Megan and Ezra married last spring at the Thomas Birkby House. The couple had an amazing Loudoun wedding. I thought since we are all craving spring flowers it would be fun to post their beautiful blue and purple wedding flowers today. Sam Hurd photographed this beautiful event.

Bouts were created with blue muscari, blue delphinium, scabiosa, and seeded euc.

Our birch and willow chuppah was designed with delphinium, stock, larkspur, seeded euc, lady moon roses, hydrangea, tulips, clematis, blue thistle, and fillers.

Megan’s bouquet was created with blue muscari, hyacinthus, phlox, clematis, scabiosa, stock, thistle, and dusty miller.

Centerpieces were created in my vintage boxes. These boxes are a favorite of our studio.

Happy married life Megan and Ezra, we loved designing your wedding flowers!! Thankfully the sun is finally shinning strong in Virginia and I can see the first blooms on the way. I I can’t wait until these flowers are blooming again!!

Last spring I participated in an inspirational photo shoot at The Inn At Perry Cabin. This little shoot was like the shot that was fired around the wedding world. The bridal bouquet was featured in Southern Weddings Magazine. The table scape was featured in the Knot Magazine and the entire shoot was just published on Style Me Pretty. You can bet all of the vendors involved are mighty happy with the success of this perfectly styled shoot.  Many thanks to photographer Cyn Kain and designer Amber Housley.  The shoot also featured hair and makeup by Amie Decker, a cake from Charm City Cakes, dresses from Hitched Bridal, and of course flowers from our studio Holly Heider Chapple Flowers. Many thanks also to our model Heather.

Love this!!

When I work on a styled shoot I am allowed to try new things and experiment with the flowers on my land. I have lived on this property for 25 years and I had never designed with the flowers from my tulip poplar tree. On the day I created this bouquet I went to my poplar tree and pulled down its branches. Sugar water honestly fell from the flowers and the gift of the bloom had me doing a happy dance right in the yard. I will forever be in love with this bouquet, this bouquet is the reason I fell in love with my tulip poplar tree. This bouquet also features white dainty mock orange blossoms from my garden.

The tulip poplar flower is the unique green bloom in the center of the bouquet, it has a lovely orange center. I also loved the green leaves from the tree.

The centerpieces were created in my vintage pink limoge china and my little etched glass cordial cups that I bought in Bruge. I also provided crystal candlesticks and lots of vintage gold mirrors. I loved the way this table turned out and I was so happy to see my pretty things photographed by Cyn.

LOVE THIS!!! I am obsessed with the ribbon treatment around the centerpieces. I am ready for a bride who wants to do this!!

My mothers big vintage gold mirror went on this trip. I often wonder what she would think if she saw her pretty things all over my blog.

This sweet little bouquet was created as a toss bouquet.

Again, I just love that ribbon.

I forgot my pretty pink china bowl made the trip also. I love photo shoots!!!!

Here is our feature in the Knot.

It was awesome to finally share this with you today. Keeping my pretties under lock and key is painful!!!

Heidi and Eric married in the fall of 2011. I can hardly believe it has been a year and half since their wedding. Their gorgeous wedding was just featured on Style Me Pretty and can be seen here.  Many thanks to Megan from Events In The City for her amazing design and planning of this event. Gabe Acevas was responsible for the stunning photography. Our studio handled the flowers and my truly incredible husband Evan, did the lighting, drapes, and the installation of flowers into a boat. Yes I did give him that job!!!

Perhaps one of our most slippery installations!!! Glad this was Evans job.

Heidi’s bouquet was created in a cascading style with blue delphinium, blue aggies, blue anemone, purple dahlias, purple clematis, purple stock, purple viburnum berry, lavender roses, purple astrantia, and green seeded euc.

Maids bouquets featured more of the smokey lavender tones, a pop of burg, and less of the vibrant blues and purples.

Gorgeous!!!

Evan sewed all of the curtains for this barn with his very own sewing machine. Awesome!!! If you look closely you can see the twinkle lights in the rafters and around the posts. Evan also installed lighting in the trees to light up the outside of the barn. This was a beautiful project.

Evan’s new chandelier.

Centerpieces were created in vases wrapped in lace or in vintage silver bowls, and creamers.

This was a beautiful Loudoun Wedding and we were so honored to see it featured on Style Me Pretty!!!

We are so excited and honored to have the wedding of Matilda and Jonathan featured in Southern Living Weddings Magazine.  But first a big huge thank you to Jodi Miller Photography for sharing these amazing images with us. I have been longing to work with Jodi and her husband Kurt. Working with this amazing husband and white team was quite a thrill.  Seeing the images of the day was an even bigger thrill. I will cherish these pictures forever.

Matilda and Jonathan married at Matilda’s grandparents estate in Middleburg VA. I can honestly say that this was one of the most magical places I have ever seen. Matilda’s grandmother and grandfather are avid gardeners. Their property features secret gardens, water ponds, sprawling meadows, and outdoor garden structures, all designed and created by Matilda’s grandparents. The gardens also feature incredible observation decks so that visitors to the garden can climb up the stairs and overlook the boxwood gardens, or perennial beds. I was in flower girl heaven on this one!!!

Working with Matilda and Jonathan was one of the easiest, and most pleasing experiences of my career. Because Matilda and Jonathan manage their families historic inn, called the Red Fox Inn, they completely understand the complexities of designing an event. They were also so busy taking care of their clients and their weddings at the inn, that we simply had to put their wedding on hold until they could help all of their clients marry. Because of this, we met just before the wedding and brought their entire wedding to life.  One important note, Matilda was wise enough to book me a year and half in advance. We literally did not talk for about a year and then boom we created magic.

This picture of Jonathan and Matilda makes my heart sing. This is one of the oldest trees in Virginia!!!

 

The wedding took place in the Eastern Garden which was created to commemorate the 60th wedding anniversary of Matilda’s grandparents.  I love this picture because right under Matilda and Jonathan’s feet is a little engraved plaque that marks the 60th anniversary. Her grandparents have now been married for 65 years.

I guess you are gathering I loved everything about this wedding!!!!

After some debate about yellow and blue flowers, Matilda and I settled on berry toned flowers we made this choice just weeks before the wedding. This tone seemed perfect for the property. The bridal bouquet featured lavender scabiosa, deep berry toned dahlias, hot pink smart weed, baroness cabbage roses, dusty miller, queen annes lace, astrantia, gomphrenia, clematis vine, and celosia. Many of the flowers were from our garden.

One of my most favorite details of the day were the boutonnieres. Jonathan, Matilda’s father, and grandfather, practice and instruct riflery on the estate. Because of this, I made the bouts in little bullet shells. Thankfully just weeks after I met the couple I found a small shotgun cufflink in an antique store. I saved the vintage piece of jewelry for Jonathan for over a year.

Certainly one of my most clever moments!!

Incredible stations or vignettes were created with family furnishings or antiques from Rosanna Smith. Rosanna owns Bella Villa Furnishings, she is located just outside of Middleburg and she does styling for events. Meeting Rosanna was yet another gift of the day.

Seating cards were displayed on boards that held shot gun shells.

Guest tables featured designs in compote bowls displayed on wood chargers that Jonathan made from the farm. Mosses, and pine cones from the farm were displayed around each centerpiece.

The wedding party was seated at a king table.  Never has the name “king table” been more accurate. All of the florals were designed in silver vessels provided by the family. Each piece of silver was unique and the table also featured heirloom silver candelabras.

In addition to planning this wedding, Matilda and Jonathan oversaw the catering of their own wedding, their family inn The Red Fox was the caterer for the big day

This celebration was one of my all time favorites. I will always be in love with family heirlooms, estate gardens, and Virginia heritage. Matilda and Jonathan will always have a special place in my heart. Many thanks also to Matilda, who told the readers of Southern Living Weddings Magazine that our flowers were her favorite splurge of the day. Happy married life Matilda and Jonathan. I am going to LOVE this wedding forever!!

This one is magic, true magic!! I am so thoroughly proud of this shoot and the work that was accomplished here in our gardens. Many thanks to photographer Anne Robert, and to Dawn Crothers Cimino of Something Vintage Rentals, together we all collaborated and styled an amazing creation right in the middle of our garden. Many thanks also to Evan who ran the leaf blower, the fog machine, and then stood in as an officiant.

It is a true thrill to produce and create a scene that will help to set trend. When I chose the flowers for this shoot, my wholesaler literally told me she didn’t think I could blend these colors together. Gold combo roses, blended with amnesia roses, and dark purple tones, In truth what I purchased from her was most certainly not enough to make magic. But here in my garden were mystical elements and tones that brought everything together. This shoot is truly trend setting shoot. From the unique color combinations, to the shape and styles of the bouquets, to the amazing ribbon treatments.  I bet this shoot goes viral.

Many thanks to Weddings Unveiled for publishing this work, and for continuously creating one of the most beautiful magazines in the industry. Thank you for promoting, publishing, supporting, and encouraging these creative shoots. We love Weddings Unveiled and we are so thankful for you!!!

The bouquet featured golden jester, white gomphrena , astrantia, flowering vine, antiqued hydrangea, and pieris from our garden. I used golden combo roses, amnesia roses, plum ranunculus, and dark purple scabiosa from the wholesaler.  A gorgeous ribbon treatment was added to the bouquet.

Here is a beautiful hair piece that was created with gold painted ranunculus. Amazing!!!

The gorgeous antiques that Dawn shared with us were amazing, it was so much fun to see them placed right in the garden!!

I now have an endless passion for Claire Pettibone gowns.

Amazingly, Anne Robert created many of the hair pieces for this shoot. Yes, our friend the photographer Anne is mighty talented. She has a new company for those pieces called Bespoke.

Farm tables from Something Vintage Rentals.

So gorgeous!!!

Our bride in a bed of hyacinth bean vine.

That day we designed several bouquets and we loved them all.

This one may be my favorite because it featured cotton blossoms. We grew cotton for a special client last year and we became obsessed with the foliage and the blooms of this flower.

I am obsessed with this bouquet it completely fills me up with love of my art and for floral design.

This bouquet pulls at my heart as well, I love, love, love the length of the bouquet. The way the vine trails down and extends the length of the bouquet makes the design rich and dreamy. The vine cascading from the bouquet is passion flower vine and it was also from my garden.

Evan built us this beautiful ceremony structure of white drape and it featured a crystal chandelier.  This was a creation that I had been dying to make, or have Evan make. Lets be honest!! Now that we have pictures of this altar, we have had several upcoming brides chose this for their ceremony.  You know the saying “build it they will come”, well it’s true.

Stunning paper products designed my Inc. Lemonade.

Here is our beautiful vegan cake baked by Sticky Fingers. I must confess that we worked until 8pm on this shoot and then we devoured that vegan cake. Who knew vegan cake could be that good, seriously it was amazing.  Let them eat cake!!

Here are some of my favorite images of the day!!

I think this is one of the most beautiful and poetic images ever, and it should be sent in for a photography award. Our gorgeous model is holding a cotton plant. Annie didn’t know what the plant was when she asked the model to hold it.  The symbolism or beauty of this never occurred to me at the time, when I saw this photo I almost fell off of the chair. Having this image of the cotton we grew makes me so happy, but secondly I love that this image declares a change in times, and a focus on true beauty.

This shoot is epic!!!

Just for fun here are pictures of Evan the leaf blower man, and Evan the officiant.

This place is so much freaking fun!!!

Event Design, Florals and Props: Holly Heider Chapple Flowers. Design: Anne Robert Photography. Venue: The Gardens at Chapple Flowers. Cake: Sticky Fingers Vegan Bakery. Design and Vintage Rentals: Something Vintage Rentals. Tablecloth: Vanessa Grant Events. Stationery Design and Calligraphy: Christine Lucaciu of Ink Lemonade. Bridal Gowns: Hannelores of Olde Town. Bridal Veils and Caps: Bespoke. Hair: Hair by Jewels. Makeup: Amie Decker Beauty.
Photographer: Anne Robert Photography, www.annerobertphotography.com.

Just a reminder that I will be designing, teaching, styling, and hanging in California from Jan 22-24. Please meet me in California if your schedule allows, you can sign up here. We will be working with amazing floral product from my friends at Florabundance. Designer Tricia Fountaine will be sharing with us the lovely Dos Pueblos Ranch as well as her amazing collection of antique props, furniture, and china. Of course we are going take those props, those amazing flowers, and the creative minds of all the designers involved and style a shoot. One other fun note that you should know, my friend the great photographer Genevieve Leiper will be traveling to California with us to photograph the event. Who wants to meet me in California?

Florabundance product, isn’t temptation grand… remember you can sign up here. Happy New Year, you deserve a treat!!!

Each year our studio reaches new heights and I personally achieve successes beyond anything I dared to imagine 20 years ago. 2012 was no exception, as a designer I studied in Europe and California. I led the Chapel Designers to NYC to study, I taught in Atlanta, and I designed in the White House. Our studio became an agricultural business, and we completed one full year with Evan as our lead designer for lighting and drape installations. We had the pleasure of completely designing several events, one of which was for our own son. This meant that we completely styled the event, choosing all decor, linens, rentals, managed vendors, and worked to create a theme for the event. Our work was featured in print or on line in over 25 different publications and our studio is definitely taking on a role as a trend setter in the wedding industry. This last statement is a bold proclamation, but I can clearly see our design ideas, and concepts, influencing the work of other designers, and the wedding industry. This makes me very proud!!! We start out today with the honor of having some of our latest work featured on Style Me Pretty. What an amazing way to start out 2013. We are always so proud and honored to see our work featured. Please know that each feature came from a whole lot of love, a whole lot of work, and a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Be sure to visit the SMP post here. For now I will leave you with the amazing images from a photo shoot designed and styled by Anne Robert Photography, and Dawn from Something Vintage Rentals. The three of us working together is a magic that is unstoppable. You will be seeing a lot from us very soon. I enter into 2013 with so much hope and excitement. I love where our studio is headed, I love the work we are creating, and I love the goals I have for 2013!!!

A bouquet of amaryllis, evergreens, pepper berry, banksia painted gold, and dusty miller. The bouquet was bound with cream cashmere ribbon, the ribbon was purchased in San Francisco 4 years ago. Yes, I stock pile trims, ribbons and accents!! I must also share that this shoot was very impromptu and everything I used was either being re-purposed from another design or straight from the scrap pile in our shop. The banskia were actually dried and leftover from another bouquet that was featured on the Wedding Chicks blog.  Challenging myself to make these designs without buying flowers was so much fun!!! I was supposed to provide one bouquet and one centerpiece but I spent the evening alone in the flower shop pushing myself and my pile of leftovers to create these designs.

Joy

The beauty of these images, and the art that was created for this shoot, simply has me raring to go for 2013. Look how pretty we are!!!!

I am obsessed with the hair and makeup on this shoot!!! Thanks to makeup artist Amie Decker, and Hair By Jewels.

This bouquet was totally a treat and a pleasure, it was created with leftover flowers from my cooler, flowers from the garden, and evergreens. I literally used scraps to create this bouquet, the roses were so old I glued them together so that I could be certain they would hold during the shoot. I am often in awe of what can be created here just for fun!!!

A gorgeous cake designed by my friend Kendall.

This bouquet was created by inserting pine cones, berries, and pods into a small Styrofoam ball. This bouquet took more time and glue than I care to mention!!! I sure do love how unique and special this piece is.

Amazing invites by Sugar Taylor of Diyva Designs.

What an inspiring way to start off 2013!!! Thank you Dawn for your amazing vintage rentals and thank you Anne for being the incredible artist I knew you would be!!!

Photography: Anne Robert Photography— www.annerobertphotography.com

Design and Props: Something Vintage Rentals–www.somethingvintagerentals.com

Makeup artist: www.amiedeckerbeauty.com

Hair: Julie Jackson www.hairbyjewels.com

Florals: www.hollychappleflowers.com/

Gowns: Claire Pettibone and Rivini from Hannelores of Olde Town–www.hannelores.com

Cake: Kendall’s Cakes–http://www.kendallscakes.com/

Invitations: Sugar Taylor of Diyva Designs http://www.diyvadesigns.com

Instruments: House of Musical Traditions–http://www.hmtrad.com/

 

Last Saturday my day started bright and early with an 8a.m. wedding delivery to the Belmont Country Club. This wedding was all about fall flowers and everything was super beautiful. I then headed to DC to deliver flowers at the Mayflower Hotel. We designed 24 glorious and amazing centerpieces for this wedding and lots of personal flowers. After a lovely visit with my bride, I headed to 101 Constitution to check on a wedding we were doing there. We hung blue bottles full of white flowers from the top of a tent ceiling, we also displayed bright white and clean designs in blue vases and vintage blue bottles and I also designed a bridal bouquet on a vintage fan from the 1800’s. Seriously amazing and special. Once that wedding was under control I headed back to Leesburg to work on an additional HCF wedding. Here we did elevated designs, lovely low centerpieces in vintage containers several pieces for the arbor and a seriously cool place card display that involved hundreds of apples. We also had a team designing at the Morais Vineyard, those pieces were rich, lush, and elegant.  Each one of those designs was touched and loved by me as well. On Sunday I got up finalized the order for our Sunday wedding at Rosemont Manor and then I dashed to NYC.

My life is so funny and amazingly full and often really hard to believe. On Sunday morning I was standing in my house discussing the massacre that happened in our hen house. Unfortunately a weasel got all of our girls, seriously ever single hen was killed, reminding me that nature can be so cruel. Four and half hours later I was coming up an escalator in Penn Station into the middle of NYC. Because I spent so many years staying home with my children and growing my business, I will never get used to the amazing opportunities that are coming my way. I truly hope that I never lose the sense of wonder I feel when I travel, and when I experience new things.  I also hope I never take visits to NYC for granted.

My purpose in coming to NYC was to watch and to help designer David Beahm create the florals and decor for The Knot gala. Spending the day with David Beahm, Chrstoper Confero, Joseph Massie, George, and Robert was incredible. Each of these designers was so super talented and everyone was so sweet to me. I loved being the only flower mama in the group. These guys were awesome and very inspiring!!

We began our day at 8a.m. at The New York City library  we needed to get our designs started before the library opened to the public. At 10 a.m. when tourists began to arrive at the venue our design space got mighty small. The area we were working in got roped off to protect our flowers and the tourists. Seeing an installation in this venue was one of the many reasons why I wanted to help. This venue has been featured in many movies and working here was seriously cool.  David created a huge tree and from that tree you could see hundreds of butterflies flying into the air. The tree was a beautiful teal and purple tone. Davids team painted all of the branches to get the otherwise green leaves to become the chosen color palette.

We added hundreds of blue and purple hydrangea blooms to the branches of the tree, this gave the tree an amazing look.

Then strings of butterflies were tied to the tree and huge balloons were used to fly the butterflies into the air. I literally was in awe when I saw the butterflies take flight. This was the first time I had seen a flying flower arrangement. Can I say … KICK ASS!!!

The tree, when complete was so large that the band actually preformed underneath the tree. Talk about a big flower arrangement.

After spending some delightful time at The Knot Gala, we headed to the Martha Stewart Weddings market party. You can bet I almost died when I realized I would get to attend both of these events.

Preston Bailey, and Darcy Miller.

The DJ preformed behind the biggest ice sculpture I have ever seen.

Beautiful wedding cakes were on display throughout the event and guests could even get their nails done.

After meeting many of the NYC wedding celebs we headed back to The Knot to close out the night.

Carley Rooney founder of The Knot and NYC designer David Beahm.

The New York City Library the night of the event.

A million thanks to David Beahm for taking the time to teach me a bit about designing in NYC. In addition to the design time David introduced me to all of the major designers in New York. I met Preston Bailey, Darcy Miller, Marcy Blum, Randy Fenoli, Anne Barge, Carley Rooney, Bryan Rafanelli, and countless other wedding industry celebrities. The night ended with a fun little dinner that included David, Christina Matteuchi of David Beahm Design, Ed Libby, and Christoper Confero. I am always thoroughly impressed and pleasantly surprised by David’s remarkable and genuine kindness!!!

In less than two full days I was back home in Virginia attending Eli’s last flag football game of the season. Today started like this….

Here we go again!!!

A bit of peace has come!! All of the kids are now home and this makes me really happy. A good portion of the flowers have been designed and that makes me really relieved. We are almost ready for our big family wedding. It was fun to see my daughters checking out their bouquets. They have seen a lot of bouquets leave this house and now its their turn.

Riley has completed his best man speech and I am super proud of him. We custom cut and stamped 106 napkins, hung drape in the barn and we even got the lights up. I want to thank my dear friend Don for providing our family with the most magnificent dahlias!! Yeah for Don. Things are coming along nicely. Tomorrow we are going to get all of our props into the barn and play with ribbon, vintage bottles, and more drapes. Thanks also to my mom and dad who are cooking all of the BBQ for the big dinner tonight. Hosting a rehearsal dinner when you are responsible for the flowers and event decor, ring bearers, flower girl, bridesmaids, and best man, is a bit of a challenge. I seemed to forget that we would all be at the rehearsal, rehearsing so I didn’t quite figure out how we would host a dinner tonight, nor did I remember to invite anyone, brilliant. So thanks to mom and dad for saving me!!! Every single Chapple child has a part in this wedding and we need to let them practice.

One more day!!!

The latest issue of Weddings Unveiled has just been released and it’s absolutely sumptuous. Thankfully this very incredible issue also features one of our weddings. The wedding of Betty and Anthony. I have been holding onto the images from this wedding for almost an entire year. Thankfully I get to share them with you today. Evan and I provided the event decor, florals, and lighting for this wedding.  This included moving endless bales of hay, pumpkins, gourds and lanterns. Oh boy, did we ever use some lanterns!! The wedding and magnificent rehearsal dinner was designed and planned by Lisa Schulz the Posh Planner, and you can thank Kate Headley for the images that are about to WOW you.  Get ready to be mighty inspired by this perfectly fall wedding and don’t forget to pick up your issue of Weddings Unveiled.

The dinner table featured over 50 lanterns, that were hung by Evan and the table happened to overlook a polo field. Guests enjoyed hayrides, fine dinning, bluegrass music, a bonfire, and hand rolled cigars.

That was one heck of a rehearsal dinner.

Bales of straw and mums were gathered from my fathers farm market to create this ceremony area. We threw a lot of straw for this wedding!!

This image, is one of my all time favorite photos by Kate!!! I love this picture.

The bride carried purple dahlias, free spirit roses, scabiosa pods, berry, and vine.

Love this photo also…

The king table was 88 feet long and featured 7 elevated designs, with a mix of smaller designs in vintage copper pots. I loved seeing the copper on this table!!

Evan transformed the garage into a beautiful area for dancing by providing drapery and lights. Keeping this wedding hidden for the last 11 months has been super hard, I am so glad that we got to share this wedding with you today!!! Happy married life Betty and Anthony, we LOVED your wedding!!!