I guess with my lack of posts this week you can gather that we are super busy here. Loosing one day to a holiday really rocks my world. It’s hard to believe that all of last weekends events are behind us and I am now siting in a house full of flowers for this weekends events. We have spent the better part of this week preparing for several really awesome events. We are doing a lot of drape, lighting, event design and even wedding planning this weekend, so lets just say the volume got seriously turned up. I guess the quickest way to get back in touch with you is to share some of our work from last weekend. Last weekend was like flower girl designer heaven!! We were everywhere and we did everything. I truly had an amazing wedding weekend!!!

This wedding was at Rosemont Manor in Berryville. I just loved that black and white striped linen.

Next I headed to Bluemont Vineyard where Evan had been busy hanging fabric through the rafters of the barn. Check out those custom drapes that Evan sewed. Yes he sews, and he cooks. Lucky me!!!

This wedding featured all white florals and olive branches. Yes olive branches, I had real olive branches flown in from California. The bride had an olive branch motif on her stationery and she gave guests olive oil as a favor.

 

Next I headed to Whitehall Manor, here we designed in purples, plums and lavenders. As you can see Don’s dahlias were a big part of all of my weddings.

 

We also had a wedding at the Thomas Birkby House and one at Silverbrook Farm.

Here our flowers at the Thomas Birkby House.

Shauna Ploeger from Studio Du Juor delighted me with these images from our Silvberbrook Farm wedding.  I can’t wait to share more from this wedding and more of Shauna’s work. She is a new superstar in Loudoun!!!

This bout was created for a wedding at a private estate in Middleburg. The groom and most of his groomsmen are avid hunters. We designed 22 bouts in brass shot gun shells.

To prevent the rain I did a rain dance on a ladder in my rain boots!!! It worked, the wedding happened without a drop of rain!!

Amazing florals were created for this wedding and I was dying over how beautiful everything was  but I have to tell you all of those vintage props brought in by Rosanna Smith from Bella Villa Antiques had me swooning. She is my new best friend.

While I was climbing ladders and playing with antiques in Middleburg my A Team was at the St. Regis Hotel in DC delivering these amazing designs.

These pictures were taken by photographer Vicki Grafton.  Many thanks to Vicki for getting me these pictures of our fairy tale wedding at the St. Regis.

So, as you can see there is a lot going on around here and you are not gonna believe what we do this weekend!!!

 

Love it, love it, love it!!! This is how cool my life is. When my friend the amazing photographer Anne Robert needed a baby sitter one afternoon, I simply said YES. Anne has two precious girls and one of them is a sweet brand new baby!! Since I am always happy to have more kids around I was thrilled to have the girls over. Because Anne and I love to work together she offered to take some photos of my garden flowers. I quickly ran around the house grabbing china, props, and my garden flowers and voila`. I have an amazing shoot to show you with flowers completely from our garden!!!!!!!!! LOVE THIS!!!

I used zinnia, amaranthus, purple basil, salvia, celotia, sunflowers,  queen annes lace, echinacea, and gladiolas.

My truly beautiful daughter Abigail found an old white sundress, so Anne and I were in business.

Love this close up of our flowers. Every single one of these blooms came from our property. This shoot shows the bounty of our gardens.

Don’t you just love my hanging window panes, and that vintage bed spread is to die for!!! I found the bedspread over a year ago and I have been itching to use it for a shoot.

I have a collection of black iron kettles and pots, and they also have been in the shed waiting for this day!!!

I am thrilled with the way this turned out. Seriously, Anne spent about 15 minutes shooting this and then she dashed off to go meet her clients. I love how resourceful busy moms are. You gotta make the best and the most of your day!!!

One other fun note, I met Anne exactly 2 years ago and it started over a photo shoot. This career has brought me the most wonderful friends!!! Here is the link to the shoot we did two years ago. Since then we have done many weddings together. I LOVE Anne Robert!!

My viewers are going to have a lot of fun with today’s blog post. You all know I have a group of designer friends I call the Chapel Designers. This group came together through social media and through social media we are aiding and abetting each others flower addiction.  The group has studied together twice in NYC and we will meet again in 2013. Our group has become an incredible network where we can share resources and knowledge. In other words we are building a strong and solid clan of the best wedding designers. We are making this wedding season our best by helping each other. We are actually traveling to each others studios to be of support wherever and whenever we can. Due to social media we are also in constant communication with each other. Each day we share ideas, sources, and wisdom, this group has made the rigors of this career so much more manageable and in truth everything is simply more inspiring because of this clan of designers. Chapel Designer and friend Isha Foss of Isha Foss Events suggested several weeks ago that we all do a progressive blog post, where we link to each others blog. Each designer was to create a compote design. Our blog post date was set for May 29th and here we are. So because of Isha’s great idea you will see the links below to some of my favorite flower friends and their amazing compote designs. Seeing the different color combinations, textures, and design ideas, all placed in the hottest container in the industry was a lot of fun. The compote design is a complete and total rage right now and just to prove how on trend the Chapel Designers are just days ago Martha Stewart Weddings happened to do a blog post on the compote. Great minds think a like. Here is the link to Martha’s Post.

My designs was created in a vintage compote I found at On A Whim Antiques. I used smoke bush, lambs ear, purple basil, invincibelle hydrangea, white astilbe, nectarine branches from Evans tree, white peony, persimmon tree foliages and buds, astrantia, hypericum foliage, white yarrow, clematis pods and vine, nandina berry, tree peony pods,and annabelle hydrangea. Every flower in this design were from my garden except for the white peony.

I was having so much fun, I actually made a second design…

This piece was created in a fabulous white compote. This little compote became the love of all the Chapel Designers when we were in NYC, (thanks to our class with Ariella Chezar.) Thankfully one of the Chapel Designers (Isha again) found the source for this container.  We love this lovely little compote because she happens to be plastic and super affordable, which means the guests can take her home after an event. This design was created with blue hydrangea, seeded euc that we painted navy blue, lambs ear, clematis vine, white yarrow, and a ton of ranunculus!!!

Just in case you are wondering, by definition a compote is a long-stemmed dish used for holding fruit, nuts, or candy. In my world, it’s just a sexy vase with a great leg, that holds my flowers. BTW if you are looking for a fabulous floral design class to attend meet me in Sonoma California where I will be studying under designer Ariella Chezar.  One of the classes even features our favorite container the compote!!!

Now here are the designs of my friends.

Isha Foss Events http://www.ishafoss.com/2012/05/floral-compotes.html

Alluring Blooms http://alluringblooms.com/ode-compote/.html

Floral Verde LLC http://floralverde.com/blog/?p=800

Flirty Fleurs http://www.flirtyfleurs.com/?p=9609

Celebration Florals  http://bit.ly/K4Dkcz

Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD https://thefullbouquetblog.com/?p=20905

Fleur:ology http://fleurologydesign.com/?p=397

Exquisite Designs http://www.exqdesigns.com/blog/?p=1900

Petals & Hedges http://petalsandhedges.com/blog/?p=868

Bare Root Flora http://barerootflora.com/index.php/blog/45-the-art-of-the-compote-denver-wedding-flowers

Loda Floral Design http://lodadesigns.blogspot.com/2012/05/floral-compote-design.html

True Florette Floral Design   http://trueflorette.com/succulents/the-compote

Courtenay Lambert Florals http://tinyurl.com/d4vugg8

Grapevine Floral Company http://grapevineinbloom.com/?p=228

Modern Day Floral http://moderndayfloral.com/blog/?p=4036

Sebesta Design http://sebestadesign.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-classic-compote-arrangement/

Sweet Pea Floral http://sweetpeafloraldesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/amazing-compote-gandy-dancer-rehearsal.html

This lovely compote was created by Janice Wong of Precious Pear. I adore Janice and I am in love with this design!!!

We did it again, another incredible record breaking week!!! We have so many designs created that I am absolutely astounded at all that we accomplished.  At one point today we had flowers in the living room, in the driveway, in the shop and of course in the cooler. This week did have it’s challenges with two of our designers sick, and of course more delayed product but we pulled it off again. We did however miss Debbie and Megan completely. By 8:00pm tonight we had 3 vans loaded and ready for our 7:00am delivery tomorrow to the VA. Gold Cup Races. We also did two weddings today and we are ready for all of our weddings tomorrow.  Thanks to a late shipment from Fed Ex, I just stayed up late to whoop out two more fantastic and inspired bridal creations so we are ready!!!!!!!! Here are some quick pictures of our creations, the shop, and some of the happenings!!

This was for our dietitian bride, this bouquet and bout was so much fun to design. I used carrots, brussels sprouts, string beans, okra, purple peppers, asparagus, cabbages, sage, mint, rosemary, roses, dahlias, nasturtiums and berry to create these designs.

This wedding was for our fitness bride, she married at Lansdowne Resort today!!

Some of the girls.

Gold Cup Designs.

Grace supervising the late arrival of my David Austin roses, via Fed Ex at 8:30pm tonight. Talk about pins and needles. Thankfully they have now been converted into bridal bouquets.

Yep, I know amazing!!!!

Now I am headed to bed, I get five whole precious hours of sleep. Wish us luck tomorrow and safe travels. I will have lots of petals on the road tomorrow and being the mother of so many creations can be a little scary!!

 

This is the week, the week we have been waiting for!!! We have two fabulous weddings and we are delighted to be playing with billy balls, and succulents, lots and lots of succulents. This Sunday’s wedding is very special and its for “my boys.” You know how I name my brides, well this wedding is about “my boys”!!!! I have two fabulous groom’s on Sunday. This wedding has been in the planning process for many months. In fact I bought many of their containers and decor items when I was in NYC in March.  Their wedding features billy balls and succulents with a contemporary vibe and feel. I love this couple and I am so honored and thrilled to be providing these unique, sexy, and killer designs to their wedding. Due to the size of their event we declined all other inquiries for many months. After perfectly planning and preparing for their wedding I was approached to take on yet another wedding. Because the boys were under control and because the boys were marrying on Sunday I added a Saturday wedding to the agenda. Deciding how many events we can do in a weekend is always based on the size of the order and the amount of designs we will be creating. 1 large wedding is similar to doing 5 smaller orders. Our Saturday wedding also happened to be about succulents. Holy Holly, am I lucky or what, I got to have two succulent weddings in one weekend.

Our Sat. wedding features crimson, wine, and taupe tones with the succulents.

The bridal bouquet was created with navy viburnum berry, dark purple scabiosa, quicksand roses, silver finesse roses, silver brunia, scabiosa pods, and Don’s dark purple dahlias. The bouquet truly made me squeal with delight!!

Maids bouquets were created with slightly less color than the bridal bouquet.

We wrapped a cylinder glass vase with moss and birch bark to create this container for our place card table design.

Our vintage wooden boxes were used for half of the centerpieces, and we created this amazing centerpiece platform for the other tables.

We started with a styrofoam board that was covered with sheet moss. We made indentations in the foam to hold the glass cylinder vases. The vases were filled with curly willow tips and tomorrow we will fill the vases with water and candles. Flower arrangements and succulents will be placed between the cylinders to complete the design. I am so excited about these pieces.

We will line the aisle with shepherds hooks and hang these bird cage designs from the hooks. Wow this is going to be awesome!!!

Now about my boys…

I know, its mesmerizing isn’t it!!! 20 tables will feature 5 to 7 gatherings. Each table will be slightly different but all will be over the top!!

Many thanks to my amazing husband Evan, he poured me 140 small concrete pots for our place card table. Each pot was planted with a mini succulent or air plant. A chrome plant stake will be added to each pot with the guests name and table assignment.

These big beauties will also be placed on the place card table. We also have chrome lanterns for all of the windows of the reception and at least 75 chrome bud vases. We are rocking this one.

Everything is so perfectly delicious and sexy. I am so excited to deliver this weekends weddings. I am also thankful that today everything is looking a okay, on Weds. you could have heard me scream 6 states away. 1700 billy balls arrived for our boys all rotten and molded, it was one last stab from Irene the hurricane. It seems our flowers sat in the NYC airport waiting to fly. Thankfully I have many sources and I went into 911 action. One of my wholesalers literally sent harvesters into the fields to cut me 1.700 billy balls. The other wholesaler, who’s product was bad also went into 911 action and because I covered my bases twice we ended up with double the billy balls. So you could say I am rich in succulents and billy balls this weekend, I will use the extra flowers to make the chuppah extra extraordinary. Now because our work is done, and this post is going live, I am going up to bed and do what any good wedding addicted designer would do with some free time…

Nighty night!!!

So happy my precious babies are resting “in the cooler” it’s hotter than you know what, and that kinda hot, is simply not good for brides or flowers.  Those of us who live in the DC, Virginia area are in the middle of one of the strongest heat waves I can remember. Of course we are; we have four events scheduled to be outdoors. Luckily all of my brides have back- up plans and, my flowers have the cooler. The above photograph is of our pink and cream bridal bouquet.

This is the main view in the cooler right now. 18 vases of white callas lined up and ready to go to a big corporate party tomorrow. Having the weddings to deal with was simply not enough, so we added a little corporate into our life.

We have one bride doing red, green, and white.

One bride doing peach, coral, green and blue.

and another bride using purple and green. The purple and green bouquet is behind the callas so there is no picture of that tonight. In addition to all of our events tomorrow we provided amazing flowers today for an incredible rehearsal dinner. I left this event totally delighted and giddy. We brought in amazing flowers, potted herbs, lanterns, antiques, and lots of fun props.

Have a great night, I am off to bed!!!!

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

 

I come from a crazy family of 5 girls, I have two sets of twin sisters. There are days when I can hardly stand the chaos we create, but we are family so I try and cope. Honestly my sisters are more wild, then all seven of my kids and a whole year booked solid with brides. Sister Kristin the chick on my left, is getting married somewhere in TX this weekend and I am the head florist in charge. This most certainly will not be one of my Martha weddings and I am trying to cope with that also.

In fact my Texas sisters are delighting in sending me pictures of horrid linens, crab pots, and buoys. I seriously have no idea what in the – – – – I am walking into, but one thing is for certain, it will be wild, boisterous and crazy fun.  Via text message I have seen a gold dress, a blue dress or maybe its a purple dress and pink puffy flower girl dresses. My sister wants a fishing themed wedding but hates tropicals. So now I am calling this wedding swamp romp. I am headed to Corpus somewhere near the water and my sister will be marrying on a pier. This is for real, I am not kidding. With little or no planning I have ordered and FedEx-ed a ton of flowers to go from CA. to TX. I will walk off the plane and start designing. Wish me luck, inspiration, patience, love, and lots of understanding. Here are some of the flowers I have ordered for my swamp romp.

See you next week, I will be romping in TX.

2010 has been loaded with memorable brides, and weddings. I am so pleased to finally share the images from Alison and Chris's wedding this past Spring. Alison and Chris married at the Dumbarton House in Georgetown. Many of our current weddings are being held for submission with either magazines or blogs. Saving them and not sharing them on the blog, has become a true act of patience or a certain kind of torture. Yesterday Alison and Chris were featured on the Brides Guide blog with Martha Stewart Weddings. We were so honored to make our debut appearance with Martha Stewart weddings. This wedding was a true team effort, and I was thrilled to be working with Ritzy Bee Events, Kate Headley Photography, Design Cuisine, Chris Laich and The Dumbarton House.  Thank you to all the vendors involved, it was clear when Kates first images came in, that we had created something totally awesome.

I remember every little detail about this wedding. Allison came to me with an inspiration book she had created. The designs that appealed to her were natural but elegant. Due to the fact that she was having a "dessert and dancing wedding" we wanted to keep the flowers comfortable and inviting. Allison had requested a bouquet that was made of all blue flowers. At one point I think we even talked about light blue hydrangea, but that just seemed to pale and uninspired for this very vibrant and beautiful bride, so we decided on dark blue. Allison needed something unique and very special but blue can be difficult because there are not a lot of flowers that are truly purely blue, deviating to dark purple was not an option, so she said. I intended to use dark blue hydrangea, blue hyacinthus, blue muscari, blue thistle, blue privet berry, and blue delphinium. The day before her wedding she stopped by my house to drop off a few last minute items, we kissed goodbye, and seconds later she called saying " hey, you know those purple flowers at the end of your driveway, you can use those also." Ha, that was the money shot, she was giving me permission to use my dark purple lilac, so I whacked it right from my garden seconds after she left.  When allison allowed me to use the purple lilac, I added the purple anemones, and purple monkshood. It was the purple flowers that made her blue bouquet so beautifully blue. We also used dusty miller, rosemary, and seeded euc to add a sage blue or steel blue grey to the designs.  Her bouquet was bound with a vintage handkerchief, in fact I believe I used several different pieces of vintage lace.

 In an effort to keep this unique and totally Allison's, I suggested the use of the sahara rose for the maids bouquets. I needed a lighter toned flower to give her contrast against the blue maids dresses, but I did not want to go to white flowers because that would be to expected. So I used the taupe roses called sahara with a mix of the all the blue flowers of the day, we did use a lot of thistle and dusty miller in these designs. Ribbon for the maids bouquets was purchased on a buying trip in SFO and I was thrilled with the result.

Bouts and corsages are always enhanced here, they are little mini pieces of art. The grooms bout was made with blue thistle, rosemary, viburnum berry and delphinium.

Maria of Ritzy Bee had explained that there would be a collegiate theme and that she and the bride wanted a mix of vases. The bride had gathered a full set of white trophies and a full set of blue vintage vases, and I added old pewter cups, or silver trophies to the mix. I kept the blue and white separated throughout most of the wedding. All white flowers went in white vases with pops of thistle or blue berry and all blue flowers went into the blue vintage glass. In the centerpieces we used all the flowers of the day but we also added, white ranunculus, white tulips, white stock, and white spray roses. There were also awesome buffet pieces in large silver trophy bowls.

One of my favorite pieces of the day was the design I created for the wall at the ceremony site. In true Holly Chapple fashion, I saw the empty spot and designed a piece from my "doctor bucket," In other words I used leftovers.  The piece had thistle, delphinium, monkshood, anemone, my lilac, and aggies. I remember putting in whatever was in the bucket. I loved putting that piece together, I really thought it needed to be there so I just couldn't resist.

I have been waiting months to say this, "happy married life Alison and Chris. We loved doing your wedding flowers."

Truly, for all of my career I have wanted to do a wedding at the Goodstone Inn. This is the start of my 19th wedding season, and over the last 19 years we have done events at the Library of Congress, The Ronald Reagan Building, The Smithsonian's, DC's famous art Gallery's, and many other amazing venues, but my heart has always wanted to be at the Goodstone.  This past weekend I was honored to provide the flowers for Marianne and Albert. This couple actually became engaged while staying at the inn, so it was only fitting that there wedding would take place in this remarkable setting.

Even though I am a flower-girl, I am half horsey-girl ( my mom is a serious horse woman)  I think that is why this venue has always intrigued me; it is an old horse farm, and the estate's stables have actually been converted into beautiful guest rooms. There are also several cottages on the property for guests to reside in during there stay in Loudoun's horse country.  My favorite location on the property is this ruin of the original manor home. I thought it was the perfect back drop for the ceremony. I seriously wanted to design flowers for the second story windows, much to my staffs concern.

This place is so beautiful, I just wanted to scream with delight the whole time I was on the property.  Many thanks to The Posh Planner, Lisa Schulz, her design and management of this event was stellar. This was one of the biggest weddings this venue has seen, with several different tents or designed locations. We had a ceremony area, a dinning space, cocktail spaces, lounges, and a even a separate area for dancing, all with florals and decor. This wedding was so much fun to work on, and I am truly grateful Lisa suggested me for this event. GO POSH!!!

Our bride loved purple so a color palette of purple, red, and gold was chosen.

The bridal bouquet was created with purple anemone, purple stock, purple callas, purple agapanthus, purple hydrangea, purple delphinium, purple vanda orchids, deep burgundy red peony, and red ranunculus. I inserted just a few gold pins into some of the ranunculus, this gave the bouquet a hint of gold.

The tent featured one seriously long head table and 20 other round tables for guests. This main table featured two elevated designs and a series of smaller designs and bud vases.

Genevieve Leiper photography and her crew of amazing photographers captured every lovely detail. Honestly, Genevieve is the bomb.  Look how rich these photographs are. Go Genevieve, we love you!!!!!!!

I love the detail photographs of the jewelery and the brides shoes. If the picture is missing flowers, I usually skip it for my posts, but I just had to share some more of her amazing abilities. Gen. really knows how to capture the day.

A huge round of applause to Victoria Stiles who did hair, and makeup, Christina from Paperzest and of course the Goodstone Inn. This wedding was truly a dream come true for me, and I am so glad I got to strut my stuff at the Goodstone. I have always wanted to design a ceremony sight that was this grand…

Happy married life Marianne and Albert. I was thrilled to do your wedding flowers.