Shedding some light

We are constantly looking for new media to introduce into our clients' decor schemes and one of the most fun and attainable elements we've been incorporating for the past year is lighting fixtures used in non-traditional ways.

At this fall wedding in Philadelphia, raspberry lampshades hung over alternating tables where low centerpieces were used. These shades did double-duty in bringing down the high ceiling and bringing the color palette up from the tabletops into the guests' sight lines. Furthermore, since The Pennsylvania Academy for Fine Arts doesn't allow candlelight in the building, lampshades offered a creative solution to a potentially problematic element.
Photo by Laura Novak

In Chicago, these giant damask patterned shades stood on 10 foot battery powered lampposts to frame the band and add visual interest to the front of the room (a place many people forget about when planning their decor!).
Photo by Rosalind Weddings, Lamps from Heffernan Morgan

At the same Chicago wedding, this 20 foot chandelier created a custom ceiling treatment over the Peninsula Hotel's dancefloor.
Photo by Rosalind Weddings, Chandelier from Heffernan Morgan

Finally, at one of our recent NYC weddings at Gotham Hall, we custom-built these black chandeliers to act as the vases for the funky flower domes and holders for the color-dipped pillar candles that adorned the tables.
Photo by Barnaby Draper

Wedding Planner In Training!

Hi everyone! Just a quick introduction about myself before I give you my wedding opinions. My name is Ashley and I am interning at Lindsay Landman Events this summer. I have learned so much in such a short period of time and I couldn’t love this internship experience more! I originally hail from Florida and am doing my best to take on all things New York City, mostly with Allison’s and Lindsay’s help. Thus far, my favorite things NYC include Crumbs, Shrek the Musical, the jewelry vendor located outside J.Crew on 19th and 5th, the 6 train (which is the only subway line I have mastered), and the fact that I can get any type of food I want delivered to my door from Seamlessweb.com. Really, my only complaint of NYC is the Post Office, and finding an efficient post office in my opinion is like finding a needle in a haystack… no matter where you live.

Now onto my bridal find:
Generally, I am obsessed with all things footwear…. to the extent that I searched for the perfect pair of rain boots to coordinate my outfits during rainy days. For me, finding the perfect pair of shoes at an affordable price will probably take precedence over many aspects of my wedding (excluding the dress hunt). Needless to say, I was thrilled when one of my favorite shoe shopping resources, Piperlime.com, added a “Wedding Chic” section to their site a few months back. Piperlime has styles for brides and bridesmaids from various designers, at all price points and colors! Being a frequent customer of their website I can testify the shoes always arrive on time, in their impeccably kept boxes, and their descriptions of the shoes are always spot on. Its really fashionable footwear made easy! Even better they have pulled adorable pumps, sandals, flats, and flip flops so if your wedding is in the city or out by the beach they have a shoe for you! I only wish I were getting married to wear either of these…..

I’ll keep dreaming.

Places, please!

One of my favorite decor tools is the use of the escort card table as the big opening "wow" for any event, particularly a wedding. This is the first thing that guests interact with when entering an event - they can see, touch and feel it and more importantly, they take a little piece of it with them when they leave. So, when given this opportunity to really reach out and hand your decor to your guests, why miss the opportunity and place a paper card on a standard table?

For this funky wedding at Gotham Hall, we filled a lucite table with water and flowers and then had black acrylic escort cards hand calligraphed with white writing. From the moment the guests grabbed their cards, they knew that this wouldn't be an ordinary wedding - and it wasn't!
photo by Barnaby Draper Studios

At this spectacular vinyard wedding, guests found their names etched on mini chalkboards embedded in a tiered plot of grass. When they arrived at their tables, the coordinating table numbers were also written on slightly larger chalkboards. This echoed the Raphael Vinyard's tasting room in which wine selections were written on large chalkboards. Design by Claire Bean.


For a winter wedding at Oheka Castle, we used cranberries to support escort cards on wooden sticks. A key element here was to create the cards so that they could be removed from the sticks easily so that guests wouldn't have to carry a skewer around all night!
Photos by Christian Oth Studios

Finally, vintage New York postcards were calligraphed with table numbers and inserted into calligraphed envelopes and placed over clear crystals covered with clear plexiglass in the glorious Rainbow Room. This table was one of our most well-received ever as the many out-of-town guests loved having a New York keepsake to take home.
Photo by Lina Jang