developed a fabulous theme and color pallet.  Our big challenge occurred when the very unique and gold toned rose called combo seemed to disappear from the flower market. I begged, borrowed, and stole, to get this rose for Erin. I have been told I can never, ever, ask for this rose again.  I of course, will beg for it again, but for now, I am really glad we were able to get this rose for Erin. Our color combination would have been very different without the combo rose.

Mother of the bride found a remarkable sheer gold – blue fabric, that was iridescent and we used that throughout the wedding. We wrapped the girls bouquets with the fabric and we also tucked in little loops of fabric into the bouquets.

I just love the bouts and corsages that were designed for this wedding.

The elevated designs featured combo roses, camel roses, blue – green hydrangea, copper colored football mums. We elevated the designs on my gold stands and we placed the peacock feathers into the designs.

Our low designs featured arrangements in vases wrapped with the amazing fabric and of course feathers.

I loved how unique and special these creations were, these pieces truly were designed just for this family.  The look felt very original, rich, and glamorous. Next best love of this wedding, was  working with Erin, and her mom. Erin's mom actually has decided to move to Virginia.  She said she was inspired by my life here in Virginia, and my hydrangea. She is leaving Florida behind, and moving here just in time for winter. I hope she still loves me when the first snow drops fall.

Happy married life Erin, we loved doing your wedding flowers.

 

We went everywhere, and we did everything! This past weekend was the biggest weekend in the history of Holly Heider Chapple Flowers.  I don't believe I will be booking a weekend like this again for a very long time! Many thanks to all of the fabulous people that made this week a success, I am guessing it took nearly 500 man hours to create this weekends events. Here is just a small glimpse of the many designs we created for our Friday, Saturday, and Sunday weddings.

Elodie just arrived from France on Tuesday, she has been helping us with flowers ever since she got off of the plane.  Today,  I am going to show her Loudoun County, and Washington DC. I am sure she is excited to get out of the flower shop.

I will end this post with an awesome image sent over by Photographer Stephanie Ascari of Cleverly Candid.

This picture says it all, we rocked big time this weekend! Time for a day off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

I am so excited to bring you the awesome wedding images and 8 mm film, from Jenn and Anthony wedding.  Photographer Kate Headley  was kind enough to share her work with us today.  This wedding was a complete, and total, drool worthy dream. I loved the couple, I loved working with Kate and I loved working with Maria and Kelly of Ritzy Bee Events.

Jenn and Anthony wanted to use as many local blooms as possible, so we at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers started growing the couple flowers in early Spring. We also purchased from local growers Don's Dahlias and Fields Of Flowers.

The flowers were to be berry toned and I took that literally and I actually added raspberries to the designs.

The details that Maria and Kelly  think of,  are simply to die for. I look forward to getting to each of our weddings just to see what they have dreamed up next. The vintage key, place cards, simply blew me away.

Our boutonniere's were totally amazing and we had so much fun desiging them!

Truly a beautiful wedding. Happy married life, Jenn and Anthony, we loved doing your wedding flowers.

venue: Sunset Hills Winery, Purcellville, Virginia

planning: Ritzy Bee Events

flowers: Holly Chapple

catering: Fusions

DJ: DJ Connection

Kerry married this past Saturday at the Hillsborough Vineyards. This vineyard is truly beautiful and boasts amazing views. It is one of my favorites in Loudoun County. I stopped along the road so that I could get you a view of the property.  Kerry's designs literally made my heart sing, so much so that a new term was created in the flower shop. Sexy flowers are now called FLORAGAZMIK!

 

The bridal bouquet consisted of very unusual and rare orchid dahlia's from the amazing Don. We also used Don's magenta dahlias, sea star fern, queen annes lace, deep purple scabiosa, seeded euc, wine colored snapdragons, scabiosa pods, green antique hydrangea and scented geranium.

 

For the altar we created enormous mounds of pee gee hydrangea and the simplicity was drool worthy.

 

Kerry's jewelry was so incredible that I snapped these photos. She had her pieces designed by a vintage jeweler in Brooklyn.  If anyone is dying to know the name of the jeweler I can ask Kerry when she gets back from her honeymoon. 

 

Here is a picture of Genevieve Leiper at work. I can't wait to see the photographs that Gen captured with her magic lens.

 

Mantel

 

Head table centerpieces.

 

Brides often choose to use the vineyards tables without linens,  everyone loves the look of the natural wood. Simple burlap runners were created for the tables.

Kerry and her mom created this wine cork picture frame for the place cards.

 

I got a little creative with the cake and I added tiny loops of twine to each layer of the cake.

 

There were so many wonderful details from this wedding, I look forward to seeing the pictures Gen. took. Mostly, I want to thank Kerry for letting me be a part of her wedding day. This wedding was a lot of fun, in fact all of Saturday was just simply magical. I loved every piece we created.

 

Years ago, I had a phone conversation with Betty Franzen of Waterford Past Thymes.  Betty preserves bridal bouquets, or any floral design, for that matter. During that phone call, I fell in love with Betty and our worlds collided. You know how it is, when you talk with someone and they simply inspire you to be a better person. Betty called this week to say it was the anniversary of our meeting, I asked her how in the world she remembered that this was the week we met and she responded with this…

"Because the wedding was the Saturday after 9/11, and my other weddings canceled because no deliveries were getting threw. I remember thinking "where the – – – – did this florist get the flowers". You had gone to your own garden and I think your dad's, and made these beautiful arrangements. When I picked them up, I told the mom you need to call your florists and tell her THANK YOU for how perfect and fresh these flowers are. She did and then you called me"

Betty is the only person I recommend for preservation of my bouquets, not only do I love her work, I absolutely love Betty. Just one conversation with Betty is enough to change your life forever. If all people were as loving, supportive, and generous as Betty, this world would be a very different place.

Betty's work is remarkable and I love seeing my bouquets after she has turned them into this permanent piece of art. Not only does she use my flowers but she uses the ribbon, and even the pins I chose. Each blossom is individually pressed and dried, and then placed in the frame. It takes months of pressing before she can begin to design a piece.

 

If you have a Holly Heider Chapple Bouquet, you should have it preserved by Betty Franzen of Waterford Past Thymes. When you love something you should keep it forever, just like I am keeping Betty.

Of course, she does preserve other florists work also, and she can arrange preservation of a bouquet via the mail, just in case you need her in another city, or state.

Our weekend started Friday night with this gorgeous fall toned wedding at Rust Manor House in Leesburg, VA.  Donna was the bride of the day, and her bouquet was a rich mix of white dahlias, brown cymbidium orchids, white cabbage roses, gypsy curiosa roses, seeded euc, and jester amaranthus. The only word for this bouquet was stunning. We also wrapped the bouquet with a collar of angel vine. Angel vine is a brown twig that I love to wrap into my designs.

 

Maids carried bouquets of white dahlias, white stock, white spray roses, white roses, and each bouquet was collared with seeded euc.

 

The wedding took place on the steps of the manor home.

 

Centerpieces were created in vintage wooden boxes and I totally loved the look. In fact we now have 15 of these in inventory.

 

Centerpieces featured copper football mums, white hydrangea, hypericum berry, white roses, gypsy curiosa roses, white stock and filler flowers.

 

The head table featured 2 elevated designs, lanterns, and smaller designs in the wooden boxes.

Next we headed to Erika's wedding at the Stables at Great Country Farms. Here I used an awesome mix of green and white blossoms with pops of hot pink and yellow. This look was fun, bright and happy.

 

Erika's bouquet featured green hydrangea, green roses, Don's white dahlias, green cymbidium orchids, hot pink globe amaranthus, pink smartweed, seeded euc, white freesia, and white stock. This was such a refreshing combination. 

 

The maids were really loose and airy and loaded in great stuff like, green carnations, smartweed, the pink globe amaranthus, white stock, white phlox, seeded euc, green dianthus, and hot pink dahlias.

 

When I saw the family hanging the place cards on the barn wall, I just simply could not resist, I had to add a few extra flowers from my doctor bucket.

 

Centerpieces were an amazing mix of all the flowers of the day, plus we added pink zinnia's from my garden, hypericum berry , green amaranthus, and yellow tansy. We used all 3 sizes of mason jars and power packed the table with color and charm. Erica also rented these fabulous table runners from us and we now offer them as a rental. 

 

We decorated the aisle with these sweet vases and twig poles.

 

We decorated the cake from Market Salamander with fresh flowers and I begged to have it placed on this wine barrel instead of the usual cake table.

 

We also used the leftover blossoms to sexy up a few naked areas.

 

With flowers and scissors in hand, I can decorate anything.

 

Bride Marci sent her soon to be groom out to the Chapple Flower house to pick up these fabulous centerpieces and bouquets. Marci found me while surfing the internet and she became convinced that the trip to my house for flowers, would be worth her one and half hour drive. She really loves our flowers.

 

You may notice the amazing dahlias are finally showing up in my designs. My local grower Don is finally harvesting from his crop of dahlias. The incredible heat and lack of rain has made this growing season a real challenge. With the change in climate the dahlias are able to produce. Thank you God, and thank you Don.

 

This amazing design was created for Lanah. Lanah worked here a short period of time last winter so helping to create these bouquets was awesome. We made this bridal, 8 maids bouquets and over 50 designs in silver trophy bowls. Lanah's wedding took place on her family horse farm in Maryland. For her bridal bouquet, I was so happy to use my clematis vine that had just come into bloom, we also used white cabbage roses, sahara roses, quicksand roses, tuber roses, white mini callas, lambs ear from my garden, white freesia, and seeded euc. This bridal bouquet was completely classic.

 

Each of the maids bouquets was unique and featured some of the bridal flowers.

 

In addition to the wedding orders we also provided birthday flowers for Tracy's moms, 75th birthday party. Tracy was my bride 3 years ago, and she had me recreate her bridal centerpieces again, for her moms big day. Now, that is totally cool! I also got to do birthday flowers for Felicity's big birthday. I worked with Felicity 23 years ago at an airline called Presidential airways. I was 20 years old when I last saw her. She found me on Facebook and I was thrilled to be able to provide her family with birthday flowers. Felicity was from Africa and she used to absolutely enthrall us with stories of her life in Africa. 

All in all, I would say we had a pretty rocking weekend, for a small little weekend. The kids are all fine, Evan and I are managing to handle this house, this life, and this business. We certainly have our challenges, but we are dealing with them all. It was a great flower weekend at our place.



 

Collins Metu Photography

I often describe our flower designs as sexy. I know people find the use of this term amusing when it comes to flowers, however our designs are sexy.  A sexy flower design, is rich, it is unique, it is inspired, it is quality. It is a Holly Heider Chapple Design.

Kristen Gardner Photography

The Regeti's Photography

 

Laura Ashbrook Photography.

Keep visiting our blog for sexy flowers.

 

If you missed yesterdays post, back up, and get acclimated, because I am onto the reception decor. The amazing wedding of Mackenzie and Adam progressed to this fabulous tent area, that was designed next to the pool. The tent was constructed at the venue on Wens. My incredibly capable husband spent the better part of Wens. night at the venue wiring the tent with electricity. We as a team learned so much about just what it takes to make everything work for an event of this size. Lucky for me, Evan was once a master electrician and he has always handled all construction projects for our family. I knew he would be able to master this tent, and of course he did perfectly.

 

In this picture if you look very closely you can see our 4 year old Sam in the middle of the tent, Evan is also in the picture pulling wire. Not only did we manage this event, and provide all decor, Evan wired the tent for the D.J., the caterers, and the lighting company.  Evan was also hired to do the pin spotting by the family. The lighting company we were working with was booked solid for this holiday weekend. The best they could do was provide the lights on Thursday but we would need someone to actually set the pin spots on the floral designs the day of the wedding. Evan took on that task as well. I know, he is awesome!!

On Thursday we managed the arrival of the portable restrooms and Friday we helped the rental company with placement of chairs, china, linens, and furniture. We had ceremony chairs, reception chairs, tables, lounge furniture, plus all of the furniture I brought in from my booth at On A Whim Antiques. Oh, we also rented wine barrels from Fabbioli Wine in Lucketts.  We used the wine barrels to create an unique cake table and a candy bar. A friend of the brides family created tabletops for the barrels.

In addition to our flower order we at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD. were paid a fee to style the event. This meant I could come up with some really clever and unique pieces to make this wedding special and also truly put my stamp on this event as a designer. Evan got literally roped into bringing my first vision to life. I decided that I wanted flower arrangements floating in the pool. The designs not only had to float but they also needed to provide candlelight when it became dark. Here is a great shot of Evan trying to anchor my pieces into place.

My daughter Hannah actually climbed into the pool to get this photograph. In fact Hannah took almost all of these photographs for me.

Evan's next mission was to hang a floral design from the center of the tent. We had a canopy of twinkly lights in the tent, and they swirled up to a center spot. On my last furniture run to On A Whim  I spotted this white wicker basket across the room and I had it in my hands in 3 seconds flat. I knew instantly upon seeing the basket, it would make the best center, centerpiece.

 

Evan also put up lights for the owner of the mansion and actually did an emergency plumbing job in the mansion house. Yes, we could say Evan was worth his weight in gold this past weekend and I am so grateful he was with me on this job.

My next really fun surprise for the bride and her family was super cute kettle popcorn stand. I used vintage crocks, kettles, and even our antique strainer to hold the popcorn. The large kettle had plain popcorn, we also had toffee, caramel, and peanut butter flavored popcorn. Paperzest made me cards for each flavor. The family had designed a candy bar and I thought this was a fun addition to this sweet area in the tent. The door and the table were from On A Whim Antiques.

 

It just so happens that my dad sells kettle corn at his farmers market called Heiders Country Store. I know my resources are ridiculous.

 

The candy bar was designed by the family. They used several of my containers and I came behind them with flowers and decor.

 

The reception tables, well they were just divine.

 

I used vintage crocks, antique scales, and wooden boxes that were made by my brides grandfather. Grandpa's wooden boxes were just amazing to design in, and I just kept thinking how proud he must have been to see his boxes at his granddaughters wedding.

 

I love the linens, love the chargers, love the glass, and china, and of course I love my flowers. 

 

Every guest napkin had a treatment of rosemary and orange globe amaranth. We had 17 round guest tables and these surrounded a 20 person oblong head table.  We placed a purple dahlia in the napkins at the head table.

 

Over the winter, I found this rustic vintage scale. I knew the moment I saw it, it would be used on something very special, I could see its future and perhaps mine. The scale has an awesome bowl and I was dying to create an arrangement in the container.  When I did my first consult with Mackenzie and her mom we all became enthralled with using this scale as an inspiration for the look of the wedding. The scale became the center design on the head table and it was placed right in front of the bride and groom.

The head table also featured two elevated designs, lanterns, vintage bottles and the wooden boxes made by the grandfather. The head table was truly a masterpiece.

 

We decorated the buffet with old shutters and fabulous florals in either huge tins or wooden baskets. I even brought old crocks for my friends at Celebrations Catering to use. This gave the buffet a really fabulous look and I was really happy that I thought to provide those, until I had to take them home dirty. The horseradish sauce certainly smelled lovely, but cleaning the crocks was not so cool. Now about the food, and catering, I love Douglas and the staff of  Celebrations Catering. Many thanks to Douglas who put up with my crazy ideas and helped me to execute the look of this wedding flawlessly. Douglas and his team have always been so supportive of me, and my vision, and I am thankful that they were with me on this effort.

 

Thanks to my staff and family, a total of 19 people helped to make this weekend work. In addition to this wedding we provided flowers at The Belmont Country Club, Whitehall Manor, The Strathmore Music Center, and Raspberry Plains. My only regret is that I was not able to get to my other weddings, but I made every single bridal bouquet and approved every single design. In spite of a very busy weekend, I did not let anything leave our studio that could not proudly be called a Holly Chapple Design.  There are times that I think my standards are simply ridiculous, but in truth, I would not want any of my brides to receive anything less than the love, and attention, that goes into our work.

 

There were so many fabulous other things about this wedding that I am dying to share, like our killer farm table bar, our old vintage washstand that held the drinks at the bar, and our really cute lounge, but we will have to leave those pictures up to photographer Genevieve Leiper. I seemed to miss those shots.

Thanks for hanging with me on this post, I know it was a whopper, but it was a baby I was dying to share. We are event designers!! Many thanks to this remarkable family for having faith in me, and for allowing me to be a part of your big day. Happy married life Mackenzie and Adam, we loved doing your wedding flowers, and your event design!