We started our weekend with Melissa's wedding at Lansdowne Resort. We played with this really cute chalk board just before we left.  I purchased this to add into our rental inventory. I can see this used for a welcome to guests or even a place card table piece. The little shelf is large enough for a great flower arrangement.

 

We brought Melissa a bouquet of deep purple hydrangea, purple stock, purple orchids, purple tulips and deep purple calla lily. We also hid a beautiful white gardenia in the back of the bouquet.  My bride loves gardenias and wanted one in the bouquet for sentimental reasons. You will see later that she loved the gardenia so much that she decided to face it out towards everyone instead of keeping it just for herself.

 

The maids carried bouquets of lavender and purple stock, white phlox, lavender roses, purple carnations, and white mini callas with a dark purple center.

 

The mothers were given small mini bouquets of freesia, calla lily and roses.

 

We created a halo of baby's breath and limonium for the flower girl. The family placed a silk purple and lavender halo over the fresh one.  Melissa wore the silk halo 20 years ago when she was the flower girl in this young ladies mothers wedding. Wow, that is a mouth full, I hope you got that.  Very sweet story.

 

Loving that Gardenia!!

 

 

 

 

 

I loved seeing how well the maids bouquets worked with their gowns. The above photograph of my maid is one of my favorite pictures of the day. Everyone was so relaxed and simply enjoying the beauty of the day. 

 

I also got this great shot of the MOB, dad and granddad.  If you read Friday's post, you know that one of my moms brought us chocolate cake. This is the wonderful mom who made sure we had treats in the flower shop while we designed.

 

The altar had two large arrangements on columns, and we marked family reserved seating with clusters of hydrangea,carnations and mums.

 

See that Gardenia.

 

Our reception had elevated and low centerpieces. We used mini white calla lily and deep purple stock, carnations and orchids flying out of white football mum clusters.

 

The low designs were in square cubes with deep purple carnations, lavender roses, lavender phlox, white football mums and the deep purple orchids.

The whole wedding was just stunning, and once again everyone was thrilled with the flowers. What a perfect weekend to get married. The weather was perfect. I loved this family, and I loved working with them. I am so grateful for their kindness and appreciation of our flower art.

Holly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This has been a week of major growth and change. What seemed like a disaster on last Sunday has turned out to be a huge blessing. In five days, we have converted from my crashed PC to my new iMac computer. With this incredible change we can now blog posts that look like this. I have not had this much fun in years. This will allow me to express a completely new kind of flower art.

 

We have two wonderful weddings tomorrow, and we will be sure to bring home lots of pictures to play with.

It just keeps getting better and better.

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

I am relying on my good friend, Joylyn Hannahs, to capture the images of my bride Rachel. So please check out her blog and website, as photographs will be posted soon.  In the mean time, here are my photos.


Last weekend was one of those weekends where we just could not get photographs of everything.  We did get this one photograph of our Cover Girl, gorgeous, bride Rachael, as she was coming into the church. We got to have a quick hello, a hug and a kiss, and we were off to the reception. I am so sorry I did not get to see her with the bouquet.

For Rachel we created an all white bouquet of mini callas, hydrangea, roses and orchids. Very dramatic and very perfect for Rachel.

Her maids carried bouquets of white football mums, purple bullet allium, purple mokara orchids, and white mini callas with a purple center. We also used a speckled mokara orchid for fun.

I love this image my daughter Hannah took; it shows the excitement we all feel on a wedding day. Just wait until she sees the flowers.

We created these enormous balls of hydrangea, and we added purple orchids to fly out of the designs. The alternating centerpiece was a cylinder with swirling callas and orchids. We are longing to see the real photos from this wedding.

Our next bride was Ursula; she came to me a few weeks before her wedding. She was having a small intimate affair at the famous Patowmack Farm in Lovettesville. This is known as the thousand star restaurant. Patowmack is a organic culinary treat.

 

We created a simple bridal bouquet that could also double as a centerpiece. We gave Ursula my blue vase to borrow, and she used this to place her bouquet in after the ceremony. Ursula had a long banquet style table, and we created two arrangements in this very unique color pallette to complete her table.

Our last wonderful bride of the weekend was Charlene.  We delivered her flowers to the church, and we only have the images we took here at the house. I am hoping Charlene will get us some pictures. Her wedding took place at a church in Ashburn with a reception at The Thomas Birkby House. 

We used a tight beautiful ball of deep purple hydrangea to create Charlene's bouquet. We then pulled through the hydrangea white roses, deep purple eustoma, purple bullet allium (which happened to be very popular this weekend), purple orchids, lavender phlox and lavender freesia. We bound the bouquet with purple satin ribbon and decorative pins.

Oddly enough, Charlene chose almost the exact same bouquet for her maids. I happened to show both Rachel and Charlene a picture of a bouquet that I had created for a bridal show. They both happened to love this bouquet, but they each added their own twist. 

Here is the bouquet from my portfolio that inspired both Rachel and Charlene.  It is amazing to me how one element can completely change a design.

So that was a total of six bridal bouquets, and I think if I can remember correctly I started this week with the blog post of six bridal bouquets big and small we made them all.

Holly

This is my bride Lacey. Lacey married two years ago at White Hall Manor in Bluemont. It is her second wedding anniversary. I am very proud of the fact that Lacey still loves us, even after two years. That is very cool!!! In fact, Lacey and her mother have been keeping up with the business by reading the blog. Lacey is one of my featured weddings on my website. You can see the professional images taken by L.H. Lindberg there. Lacey wrote me just a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be fun to share that with you, plus a little update about how they are doing now. I will also share with you the photos that I took that day; they were never published. Lacey was pre-blog. Even though the wedding was two years ago, it is an awesome example of our fall designs. First, here is one of her last emails to me.

 

Hi Holly,

Just thinking of you an wanted to say hello!! I love your blog. What a fabulous way to keep up with you, your family, and your new brides!

I always think about our wonderful wedding experience and flowers this time of the year. I remember things kicking into high gear, finalizing all our selections. What great memories! Our flowers were absolutely gorgeous!! Don't know if I told you, but I had my bouquet preserved and dried many of our flowers. I have them displayed in various places throughout our home. The dried flowers have faded in color, but I just love them. The hydrangeas dried beautifully, as did Peter's boutonniere. …Hard to think we're almost at our 2-year anniversary!!

I thought about you in January and read about Grace's birth. She is just adorable and growing like a weed! I started writing you an email, but somehow I lost it and never got around to writing again.

I think of you often, throughout the year, but you're especially in my thoughts as our anniversary nears. Two years later, we're so appreciative of your incredible work!

I need to get back out to On a Whim and check out your area. I love that store!

Hope this note finds you doing well!

Hugs,

Lacey

I love this picture. These stands will always remind me of Lacey. She wanted iron elevated designs with hanging votives. Wonderful Ted, Designer Debbie's husband, twisted all of those wires and made those cones for the hanging votives.  These stands and votives are still some of my favorite inventory.

This photo also shows all of the detail work that Lacey did. The table was completely dressed; Lacey worked diligently on her wedding to make certain everything was perfect.  All of her efforts certainly paid off; everything was so incredibly beautiful. 

All of the tables were elevated except for Lacey and Peter's table. I wanted them visible all night. So we created this very lush centerpiece for their table.

The cake was designed by Rocio Diaz of a Piece of Cake, and yes I love her!!!!

Now here is the news from Lacey and Peter.

We had a very busy anniversary. We had dinner at the Lightfoot and then came back to our house for dessert. Dinner was excellent; as you know, Lightfoot's food and service is always excellent.

 

Okay…now for the blurb about us..hmm…what can I say?

 

It seems so hard to believe that two years have passed since our wedding date. It took us 15 months to plan our wedding, the day was absolutely beautiful (thanks to our many wonderful wedding vendors, including Holly and her amazing flowers!), and yet it passed so quickly. As the saying goes, time really flies. The first few years of marriage have found us busy–we've enjoyed spending time together fixing up our home and are finally getting a chance to sit back and enjoy some of our hard work. We've taken a few trips to the beach and spent time visiting with friends and family. As our second anniversary was just celebrated, it's a nice time recall our wedding day and look forward to what the future holds. One year ago, we could not have predicted in a million years what we would be experiencing today. My husband lost his job in June, and we are now embarking on the exciting journey of starting a home improvement/construction business. Who knows what the next year holds, but we are looking forward to another great year!

Hope you are doing well! We think of you often. I just looked at our wedding pictures and am still struck by the beauty of our wedding and the wonderful flowers!! How beautiful! It would be great to re-live that day again and again!

Hugs,

Lacey

 

Thank you Lacey and Peter for sharing with us.  It makes me so happy that we stay in touch.

Hugs back at you both,

Holly

These shots are of Christy's bridal bouquet. Christy married this past Saturday at a private estate home.  The event was planned and directed by Lisa Schulz of the Posh Planner.  You can always depend on Lisa for an extraordinary event.

The bouquet was created of hot pink roses, deep purple callas, purple orchids, lavender stock, purple eustoma, purple rain freesia and hot pink orchids.

We used deep purple carnations in the maids bouquets.

The cocktail hour was on the back terrace of the family home. We created these small centerpieces for this space. We had a total of seven cocktail designs for this area.

Large arrangements were created for the food stations. 

A fabulous picture of the whole tent. This wedding was luscious.

The vibrant jewel tones were striking with the deep purple linens. 

Here we are setting the large centerpieces up on cylinders.  Getting them into the center of the table is tedious work. But the final effect is so worth the effort.

The absolutely incredible cake was designed by Carolyn Taylor of Taylor Made Cakes.  Her work is stunning and she completely bakes by scratch.

 

Guests enjoyed music during the cocktail hour and DJ services provided by Kevin Olivera. He is is the owner of Olivera Music and Entertainment.

I was able to get this very lovely shot of my bride and groom's first dance. Great wedding!!!!!

Holly

Margaret was our White House bride.  Margaret literally worked at the White House for several years. Her term ended this January with the change of the administration. She was the White House Bride to me.  I had fun drilling her on what types of flower arrangements could be seen in the White House.

The look of this wedding was amazing.  I love the vibrant reds and greens. We used antique green hydrangea to give us contrast against the reds.  We eliminated white flowers from the wedding so that the designs were more autumnal rather than holiday. I love this look for the fall; it is unique.

The photographer was Paul Morse, who actually photographed Jenna Bush's wedding.  My daughter was able to shoot these pictures after he set up the look.  We are so grateful to have these images to share.

We also had the pleasure of working with Liz Denny. She was the wedding coordinator for this event. Liz also worked at the White house. In addition to being an event planner, she also owns Peridot Paper. 

We love this picture of the bride's dad.  My daughter, Hannah, took all of these photographs.

We did arrangements of black magic roses, green hydrangea and burgundy carnations for the low centerpieces. The elevated designs featured the red and green orchids.

I love these detail shots of the table. Hannah is showing a lot of talent as a photographer.

Here is an awesome shot of our good friend Rocio Diaz from a Piece of Cake. She is one of the most remarkable people I know. That smile is something you can count on; she wears it every day. Her cakes are a complete work of art that she bakes completely from scratch. Look at the detail on this cake; it totally matched the bride's lace.

We have had a very unusual week. We lost the camera and the computer. This blog has become a huge part of our business. I love showing you each and every detail. To say I was stressed when the camera broke is putting it mildly.  We had six weddings this past weekend, and I really wanted to share them with you. I am so devoted to the blog that I went and bought another camera on the way to the Friday wedding. I downloaded all of the images from the weekend on Saturday night. 

On Sunday the computer crashed. I may have lost most of my photographs, someone is trying to extract all of that information now. I love technology! Nothing like a little extra stress when you are in the middle of wedding season and have seven children. Let's not mention that school and sports just started. I am still missing some of those dreaded back to school papers.   

I want to thank my daughter Hannah for racing to the Apple store with me and her three youngest siblings. This was not an easy task. I am leaving the world of PCs behind. Please bare with us as we make this very painful change over!! Every word I type is a struggle. Much to our surprise we still had two of the weekend's weddings still on the camera. I did a big gratitude dance and here we are. Let's hope the local computer doctor can retrieve the rest of my photos. 

By the way, the Apple store was wonderful, and I can't believe they put up with a four and three year old spinning around their store.

I think we just successfully completed this post. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holly

Margaret

 

Rachael

 

Charlene

 

Christy

 

Ursula: the bridal bouquet is in the blue vase.

 

Katie

We would also like to share this note from Katie's mom.

 

Holly and Team!!



Thank you so much for your creations and fantastic artistic gifts!!  The Club room at Lansdowne was beautiful!! As the guests entered, we only heard oh’s and ha’s!!!  That is what I wanted as an MOB!  I would recommend you to any bride!!!  This was a WOW moment for everyone that entered the room.  Thank you so much for making this day so unbelievably special!!  I will continue to read your blog because, at the end of a day, seeing such wonderful masterpieces can make anyone’s day great!!!   Linda

 

 

We will bring you each wedding in its entirety throughout the week. From private estates to quaint restaurants, we did it all this past weekend.

 

Holly

 

Today was Katie's wedding day. We have been waiting a long time for this day. Katie's mom, Linda, completely planned the whole wedding, choosing all of the flowers and the overall look of the day. The really beautiful thing about this is Katie trusted her mother entirely and gave her full reign over the look. Katie wanted to be surprised on her wedding day, and she was. How cool is that? Today we used baby blue hydrangea, yellow roses, cream colored stock, light and dark blue delphinium, iris, and spray roses.

 

The maids' dresses were pale butter-cream yellow.

 

We made flower halos for the flower girls.

 

Linda loves our blog and has been a great fan. We loved working with her. She picked out special votives for every table, had every napkin folded in a love knot and then added a yellow rose to every place setting. She even thought to have a September 11th memory table. All of her hard work paid off, and she gave her daughter an absolutely beautiful wedding. What a great mom!

 

The memory table for September 11th.

 

The cake was created by a dear friend of the family. She needs to go pro.

 

We placed these large arrangements on columns for the ceremony.

The whole wedding was perfect just as we planned. We so enjoy working at Lansdowne. I could go on about this event forever, but it is 11:37 pm and we have a very busy day ahead of us tomorrow. 

Here is a little of what is in the cooler; we are going to be hopping this Saturday.

This weekend's work is stunning. We look forward to sharing all of our floral bliss with you in the next few days.

Holly

Sara's wedding last weekend was at Airlie in Warrenton.  We love this venue, and its fabulous gardens. We are sharing these images just to keep you posted on our weekend, but we are longing for the real photographs from the Regeti's. We adore Amy and Srinu Regeti, and we love when we get to work with this very wonderful couple.  Many thanks to the Posh Planner, Lisa Schulz for bringing us all together. A wedding with Lisa is always a show stopper.

 

The bridal bouquet had white Dahlias, which of course I purchased from Don, white mini calla lilies, antique blue green hydrangea, white freesia and green coxcomb that we tinted with a touch of blue.

 

The maids carried bouquets of cream and blue green hydrangea, white roses and the fiddle head ferns. The girls were wearing dresses the same blue color as the hydrangea with brown sashes. This was the perfect bouquet for the maids.

 

The groom had a mini white calla lily, and a small piece of hydrangea and the rest of men had white roses. We painted italian ruscus brown to tie the whole look together.

 

Our amazing altar piece. We created this piece full sided, so it could become the buffet piece.

 

Incredible centerpieces with masses of hydrangea, dahlia, stock, phlox and our favorite something extra, the fiddle head fern spikes.  We also added three vases with submerged blossoms and floating candles to each table.

 

Our elevated designs were spectacular as well. We took the same flowers used in the low centerpieces and added white lilies, and white larkspur. 

Even the cocktail pieces were adorable and were later used on the mantel.

 

This was a beautiful wedding, and we were so happy to be a part of the day.

Our final wedding of last weekend was Erin; she married at Lansdowne.  We designed her flowers exactly to her specification. She truly chose every single flower and exactly how many stems we would use in each bouquet. We would like to have her join our design team, but I don't think we can steal her away from her new groom.

 

Her very sexy bridal bouquet of large and mini white callas.

 

The maids' bouquets with exactly 5 stems of football mums and tricillium. The maids' dresses were black. The bride liked the way the tricillium almost appeared black.

 

The altar flowers.

 

The centerpieces.

 

This was a really great wedding and we loved our bride Erin.

 

These boxes contain this weeks wedding flowers, guess what is coming next.

Holly