Wow, Wow, Wow, is what I thought when I saw the first images from Katie and Aaron’s wedding. Actually I was thinking Wow, from the moment I met this bride.  Katie came to her first consult with her sister and during that time the girls gently unwrapped two of the most lovely hat pins I have ever seen. The pins were enormous as far as hat pins go, the length of the pin was as long as most of my bouquets and the pin itself was like a huge vintage brooch.  Both girls looked at me and said ” do you think you can do something with these?”  At that moment Katie became my hat pin bride, and we had a theme. The pins belonged to Aunt Mary, who was clearly one seriously stylish lady and all of her lovely antiques became a part of the wedding. As our conversation developed we dreamed of centerpieces in vintage containers and even a place card display of vintage brooches. The girls headed back to look through the boxes of aunt Mary’s treasures and I dreamed of doing the flowers for my hat pin bride.

I used silver brunia, dusty miller, anemones in purple and hot pink, cabbage roses, seeded euc, blue thistle, blue privet berry, and ranunculus in the bouquet and of course one silver hat pin.

The brides sister carried the second hat pin.

The wedding took place at a church and then the reception followed at the Hillsborough vineyard. I am going to show you every picture I have, because they are all so amazing. Kristen Gardner did an incredible job capturing this wonderful Loudoun wedding. I am so excited about having these images, seriously these photos are outrageous.

My bride is perfect, awesome, stunning…

and she is super cute also.

We gave the couple our “Hollyish” boutonnieres, this is what we call our bouts when we take it up a notch and create mini pieces of floral art.

My next favorite detail of the night was our brooch place card display. We gathered up Aunt Mary’s brooches and vintage lace to decorate the seating card display. I could kiss Kristen Gardner for getting me these images. I am so excited about sharing this with you.

In addition to Mary’s brooches we bought smaller pins in NYC to help decorate our “hat pin brides” place card board.

The reception room featured lace table runners and crystal bowls from Aunt Mary. I filled in just a few gaps from my own personal antique collection.

Perfectly fabulous right? Recipe: a wonderful and loving couple, a bit of family history to make everything sentimental, an awesome venue, beautiful flowers, and an incredible photographer to record the day. This Loudoun Wedding is a true beauty.

HC

It's that time of year again!! This weekend is the 21st annual Leesburg Flower & Garden Show,  and we hit the streets with our amazing blooms. I started my flower design business 21 years ago at this show. I look forward to seeing my friends and my customers who have visited me over the last 21 year.

Mr. and Mrs. Neilsen come from the city every year to see me. It has become a huge tradition and I look forward to our annual visit.

I also love seeing the Burke family I met them when their kids were still babies.  This family has become one of my biggest fans. See that pretty little girl in the middle, I bet I get to do her wedding flowers someday.

If you are hoping to see me at the show, I will be there bright and early on Sat. morning. I load in at 6:00 in the morning because my space is front and center. We are also excited about our weddings this Saturday.  We are dividing up the work now and figuring out who is going where, so I may be at a wedding on Sat. but I promise to be at the show all day Sunday and as much as possible on Sat. and like I said, if you are dying to see me you can pop by on Sat. at 6:00 a.m., I can always use an extra pair of hands.

See you at the garden show….

HC

 

My worlds are truly colliding. Did you know I grew up on a horse farm/ nursery? As a child my mother ran a horse farm, and my father ran a nursery or garden center off of our farm. During my youth we all rode horses and helped in the garden center, and we always went to the steeplechases. Oddly enough out of the 5 sisters, 3 of us are" flower girls" and have flower shops or garden centers. The other 2 sisters followed my mothers heart, and they are serious horse women.  I love all things about horses and I love going to the steeplechase's but my world has become all about weddings and children so I have been missing the horsey events of my youth. As a child my parents often collaborated on huge landscaping designs for some of the areas biggest horsing events or shows. My parents designed the entire riding ring for the Washington International Horse Show  for many years, and that show was also my very first professional flower arranging job.  No starting small here… In addition to this my sister Kristin has been designing the Middleburg Classic Hunter/Jumper Show for many years. We are a seriously hard working family, and horses and flowers have always been a part of our life.

It was with great excitement and pleasure, that I agreed to provide the flowers for the 86th running of the VA. Gold Cup.

That's right we Holly Heider Chapple Flowers are the flower sponsor for the VA. Gold Cup and we couldn't be more thrilled.

This is a seriously exciting opportunity for us and a wonderful chance to work with some of the biggest corporations in DC, MD, and VA.  If you would like to secure a tent or tickets to the Va. Gold Cup. please contact them here.

If you need flowers for the VA. Gold Cup please fill out our on-line questionnaire on our website, or go straight to the flower order form here.   The last time I provided flowers to a tent at the VA. Gold Cup, it won the best dressed tent award. Now all of the tents can be equally, amazingly dressed. See you at the races!!!!!

HC

Last Spring I had the pleasure of providing these bright and happy yellow designs for Brittany and Greg. The wedding was another wonderful Loudoun County wedding that took place at the Briar Patch Inn.

Maids bouquets were created with mini white callas, and yellow billy balls. The bouquets also featured looped lily grass.

The bridal bouquet featured yellow tree peony, yellow roses, mini callas, mums, freesia, billy balls, and cream toned stock.

Event styling and design was done by Lisa Shulz of the Posh Planner.

The amazing photography was done by Genevieve Leiper.

Lisa designed a beautiful space, half of the tables featured white linens and white flowers. We brought large white carnation balls were showcased on the white tables.

The yellow tables had a popping yellow linen, and my rocking bright yellow centerpiece. We used yellow football mums, yellow roses, yellow orchids, yellow billy balls, yellow lily, and yellow carnations in these pieces.

I love the way the china changes it's look when placed on the yellow linen. This was so pretty…

Paper products were done by Christina Barbour owner of Paperzest.

The cake and cupcakes were made by the amazing Rocio Diaz.

I love, love, love, the look of this table.

This was a nice bright happy thought for today…. I love the things we do here at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers.

HC

 

We are certainly starting the season off right with some really fun and unique concepts. I always find us doing things that normal florists would never find time to do. Today we designed with Aunt Mary's hat pins, her vintage brooches, and her old lace tableclothes. We also designed in an old overnight bag, and in our amazing decoupaged vases. Yep, our cooler is rocking tonight.

Above is the maid of honors bouquet for one of our weddings. Only the bride and maid of honor get one of aunt Mary's hat pins, and let me tell you aunt Mary must have been one stylish lady, because I have never seen hat pins like this. The pin itself was almost a foot long she must have been wearing one serious hat.

Here is the bridal bouquet, and I know my bride is taking a peek right this minute. BTW it's so much better in person, you are going to love your bouquet. Can you see the little peice of rosemary poking out of the bouquet? Rosemary is used in remembrance, it is one of my favorite little things to do.

We also used a combination of mine and aunt mary's crystal bowls.

Pretty, pretty, corsages…

and our place card display was made with vintage brooches. Yes we are more than happy with the look of this wedding.

We even used cherry blossoms to create the altar arrangements.

Our orange weddings is a bright and happy wedding and we will be taking this to DC.

This bouquet was created with orange ranunculus, cream de la cream roses, combo roses, orange spray roses, green hypericum berry, green viburnum, white cabbage roses, white ranunculus, and mini green hydangea. Amazing!!!

We love our decoupaged vases.

Daffodils from my garden.

We had a great and successful day and we even slipped in two new clients. We did awesome this week!!

HC

 

This lovely bridal bouquet was created for my bride Meg. I used white peony, blue scilla from my garden, white ranunculus and believe it or not nandina berry in bud form. This berry turns a bright red as the season progresses.

Maids carried white peony, white phlox, and a few hits of the blue scilla.

The couple married under a chuppah that they made. We provided a garland of green italian ruscus, lemon leaf and plumosa grass.

We added guinea hen feathers to the bouts.

The very lovely and charming photography was done by Kate Headley.

Happy Friday, see you tonight for "in the cooler"

HC

Believe it or not, I cried over this bouquet!! Last April I created this amazing bouquet for my bride, Laurie. It’s hard to believe it has been almost a year since her wedding. It was the weekend of the Leesburg Flower and Garden Show and before I hit the show, I went into the garden to get my white lilac. Perhaps it was the sheer beauty of what I was creating, or the symbolism of making a bridal bouquet with my precious white lilac that had me in tears. I am not quite sure what pushed me over the edge, but I was indeed crying. I planted that lilac almost 18 years ago. I found my true love for flower design over the lilacs and the Leesburg Garden Show. The bouquet was also featured in Get Married Magazine last year.

The bouquet was created of white lilac (from my garden), sahara roses, white mini calla lily, white peony, and white stephanotis. Laurie brought me tiny crystals to insert into the bouquet and extra beading from her gown, which I used to wrap the stems.

We designed altar pieces with white callas, and white flowering branches.

The reception was held at my Whitehall, yes secretly in my dreams I am the owner of Whitehall.

This wedding also introduced me to the amazing talents of photographer Katelyn James. I just adore this fabulous artist, not only for her talent, but for her spirit, and her commitment.

A big huge shout out to Laurie, who made her own centerpieces. Stunning!!!

This Loudoun wedding was a beauty!!

Holly

On May 7th of last year Ashley and Nathan married at Whitehall Manor in Loudoun County.  The day was totally blessed with not only a lovely couple but a host of amazing vendors. Lisa Schulz of the Posh Planner did the styling and planning, Bob Updegrove was the photographer, Whitehall Manor provided the catering and the surrounding beauty and I, Holly Heider Chapple, provided the flowers.

The bride carried an all hot pink bouquet of peony, roses, ranunculus, spray roses, and orchids. The accent color of the day was black so we added black florets and black feathers to the design.

The aisle was lined with hot pink petals and hot pink pomander's.

Centerpieces were hot pink carnation balls elevated on glass pilsner vases.

I love this picture of the very tired flower girl…

but the ring bearer is wide awake.

This was a happy and wonderful wedding to work on.

Holly

 

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

 

Over the last few months we have been gathering fun antiques and props for upcoming events. We love, love, love, finding that special something that sends your event over the edge. Feel free to contact us if there is anything you need, if we don't have it, we can probably find it!!!

My latest and most favorite find our these sweet little silver platters and bowls. The base of the platter has been turned into a chalkboard. We know these will come in handy on guest book and place card tables. In fact we are trying to find enough to use them for table numbers. We LOVE this idea.

These sweet little tin urns are going to be a lovely touch to some of our garden parties.

These miniature milk glass vases have been added to my outrageous collection of vintage containers. They are so small I can use them on the top of a cake. We are dying to use these. Speaking of milk glass have you seen our collecting?

We've also been buying bling, lots, and lots, of bling.

These are hair pins that we found in NYC. Next time you see them they will be in the middle of one of my bouquets.

We even bought earrings that we will convert into adornment for our bouquets.

These little beauties are antique curtain fobs. These will be used in bouquets or to pin up place cards. Fabulous idea right?

We also have been practicing our decoupage moves. We are excited about using these containers next week.

These library card drawers will be used for my "library bride." We will fill them with flowers or mini bud vases. Yes I think we are off to an incredible start. Many of these items were gathered right here in Lucketts at On A Whim Antiques.

Holly