We have had quite the day today. It is just after midnight, and we are finally ready to call it a day. A huge thanks to Helen (on the left), and Designer Debbie for hanging with me until the bitter end.  In the last two days we have designed for a past vice president, done our weekly deliveries, designed dinner party flowers for Suann from Simple Song Design, delivered Ellen her wedding flowers, plus created designs for Jessica and Julie's weddings tomorrow, which is technically today considering the hour.  I am so tired I am just going to give you that quick sneak peek and then I am hitting the hay. I am absolutely worn out, but I laughed harder tonight than I have in years. In truth this was a killer day. We are once again blown away by the beauty of our designs, and we are very proud of our work.

 

Our friendship bouquet.

 

Designs we created for Simple Song a fabulous letterpress company.

 

Today's bride, Ellen, taking that first look at her bouquet. We will share her pictures with you next week.

Our bride Jessica just a few minutes after she had been to see Don and his Dahlias. Jessica and her friends are going to make some of the centerpieces themselves. We created 52 vases for her and all of the personal flowers.

 

Dahlia heaven.

 

Good Night!!!!

Holly



 

 

Come see my friend Joylyn Hannahs at her new studio in downtown Leesburg. I have been working  with Joylyn for years. It is always a pleasure and a delight to be around this super talented lady. My past brides will need to remember Jolynn as they start to plan their families. Her newborn photography is as amazing as her wedding work.

I brought my daughters Abby, Hannah and Grace along to check out the new space. Hannah and Grace are keeping one of Joylyn's customers entertained.

I love when I actually get to photograph a photographer. I think this is a fun picture of Joylyn and baby Grace. Joylyn set up a photo shoot session for all of her guests and took awesome pictures of us all.

Cynthia Garrett, a makeup artist, was on hand to make sure we were ready for our photo shoot with Joylyn. When you have 7 children and run a business you rarely think about make up. I can honestly say I have not had time for makeup in years. In fact, I don't even know how to put it on. My daughters got a huge kick out of seeing me transformed.

It was a lot of fun to be out tonight with the girls. We worked a very long day today and tomorrow will be busy. All Fridays are always full throttle around here. We also will be delivering beautiful flowers to Ellen tomorrow. In four minutes it will officially be her wedding day. 

Happy wedding day Ellen!!

Holly

 

Several years ago, one of my MOB's told me about ARIA Dresses. I have been a huge fan ever since; in fact I recommend them all of the time. It is an absolute pleasure to be able to tell you about this remarkable company.  I swear I have sold hundreds of these dresses, and they have no idea what a huge fan I am.  My love affair started several years ago. I happened to find on two separate occasions in one month bridesmaids trying to sew and or tape their dresses back together. I realized at that time that a lot of the maids gowns are made very poorly. The maids dresses are a perfect opportunity for not so great garment companies to take the consumer for a ride. Let's face it, we spend countless hours on the brides gown, so we know it is perfect before we purchase. We never imagine that the maids dresses could actually fall apart before they get down the aisle. If a manufacturer wanted to cheat someone out of a quality product the maids are the easy mark.  Some designers believe since the maid will only be wearing the dress for one night that they can get away with a poorly maid gown. Not to mention that as a bridesmaid, you are just plain stuck with whatever dress is chosen for you.Aria gowns are created in the United States, and they are incredibly well made. They offer fabulous fabrics and textures in every color and cut imaginable. They have a very extensive line of brides maids dresses with endless color choices and styles.  From very trendy and fun to sleek and elegant, Aria has a dress for everyone. They also offer flower girl dresses and accessories. It even gets better; they offer coordinating pocket squares, ties and cummerbunds for the men. Brides can choose their colors from swatches that are sent by Aria free of charge. I can't tell you how many times a bride will tell me she was unable to get a swatch from her non-Aria dress maker, even after she bought the dresses. The customer service is amazing; I just can't say enough to tell you how much I really appreciate this company. It is so much fun to show a bride who is struggling with her colors the bag of Aria swatches. I keep the swatches with my portfolios just in case my bride does not have her maids dresses yet.  Aria allows the bride to also have sashes or piping done in the brides accent colors. Aria makes it totally possible for the bride to customize her wedding party and her color pallettes. In the scheme of things, this also makes my life so much easier. We are at a complete stand still until we pick our colors. 

 

 

Each swatch is marked with the name and color number.  Aria works with brides all of over the country shipping dresses to maids whereever they live. Aria does have 3 store fronts; lucky for us one of them is in Washington DC.

 

 

With all of these swatches you can really have fun picking out your colors. I love imagining the fabulous color combinations that are possible to create a unique event. Once the bride gets her wedding colors picked out we can have fun with the flowers.

 

Holly

 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the Sean Low luncheon with Engaged Magazine. Sean was the President of Preston Bailey Design Inc. for 6 years. Many thanks to Doreen Tisone, editor and publisher of Engaged Magazine, for planning such a wonderful event.  Wedding vendors from all over the DC area gathered at the Ritz Carlton to be a part of this fabulous event.

 

 I got to dine with some of my favorite blogger girls. This is a photo of me with Janie Medley. Janie is the editor of the The Brides Cafe Blog. I hope all of my brides are reading The Brides Cafe.  Here is a screen shot of the beautiful Brides Cafe Blog. Not only does Janie have one of the top wedding blogs, she is an extraordinary floral designer. She has been published countless times and has become an absolute whirlwind in the floral industry. 

Here is a great shot of Courtney from Merriment, and Nole from Oh So Beautiful Paper. Please check out their blogs. You will love following these girls.

This is Courtney's home page and blog.

 

Here is a screen shot of the Oh So Beautiful Paper Blog.

Yesterday was a great day. I learned so much, and I also had a lot of fun. Today we will need to put it into high gear. We need to create a bouquet for a photo shoot and receive our flower shipment. We are going to be busy little bees today. 

Holly

Julie married this past weekend at Oatlands Plantation.  She carried a bridal bouquet of Dons's Dahlia's, mini green hydrangea, antique green hydrangea from Holland, Milva roses, cymbidium orchids, dendrobium orchids and lady slipper orchids. This quite possibly was the most vibrant design of the season.  The lady slipper orchid is extremely expensive. Quite frankly I have never been sure it was worth the great expense. The few times I have had them I was not impressed. Not so this weekend.  I absolutely loved working with these orchids and feel they made this bouquet stunning. 

 

We used purple and green lady slipper orchids in the bouquet. The lady slipper orchid is the large orchid that almost looks like someones nose.

 

The maids bouquets also were loaded with drama. We really loved working with the black scabiosa this week and felt it pushed these bouquets over the top. 

 

We had 10 maids that we created bouquets for. I am so glad we loved what we were making because 10 Maids can take a while to create. Loving what you are doing makes the whole process less painful. And I mean that literally: you can get some seriously painful hand cramps when you hold, shape and form bouquets all day.

 

These bouquets were created to mark family reserved seating. We neglected to take pictures of the centerpieces, but we used the vanda orchid to create these pieces. Vandas are another really extravagant orchid, and we had fun playing with them.  We submerged the orchids in cylinders with orange roses and the green hydrangea.  Here is a picture of a vanda orchid just relaxing in the flower shop.

We loved the colors, textures and exotics on this wedding. We hope to get professional images to share with you very soon.

Happy married life Julie. We loved your wedding.

Holly

 

Becky's bridal bouquet was a combination of several of my past bouquets. We created her bridal bouquet based on her desire to blend pale pinks, antique greens, and deep burgundy's. This combination was a stunning blend of traditional soft pink wedding tones mixed with the darker tones of fall. We were very proud of the way we brought this very wonderful color combination together.

Once again, we found ourselves working with another fabulous family. I don't know why the universe keeps sending me the really great families, but keep it up. I love working with happy, wonderful people.

 

We used antique green hydrangea, green cymbidium orchids, pale pink mini gerber daisies, pale pink candy bianca roses, deep burgundy roses called black magic and little miniature roses in burgundy called black beauty.

 

The maids carried bouquets of green hydrangea, candy bianca roses, green hypercicum and burgundy coxcomb.

I love this next photo, everyone is helping to button the back of the gown.

 

Due to weather our ceremony moved indoors. Having this back up ceremony site is absolutely one of my favorite parts about a Whitehall wedding. You never have to worry about the weather; the indoor ceremony location is incredible. I really appreciate the no-fear aspect of having an event at Whitehall.

 
 

Clusters used to mark family reserved seating.

 

The large altar pieces were placed on either side of the altar. These designs were so beautiful, enormous and yet simaltaneously very dainty, airy and wispy.

 

We did a simple treatment of greens and loose blossoms on the mantel. After the ceremony, the family displayed the unity candle in the center of the mantel.

 

We tied large bouquets on the ends of the newell posts.  Whitehall has a lovely little mini balcony that goes up to where the cake is displayed.

 

We absolutely hit a home run with these centerpieces.

 

Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your wedding day. Happy married life. We wish you both all the very best.

Holly

 

 

 

 

 

Today is Meredith's wedding day. Her wedding will take place at the fabulous Whitehall Manor in Bluemont. We created her bouquet with circus roses, red spray roses, orange mango callas, yellow callas, billy balls, fiddle head fern and orange dahlias from Don. We added mini grapevine balls into the bouquet and collared the bouquet with one of my favorite elements: angle vine. 

 

The maids bouquets were created with burgundy mini Gerber's, orange orchids, crocosmia, solidago, circus roses, hypericum berry, and bronze button mums. We used the angel vine to wrap the maids bouquets as well.

 

Mini bouquets for the mothers.

 

The grooms boutonniere.

 

The groomsmen.

 

The bouquets all packed and ready to go.

Our centerpieces; we love that flying yellow oncidium orchid.

Our altar pieces.

Here comes "in the cooler."

Super Sexy bouquets for our Oatlands Plantation wedding tomorrow.

Beautiful bouquets for our Whitehall wedding tomorrow. I love this color combination for a unique fall look.

Sleepy time.

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 woke up to these fabulous pictures in my inbox this morning. When I saw them, I knew I had to change my blog post today, so that I could share them with you.  Thanks to Genevieve Leiper for displaying her photography with us again today. I will post the rest of our photo shoot images tomorrow. So, sit back and relax and check out this really beautiful event. 

Super sexy photographs, and we love them!!!!!

Holly

Apparently, Michelle had a really great wedding day.  She shared her joy by flipping through the lobby of the George Washington hotel in downtown Winchester. I would say she was flying high!!

 

In this photo you can see how truly beautiful my bride is; the flipping picture left a little to the imagination.

We started the bridal bouquet with yellow roses which were in remembrance of her aunt. The bright yellow rose became the theme of the day and a great way to have her aunt be a part of the day.  Every time I saw a yellow rose, I remembered the significance of what we were creating. The maids wore a bright turquoise blue dress, so we decided to make all of the flowers pop; for the bridal bouquet we used the gloriosa lily, nerine lily, deep purple colored stock, bright green roses and fillers with purple orchids. We loved the happiness this bouquet exuded.

Our maids carried bright green bouquets with hot pink roses.

Our flower girls were so adorable.

The family home was transformed into the reception site.

The catering was handled by Fusions Catering. Blaise, an owner of Fusions, handled the event.

This is the sweetheart table. Designer Jessie decided to enhance the table by placing garnish blossoms on this space. She used extra flowers we brought along to the wedding; we call that bucket of flowers our doctor bucket. If we see something that needs a little extra touch, we have the doctor bucket flowers to save the day. The doctor bucket ensures that we are prepared for everything.

We created half of the centerpieces with yellow lily, roses, bells of Ireland, orchids, mums, stock and fillers and placed them on the tall cylinders.  When your event is outside, you need really large pieces to fill up the space. Our tent would have looked empty without these show stoppers. To keep the budget under control we used the maids bouquets for the rest of the tables. We actually also made a few more maids bouquets than we needed for the ceremony, so we would have enough for half high and half low centerpieces. I think the overall look is amazing.

One huge thanks to mom Betsy for being so wonderful to work with.  I am always so touched by the kindness I see between the mothers and daughters.  Michelle is lucky to have a mom like Betsy.  I loved this family, and we really enjoyed being a part of the day. If I could do a little happy flip for this family, I certainly would.   

Holly