Designer, photographer, event planner Vicki Grafton came by the house a few weeks ago to play with my endless stash of antiques and props for a quick inspiration shoot. She created this really sweet table scape in my yard right before my daughter Abby took her new desk off to college.  Pink cabbage roses, pink spray roses, seeded euc, and dahlias were used to create these designs.

Vicki brought over this vintage cigar box and I filled it up with some lovely little petals.

Our stunning model was Megan Soh from the Suitcases and Cardigans blog. Megan is also a designer that works with Vicki and hopefully someday with me.

Adorable!!

Every great photo shoot needs an amazing bouquet, so I whipped up this lovely, with pink ohara roses, green hydrangea from the garden, a magnolia pod I stole from I am not telling where, nandina foliages, and the amazing cafe au lait dahlias. This bouquet should have been used for a real bride, it killed me to take it apart. Any takers?

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!!!

Today I am featuring some amazing bridal bouquets shot by my friend Vicki Grafton. Vicki is a DC-Northern Virginia based photographer and stylist. I have worked with Vicki on many projects so it’s a great pleasure to feature her photos on the blog today.  We LOVE Vicki!!! This first bouquet was created with lavender roses, seeded euc, dusty miller, magenta toned dahlia, lavender stock, astrantia, blue delphinium, spray roses, and dark purple scabiosa flowers.  Stunner!!

Hot pink coxcomb, magenta dahlias, pink ohara cabbage roses, seeded euc, and wheat celosia were anchored into a bed of antique green hydrangea. We gathered the wheat celosia from my garden and just love the magenta spikes flying from the bouquet. We also added a little pink calcynia to soften the bouquets. This bouquet was full of rich texture and depth!!

This bouquet was created with sahara roses, pink ohara cabbage roses, white ohara roses, pink candy bianca roses, and dusty miller. Classic romance!!

Pink ohara cabbage roses, white ohara cabbage roses, cafe au lait dahlias, dusty miller, clematis vine and one magnolia pod were used to create this design. I love this bouquet because I stole that pod while taking a little hike with the family. For some reason I just had to reach out and take the pod, I can’t  seem to resist when I find elements like this. When I started to create this bouquet I remembered the pod I had gathered with the children and I knew it was the perfect element to complete the design. This bouquet has a very vintage vibe!!

One interesting thing to notice about these bouquets,  3 of the bouquets have many of the same ingredients, funny how a simple addition or subtraction of a petal can completely change a piece of art. Hope you enjoyed our bouquet day!!!

When I look back on this week, I can’t believe all that we have done as a family and as a business. I am sorta shell shocked right now!!!! This week we celebrated Sam’s 5th birthday.

As you can see Miss Grace was happily listening to the birthday song!!

We took our annual first day of school picture in front of the red door with the four big kids and miss Gracie, who had just woken up. The boys were still sound asleep when we headed out of town for JMU.

We dropped off our girls at college. They went prepared with fabulous art in hand, created by Miss Hannah Chapple. As we left the girls at JMU there was apparently an earthquake. I keep telling everyone it was my heart splitting wide open as we left them. Evan and I, did not feel the earth move, but we did notice a great big whole in our family.

Evan worked on some of his new lighting inventory for upcoming events and he tried his best to help me find some balance. This new dance of us working together is strange, weird, often wonderful, and sometimes downright annoying. We went antiquing in several states. We have outrageous new inventory for the flower shop and for our space at On A Whim antiques. Our work was featured on The Brides Cafe, Snippet & Ink, and Style Me Pretty. Lets say we soared through the blogasphere. A birdie also told me we will have a nice little feature in the Washington Post Magazine this weekend.  I am pretty blown away by all of this!! I am also shocked that while I am loosing it as a mom, my business keeps on, and on.

Another of this weeks big successes were Evan’s awesome table numbers. One of our brides needed these for tomorrow and we had to come up with something for her and fast. Evan took an old birch log we had from a past event and cut birch slabs for each table. This was one of those times this week he was way less annoying, and far more wonderful.  In addition to cutting all of the boards he painted all of the numbers as well. Since he did that so beautifully, being a great wife and business partner I asked for a little more. I also had him drill a mini whole in all of the numbers and they can now act as a mini bud vase. Yep, I think I will keep him.

We now have 19 of these beauties!! We should open an Etsy shop. Nope just kidding, we have enough to do.

These charming boxes were made for the place cards and a bark wire finial was created for each card.

Each of our bouquets were adorned with these fabulous medallions by Glen Elm Studios, in MD.  Each piece of pottery featured the wedding date and a lovely little bird. The potter is actually the brides aunt.

For this berry toned wedding we pulled out our vintage wooden boxes and our wooden lanterns. I am in love with these centerpieces and I am certain they will be perfect on the tables tomorrow.

We also have a beautiful green, blue, and white wedding tomorrow. These designs are clean, bright, and crisp. Each piece is fabulous but unfortunately I don’t have a lot of pictures from this event. My camera freezes if I shoot to much “in the cooler.” That of course is incredibly ironic!!

Okay that it’s it for me, I have to get to bed. I have a football game tomorrow at 8:30 am. and then I am going to hopefully deliver our weddings in lovely sunny weather. Lets sleep tight and pretend that a hurricane named “Irene” is not coming anywhere near our home/ flower shop, my brides, or our weddings.

This past weekend we provided the flowers for our bride Danielle. She married here groom Timothy at a church in Ashburn and the reception took place at Merriweather Manor in Leesburg Virginia. We got to help with the styling and look of this event and it was such a pleasure to be involved. Many thanks to event planner Kelley Cannon who managed the event.

The bouquets were designed with antique green and purple hydrangea, silver brunia, dusty miller, lavender roses, lady moon roses, clematis vine, dahlias, gomphrena, seeded euc, astrantia,spray roses, and quicksand roses.

We created this sweet pomander for the flower girl.

The brides mother made pillows for the lounge furniture in the colors of the day. The pillows were embroidered with the couples wedding date and their monograms. I loved this idea and I am certain these will be a fabulous keepsake for the couple.

Our candy bar was a huge success and it was so large that we had to extend the design across the mantel.

We also provided a popcorn bar with popcorn from my daddies store Heider Farm Market.

The popcorn stand was styled with our vintage props and antiques.

Centerpieces were created in an eclectic mix of silver vessels, mercury glass, and crystal votive stands.

The incredible wedding cake and grooms cake was designed by Jason of Market Salamander. This wedding was such a pleasure to design and style. I am so thrilled with the work we did for this event. Happy married life Danielle and Timothy, thank you for allowing us to be a part of your wedding.

This past weekend I provided wedding flowers to Jennifer and Bill, the couple  married in a church with a reception at the ArmyNavyClub.

The bridal bouquet was created with over 30 cabbage roses, we used peach juliets, pink ohara, white ohara, and we added in some candy bianca roses to give the bouquet a bit more of a blush tone.

The maids carried bouquets of roses, spray roses, and pink hydrangea. The bride bought a pink cameo brooch for each of the bouquets. Perfect!!!

Halos of spray roses and pink hydrangea were made for the flower girls.

The ring bearers and flower girls may have been the cutest kids I have ever seen, next to mine of course!!

This vintage white blanket chest was given to me by the bride for our big altar arrangement. I loved this piece, sorry this picture is blurry but I just had to post this design.

The cocktail hour was staged to look like an old war room. The wedding was managed, styled, and executed by Megan from EventsInTheCity. Working with this event planning company is a true pleasure, and I am always so happy to be on an event designed by either Megan or Laura.

Vintage letters from members of the military were placed on the cocktail tables for guests to read. We decoupaged the vases with atlas’s provided by the bride. This room was full of lovely details but we will save those for when the professional images arrive.

Vintage glam was the look of the reception, this space was so BEAUTIFUL!! I could not get over how gorgeous everything was.

This was a stunning event and one of four we designed for this past weekend.

This was one sexy wedding!!!

Many thanks to all of you for the wonderful comments and support yesterday. I am so excited about the future of our business. Evan just came home with concrete, he is going to try and make me vases. My new partner is going to rock!!!

Desi and Rachel

Today we delivered wedding flowers to cousin Rachel who is my niece by marriage. The flowers were designed by the brides sister Desi, who is also my niece, designer Morgan from Petals and Hedges  and by me. This was a true team effort.  Desi is the landscape designer at Morgans garden center. Not only does Morgan have the garden center she is also a floral designer for weddings and special events. We have been referring Morgan and Desi for events when our studio is fully committed for a date. Spending time together designing ensures that my referral is solid.

Desi made this amazing bouquet for Rachel with just a little bit of help from me, Aunt Holly. The flowers and foliage’s Desi and Morgan brought from the garden center were fabulous and they certainly added just the right touch of magic to our designs.

The cafe au lait dahlias from California were truly amazing this week.

Vintage cake plates and old wooden boxes were used to hold the centerpieces.

It was fun to help with this very special wedding and really fun to design with Morgan and Desi.  I am sure they are still in shock from their chaotic visit to design in my studio. While we worked on Rachel’s flowers they saw me deal with the kids, do consultations, work on a photo shoot in my own yard, and supervise 3 other weddings. Yep they got a serious birds eye view of life at HollyHeiderChappleFlowers.  Without further delay here are some of the designs “in the cooler.”

This fabulous bridal bouquet is beyond beautiful, four different types of cabbage roses were used to create the bouquet. It is so full and so large that this is about a 1/4 of the bouquet. I have never seen or smelled anything like this bouquet. LUSCIOUS!!!

This wedding features the softest pinks, creams, and peaches with just a pop of silver.

Soft vintage blues and greens were used for our Oatlands wedding, our Sunday bride is going orange, yellow, and green.

Here is one last photo of a super sweet little bouquet that was left over from yesterdays photo shoot.

Hope you have a great night, and keep following we have some pretty big news we need to share!!!

Nothing fills a space or creates drama in a room better than vaulted or elevated centerpieces. Here is a great photo from one of our events just a few weekends ago. The centerpiece was elevated on a clarinet vase. The vase was filled with limes and the floral arrangement was placed on the top of the vase. The arrangement is created on a clear plastic plate that is not visible when it’s placed on the elevated stand. The plate is easy to transport and easy for guests to take home. When we have 10 or more tables we like to design at least two styles of  florals. If the event space has high ceilings or is very large we often suggest that half of those designs be elevated. This gives the room visual movement, in other words the eye is seeing ups and downs throughout the space and not just a sea of monotony. When a bride wants to walk into her reception room and get that big “ahhh” moment then elevated designs are almost always needed.

Elevated designs can easily be seen from a distance. This above image shows a room that is designed with half high and half low centerpieces. The low centerpieces were designed in 12 by 12 vintage boxes, they were truly large and substantial designs but they simply do not show up in this room shot. The below images are the actual centerpieces from the room shot above.

The disadvantage to elevated designs is the cost, elevated designs are often more expensive than low designs. The height and stature of the vase much be matched by the design, meaning the centerpiece and the amount of flowers used will be substantial. Another disadvantage to the elevated design is that your flowers will be in the air. This is great as guests walk into the space or as guests look around the room once they are seated, but for those guests seated at a table with an elevated design the table itself is often void of flowers. This can be resolved by submerging flowers into the stem of the vase if you are elevating with glass vases or another option is to create small satellite designs.  These small additional designs can be placed at the base of the vase or stand but  this of course adds more cost to the flowers but resolves the issue, this route is by far the fullest and most lush alternative.

High or low centerpieces? The decision you make will have a big impact on the look of your space.

All images taken by photographer Genevieve Leiper.

As you know, I often rename my brides. This happens when there is something that stands out about the bride or the theme of the wedding. Here are the images from Library Brides wedding. Erin is a teacher who loves and adores reading and books. If I remember correctly the groom also enjoys this passion. Erin first came to me with the idea of incorporating old books into her wedding, and she also mentioned that she wanted to use library cards for her place cards. A few days after Erin left my studio I found fabulous little vintage library card catalog boxes. These were found at OnAWhim antiques, my go to spot when I need inspiration. Hence Erin became my Library bride. In addition to doing the flowers for Erin we were hired to set up and style her wedding. Which meant we took all of the amazing things Erin created and found, mixed those with our props, and created one fabulously cohesive and polished look.

Erin carried sahara roses, peach juliet roses, cafe au lait dahlias, white ranunculus, white majolica spray roses, dusty miller, silver brunia, and clematis vine. Small paper flowers and paper leaves were added into Erin’s bouquet, all of the boutonnieres and corsages, as well as the centerpieces.

Maids carried clusters of white dahlias, clematis vine, peach stock, sahara roses, spray roses, dusty miller, and greens.

We created large arrangements for the altar, lined the aisle with petals, and hung shepherds hooks with mason jars to decorate the ceremony area.

The bride created paper wreaths and decoupaged monograms. Because the bride had so many lovely details to display this was another reason why she wanted us at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers to style the event.

Designer Debbie was responsible for the set up of this wedding and I knew I could trust her to style everything beautifully and of course she did an amazing job. I loved the place card table she designed.

The tables were absolutely inspired. Each design truly made my heart sing!!! I was so thrilled with everything when I arrived to check on my bride.

21 tables each designed differently, that is a serious amount of designing on site but we succeeded.  Erin’s wedding was truly a perfect event. We loved being involved from theme development to execution, we knocked this out of the ball park.  Wait until you see what else we did this weekend!!!

One of the best things about my job is that I get to change styles, looks, and elements daily. This weekend we are doing flowers for our Rock n’ Roll bride, our Ritzybee bride, and our Library bride.  Each wedding has a unique theme and color pattern. We have been working with some of these girls for months so we can hardly believe that their wedding day is finally here. While my brides are out rejoicing with their families on this last night of being single, we are diligently designing for our girls. Here are some of the beautiful things “in our cooler.”

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As you can see we have a wide mix of colors and styles.

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If you look closely you can see little notes on some of the designs, this helps up to keep organized. This also prevents us from forgetting to do any of the finishing touches. There is done, and there is really done!!

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A very big treat in the flower shop this week was the cafe au lait dahlias. I brought these in from NYC and they belong to Library bride. I have little vintage library drawers for her centerpiece displays. This wedding is beyond romantic.

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This bouquet is almost done, black roses will be added to this tomorrow and a few more black details. This is for our Rock n’ Roll Garden bride.

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Here are centerpieces waiting “in the cooler.” We have lots more to create in the morning and lots to install on the job sites. We will be in DC, Leesburg, and Bluemont tomorrow. Happy wedding eve to our brides!!!