This might be the prettiest preppy pink peony wedding in the world!! Say that ten times and your my hero. Lisa and Nicks wedding is loaded in amazing details designed and planned by Laura from Events In The City, and images that make me squeal with delight taken by Tracy Timmester.

My Holly Heider Chapple bouquet of pink peonies and ranunculus is pretty darn yummy as well.

The maids bouquets featured spray roses, green mini hydrangea, green hypericum, ranunculus, and peony. Oh and tulips, I see tulips!!

I just loved everything about this wedding including the adorable ring bearer.

The couple married at the brides home around a beautiful swimming pool. We created floating designs for the pool and I will always remember how much fun Evan had anchoring those into the pool. I will also always laugh hysterically as I remember the story of Evan driving home from this wedding after the clean up of the event. Evan had multiple castaway frogs on the floating flower arrangements and they shrieked, screamed, and cried, for an entire hour in the car as he made his way back home. The story  also included loud music to drown out the sounds of the frogs and a near car crash when one of the frogs decided to jump on his shoulder. I know this adventure made Evan question his new found career.

The reception tent featured three different styles of linens and centerpieces. I had a lot of fun pulling out all of my white containers for this wedding. We used white globes from IKEA as elevated stands, white milk glass vases, and white compotes as our containers.

Don’t you just love these linens together? Laura truly designed something special and unique with these choices.

The final beauty of the evening was a perfectly styled wedding cake!!

Happy married life Lisa and Nick, I loved designing your wedding flowers.

A Holly Heider Chapple Flowers bouquet made the bouquet page in the new Southern Weddings Magazine V5. We are so proud of this truly delicious bouquet and many of the flowers are from our property. I called the bouquet delicious for several reasons. First off, I have never seen anyone use the tulip poplar flower in a bridal bouquet. The tulip poplar is the beautiful pale yellow exotic bloom in the middle of the bouquet, it has an orange band around the bloom.  It’s very exciting to know that the flower holds and that it works amazingly well as a cut flower. It takes a creative opportunity like a photo shoot to make me reach outside of my comfort zone and snag blooms I have never designed with before. For that reason alone I love photo shoots. I have lived here with that tree for 25 years and I never once designed with it before. The flower held amazingly well, in fact it lasted for days. The bloom was firm and waxy, almost like a cymbidium orchid. The bouquet was also called delicious because when I reached up into the tree to harvest the flowers it rained sugar water all over my face and arms. I literally stood under the tree sipping dew drops that tasted like honeysuckle. That moment was like a spiritual experience, one of those moments when you so totally know you are living right, and doing what God intended you to do.  The feverfew, scabiosa, and the lovely dainty white mock orange flowers were from our gardens as well. The mock orange and the tulip poplar were on our land when we came here. 25 years later I am still putting them to a delicious use!!!

This beautiful photograph was taken by Cyn Kain, and you can expect to see more images from this shoot in Jan.

Now that the wedding season has slowed down, I have been on fire working diligently with designer Rachel Merkle of Miss Merkle Design.  All of Holly Heider Chapple Flowers is getting a face lift and at my age and after 7 kids this was super needed. It will be a bit longer before I can show you my new website but I wanted to share with you some of the fun accomplishments we have made. First the new tag line for our flower shop will be “Gathered and Styled by Holly Heider Chapple.”

Look at these amazing labels Rachel created for us…

Rachel came up with the phrase “gathered and styled by Holly Chapple” and I think it totally embodies who I am, and how this studio designs.  So you will see a lot more about this in the next few weeks. Because I am actively planning our floral designer conference called the Chapel Designers that design became the most pressing. Although Rachel and I loved the old Chapel Designers logo, I felt a more grown up sophisticated design would be appropriate for this very eclectic group of designers.  The new Chapel Designers logo also refers to my ability to gather and style, and the Chapel Designers are one of the most important things I have ever gathered or styled. I LOVE my Chapel Designers and I could not have come this far in one year without the help of my amazing designer friends.  I hope you like the direction our company is headed in and I hope you will meet me in NYC.

Rachel Merkle you are the bomb!!!!

Last July, our studio had the pleasure of designing wedding flowers for Victoria and Michael’s weedding at River Farm in Alexandria Virginia. The wedding was beautifully photographed by Brian Tropiano, and perfectly styled and planned by Amber and Emily of Amber Karson Events. 

Cafe au lait dahlias, scabiosa pods, pink ohara cabbage roses, sahara roses, white patience cabbage roses, spray roses, seeded euc, dusty miller, and silver brunia were used to design the wedding flowers.

Parasols, fans, and chilled towels, were used to cool the guests from the record breaking heat. This was one of the hottest wedding weekends I can remember.

Beautiful calligraphy by Meant To Be Calligraphy.

This was such a lovely wedding!!! Happy married life to Victoria and Michael and happy anniversary as well!!

Photographer: Brian Tropiano Photography // Event Design and Planning: Amber Karson Events // Venue: George Washington’s River Farm // Florist: Holly Heider Chapple Flowers, Ltd. // Catering: Windows Catering // Calligraphy: Meant to Be Calligraphy // Musicians: Sage String Trio // DJ: Bialek’s // Dress: Delphine Manivet from Lovely // Bridesmaid Dresses: Joanna August // Rentals: Perfect Settings // Transportation: Sunny’s Limo

FINALLY, today is the day that I get to share these outrageously beautiful images taken by Cyn Kain photography!!! But most importantly, this work is also featured in the current issue of Weddings Unveiled, and you can bet we did the happy dance when we realized this shoot would be featured in print. I love Weddings Unveiled Magazine and I am so honored to have my work featured with them again. The creative shoot was designed and planned by the oh so talented Janice Carnevale of Bellwether Events. Janice was inspired by the children’s story, James And The Giant Peach, which was written by Roald Dahl. I am so happy Janice chose me to be the floral designer on this shoot.

Honestly, when I see this magazine and our pages I just want to jump up and down and scream. I just full out love the designs; I love the color and the texture. I think this look is simply edible.  My oldest son was home for the weekend, and of course the magazine was laying wide open to our spread. I said, “Hey, did you see my latest publication?” and he said, “Wow I saw that and I was hoping it was yours because if it wasn’t someone had clearly stolen your look.” He then confirmed the pages were awesome. That was a very proud moment to realize that my son thinks I have a particular look and one that belongs to me.

I used protea, pin cushions, cabbage roses, ranunculus, tulips, bleeding heart, sweet peas, unique foliages and pieris japonica. The colors ranged from peach to red, and the look was devine. Fancy ribbon that was gathered in NYC was used for the bouquet.

The shoot was photographed at the historic Oatlands Plantation. The gardens at this venue are beyond compare. The brides dress was from Chaviano Couture, and the grooms attire was found at Southern Beaus and Nordstroms.

Hair and make up was by Wendy Rae.

The bridesmaid wore a dress by Jenny Yoo from Bella Bridesmaid, and a hairpiece designed by the Garter Girl.

The boutonniere was bound with washi tape.

The table scape featured insect covered chairs from On A Whim antiques, china, napkins and glassware from DC Rental, table and gold chairs from Party Rental Ltd, stationery by Kathleen Burlew and flowers by me, Holly Heider Chapple Flowers.

Love this image because it shows the one special branch of quince I got from my friend Morgan at Petals and Hedges.

Janice hand-stenciled this runner with a famous quote from the book. I loved the look of this!!!

Janice found small insects that we inserted into the designs. The little bugs were a big part of this children’s tale.

Love the idea of bundt cakes at a wedding, this area looked super cute.  The cakes were designed by Fancy Cakes by Leslie.

Love these garters by Julianne Smith of the Garter Girl.

As you can clearly see everything was perfect for this shoot.  Working with Janice on this shoot was a complete joy, and it was a huge honor to have our work featured in Weddings Unveiled Magazine.

Photography: Cyn Kain Photography // Design & Styling: Bellwether Events // Floral Design: Holly Heider Chapple Flowers // Hair & Make Up: Wendy Rae // Stationery: Kathleen Burlew // Venue: Oatlands Plantation // Cakes: Fancy Cakes By Leslie // Additional Styling & Props: A Daily Something // Bridal Gown: Chaviano Couture // Bridesmaid Dress: Jenny Yoo from Bella Bridesmaid // Jewelry: Tigerlilly // Bow tie: Southern Beaus // Socks & Suspenders: Nordstrom // Tulle head piece & garter: The Garter Girl // China, Napkins & Glassware: DC Rental and thrifted // Table & Gold Chairs: Party Rental Ltd. // Insect Chairs: Oh A Whim Antiques // Flower Cart: Old Lucketts Store //

This morning I went to the garden to cut. As I gathered my blooms in this incredible heat, I shed tears of true joy.  New ideas are forming and taking root in me. I hope they flourish and grow.

For the last two weeks designer friends have been joining me here at my home or in DC. We have been designing together and it has been incredible. All of these designers are part of the group the Chapel Designers, which is the organization of wedding experts I started two and half years ago. Together we have done some amazing things. Because of the relationships I have developed with these designers I am growing, learning and evolving. This growth is not only as a floral designer but as a person, a mother and a business owner. As many of you know I proclaimed this year, my year of learning and education. I have traveled to the Caribbean to celebrate 25 years of marriage, to NYC to be with my Chapel Designers, to Holland and Belgium to study design and recently to California to study under one of my all time favorite designers, although I have traveled many places this last year what I learned right here in my own back yard may be the post powerful of all.

Growth, change, and attitude are my responsibility. I gotta make it happen and I have to have the courage to leap!!

Many thanks to my wonderful friends and designers that visited or designed with me and my family over the last few weeks.

 

Courteney Lambert of Courteney Lambert Florals.

Isha Foss of Isha Foss Events, Daevid Reed of Daevids of Norfolk.

David Beahm of NYC who tried to teach Sam how to draw a covered bridge and who was willing to climb into the cooler with us in spite of the fact that he is one of the top designers in NYC.

Trish Van De Merkt of Grape Vine Floral,  Sam Chapple of Holly Chapple, Alicia Schwede of Bella Fiore Events, Alexandra Jusino of Exquisite Designs, Me, Chuck Graham, and David Beahm.

A visit to Heiders Farm Market owned by my daddy!!

Chuck, Alexandra Jusino, and Alicia.

Alicia Schwede from Bella Fiore Events and the Flirty Fleurs Blog.

Chuck Graham Editor of Flirty Fleurs and floral designer at Blooms and Grace of Holly Chapple.

A special thanks also to designer Laura Ritchie from Events In The City who allowed me to have one of the most beautiful and real conversations of my life today.  I am so thankful for my designer friends and for the encouragement and support they continue to give me.

Laura Ritchie, Christie Mcquire, and Megan Pollard from Events In The City.

Two years ago we lost our family practitioner to pancreatic cancer. Just a few months ago his trusted friend and staff member Sally brought to our home a thank you card. A card that my husband had written to thank our wonderful doctor. This card had been saved by our doctor for many years. In this card Evan thanked our doctor for his love and care of our family. In that moment I knew how much a thank you card meant.  Yesterday, I received several thank you notes that made my heart swell with pride and love. We are doing a great job here, my brides know it, their guests know it, and our MOB’s are mighty happy as well.  Here are some of the comments we received from last weekend’s weddings!!!

I woke to this email from our Friday bride….

Seriously?!  You truly outdid yourself.  I have always been a huge fan
of yours, but everything you did for us VASTLY exceeded my
expectations.  I was absolutely blown away – my bouquet, the
centerpieces, the mantle, the chuppah – everything was PHENOMENAL!!!

You and Evan are both SO amazing, and we cannot thank you enough for
everything.  Not only were our flowers more beautiful than we ever
could have imagined, you are the most wonderful people to deal
with…. We are so incredibly grateful.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything, and thank
you for making our wedding SO beautiful.  I just adore you two.  <3

xoxoxoxo Kelly

then a few hours later I got this….

No matter how many times I say thank you to you two it just doesn’t seem to be enough…  Here’s a teaser pic since I don’t have our photos from Kate yet.  Love you guys!

Just a bit later I got this note from my brides mom, under subject matter “A Gigantic Thank You to Our Floral Fairy Godparents!” .

Dear Holly and Evan,
     We’re sorry this is several days late but we took a few days vacation after the wedding to unwind!   We just wanted you both to know that words cannot express the shear joy a parent feels when their child’s dreams come true.  As parents you and Evan must know exactly how we feel.  Our daughter had only three wishes in regards to her wedding; #1 was her Vera Wang “Eliza” dress, #2 was that Holly Heider Chapple would be her floral designer and #3 was her choice for photographer/videographer.  Realistically, we were not optimistic when we realized how far away you and Evan really were; but we did not mention this to her.  To be honest, we probably would have driven to Leesburg if we needed to, but it was never and issue.  From the beginning you both bent over backwards to make this happen!  In an era where mediocrity seems to be the norm, your willingness to go above and beyond for our daughter (4 states away) was amazing.  Evan never skipped a beat and you were right there too to make sure her every wish and dream came true.  Your work is sheer MAGIC!  Your floral designs, from the bridal bouquet (1st with your signature sprig of ‘Holly’!) to the Chuppah and Reception groupings, captured Kelly’s personality and floral favorites as if you had known her all of her life. Our only regret was that you, Holly, were unable be with us to witness Kelly’s reaction when Evan open the bouquet box for her, and she saw her bridal bouquet for the first time!  I do believe Evan enjoyed this as much as I did!  We hope to meet you both in the future.  We owe you a visit after all of the driving and hard work that you both did for us!  A mere thank you does not accurately express the gratitude we feel for your exemplary customer service, hard work, willingness to go that extra (how many??)miles and artistic genius! But Thank you, to you and Evan, for being our Floral Fairy Godparents and making our daughter’s dreams come true!
Regards,
Jane & Wayne 

You can bet I was crying when I got these emails. Kelly married on Friday at the Inn at Perry Cabin which is 3 hours from our home. Because I was busily designing the Saturday bridal bouquets I stayed behind and let Evan and Whitney deliver the wedding.  In actuality we jokingly called Kelly, Evans bride. Evan said he had hand selected her for me and that he knew in spite of the distance that this was a wedding we had to be a part of. Evan was in love with Kelly from the very first chat and he knew we had to work together. Knowing that she truly wanted our studio made this so worth our journey. Receiving these notes made me so incredibly grateful for the business we have created. Kelly was the first bride that Evan helped from start to finish and now he understands that complete sense of fulfillment.

Here are some pictures of the designs we created for Kelly and of designer Evan getting his amazing chuppah built on a windy and potentially rainy day!!!

Here is Kelly’s bridal bouquet…

and you may have noticed that I started a new signature with all of my bridal bouquets. If it’s a Holly Chapple bouquet, the bouquet will have a sprig of Holly tucked into the design. Kelly was the first bride to get our new signature Holly Chapple bouquet. Tucking in that little sprig of holly was so much fun, I have been planning on starting this tradition for many years.  On this particular day I rounded the house, saw the bush, and knew that Kelly’s bouquet was the day I would start this new chapter for our designs.

Go Evan go!!!!

We were truly blessed to work on this wedding!!!

Only a few short hours later I received this….

Holly,

I wanted to send along this picture that someone took this weekend, this is the look on my face when I walked in to see the table settings and the cake floral.  I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am for all of the work that you and your team did for our big day.

You made my dream wedding a reality, a fairy tale that everyone can’t stop talking about.  I am so unbelievably lucky to have worked with you and wanted to thank you quickly before I run off to the honeymoon.  Your thoughtful touches in my bouquet will be remembered forever.

I just am beyond words and hope you know how much the work you do shapes moments in people’s lives.

All the best to you and your family,

Jen

This was Jen’s bouquet and it was a stunner, it featured Belgium lace that I got while traveling in Europe.

Here is one van of the two van loads that headed to Jen’s wedding in DC.

Then bride Abby who received this bouquet sent this….

Holly,

Thank you SO much for providing the flowers for our wedding this past weekend!  Everything was beautiful, and we received numerous compliments on the bouquets, centerpieces and welcome table arrangement.  We loved the colors and choices of flowers and knew that when we first booked you we would be thrilled with our wedding flowers.  Thank you for making it easy to just trust you and your expertise and be completely confident that the flowers would turn out exactly how we envisioned.  We couldn’t have asked for anything else – they were perfect.

Thank you again!

Abby Lillis and Tom

To say that I am pleased, thrilled, inspired, and super proud, would be a huge understatement, but I am most certainly grateful our work is appreciated!!!!

Meredith and Jason married last fall and our floral studio Holly Heider Chapple Flowers brought the petals. This wedding was a complete pleasure to be involved with. The lovely ceremony and reception took place at one of my favorite Loudoun wedding venues, Whitehall Manor. The incredible photography was taken by Amelia Johnson and seeing Amelia’s work just makes me giddy. The images from this day are so incredibly lovely. It was an honor to have her capture my work.

Meridith’s bouquet featured white dahalias from Don, and cafe au lait dahlias from Don, sahara roses, bunny tail grasses, and golden amaranthus.

Maids carried bouquets of white hydrangea, pheasant feathers, pods and berry.

Elevated designs featured a mix of the days flowers.

Happy married life Meredith and Jason, I was so happy to be your floral designer.

I have been designing flowers for 20 years. During those 20 years I have been busy raising children and growing a business. Never once did I imagine that this little side job of mine would become a full time job or a career that would support our whole family, and never once did I ever believe that my little flower career would give me good cause to travel.

This is my year of education, of travel, of indulgence, and my year of thanksgiving.  I will always be grateful to Laura from Faith Flowers for creating this trip to Belgium and Holland. It was most certainly time I learned from the masters. I have fallen in love with this place and the people I am meeting. I can promise you when I go to leave here my heart is going to shatter. I am meeting new and remarkable friends, friends I will most certainly not want to leave. Two of those friends are Isabel Gilbert Palmer and Gudrun Cottenier and they are the founders of the Green Academy Of Belgium. I am absolutely loving my time with them.

Our day started bright and early at the gates of  Geert Pattyn beautiful home. Geert has a remarkable studio at the property that was once owned by his parents. The property was at one time a working tobacco farm. All of the buildings have been converted into studio space, living space, or storage space. The property now boasts amazing flowers where tobacco once grew. Many of the gardens were started by Geert’s father. Geert is an amazingly talented designer and I loved his gentle soul. I could truly feel that he was a part of his land and also a part of each piece he designed. Geert most certainly is an artist!!!

Just for fun we walked down the lane to Geert’s house.

Floral art is everywhere on the property. Everything is pruned, manicured, or displayed in a very artistic way.

I love these sisters from Atlanta!!

These frames will soon be full of sweet peas.

Geert

This fabulous building was once used for drying tobacco. In this building Geert displays some of his most clever art projects. If you want to see whats inside I suggest you sign up for this trip next year. I am keeping many of my discoveries top secret!!

A dress made of corn husk. I have seen several of these floral gowns before and I have never cared for any of them. The idea always seems more artistic or odd than beautiful. This gown was everything, artistic, unique, but also truly beautiful. The gown looked like it was created with the the richest of fabrics. This gown was so worthy!!

After a full morning with Geert and another lovely meal, we headed to Gudrun’s house.

This is Gudrun, she is one of our instructors and one of the founders of The Green Academy. This picture was taken yesterday during lunch. I’m finding it really hard to get pictures of our instructors, they are moving about so fast as they diligently take care of us.

Gudruns studio is also attached to her house, this work/live environment is something I totally relate to and most certainly appreciate.

This is Haruko and Isabel. Haruko is a Japanese/Belgian designer and she was our instructor for the afternoon class.  Isabel is the other founder of The Green Academemy.

There were hundreds of non floral elements for us to design with and I am keeping all of those top secret as well. Don’t worry Chapel Designers I will share them with you in our secret forum!!!

Here are those sisters again!!!

This is the structure I made for my bouquet. If you want to know how to do this…. come to Belgium and visit with The Green Academy, Faith Flowers will be happy to bring you!!!

Making this design today and spending time creating, was incredible. I can’t believe how much I have learned in just one day. I am in awe with all of the new things I have learned, my brides are going to be very happy I invested in Holly Heider Chapple Flowers.

Another lovely design and a very lovely lady.

The night ended with more fine dinning at the very lovely restaurant Auberge du Pecheur in Sint- Martens-Latem.

Pretty impressive day!! Now I’m off to bed, I have to be up in 5 hours to hit the floral supply wholesalers. I am going to lose it there!!!!

I am doing a lot of work to get prepared for this wedding season and it’s grueling. I work really hard, seriously, if I had known that it would be this hard to be a business owner of a floral design studio, I may have attempted another career. I truly fell into this career with the belief that it would be, oh so much fun to play with flowers. I could not conceive in my earlier days how big this business could or would become, and I most certainly did not ever believe I would be managing designers, blogging, emailing, and handling social media. Its been 20 years since I invented this career and things have most certainly changed. With all of this work and responsibility, I am so thankful for those moments when I am truly creating something out of my passion. I love how a design flows out of me, how my intuitive placement causes me to sigh or moan. I love when I find myself doing the happy dance because I have gotten my design just right. It sounds silly I’m sure, but that’s really what it’s like when I get a piece right, it’s a very enriching feeling. This feeling of joy is only matched when the images come in. YES!!!!!!! I love seeing my pretty things beautifully captured.

Recently I had the pleasure of working on a fabulous shoot. The images were photographed by Katie Stoops and the shoot was designed by the girls from Events In The City.  The pictures truly brought tears to my eyes.  When I see my work in photos, I realize I am good at this, I really am, and today I am super proud of that. There are days when all of the hard work is so worth it!!! So although I will I spend the rest of the day selling, contracting, emailing, blogging, and fighting for the blooms that I need for this weekends weddings, I am happy, content, and pleased with this beautiful work!!

I am currently obsessed with flower head pieces so creating this was very exciting, getting the photo was even better!!

Splendid

Clever

Stately

Yummy!!

Details

Love

My favorite light pink cabbage rose!!

Many thanks to the following artists that volunteered their time and artistic abilities to bring this beautiful story board to life. Being involved with something so beautiful always makes my heart sing!!

Photographer: Katie Stoops Photography
Event Designer: Events in the city
Venue: The Goodstone Inn
Makeup: Natalie Gordon of Avenue 42
Hair: Hair by Giselle
Cake: Macaroons by OCakes
Dress Designer: Monique Lhuillier from Carine’s Bridal in DC
Garter Girl: The Garter Girl
Flowers: Holly Heider Chapple
Shoe Designer: Steve Madden
Stationery: Paperzest
Veil or Hair Accessories: Carine’s Bridal in DC
Prop or Furniture Rentals: DC Rental
Rentals: white couch & vintage pink velvet chair Rust Vintage Rentals
Calligraphy: Meant To Be Calligraphy
Dress stylist: Gabriella Lehimdjian from Carine’s Bridal in DC