A look back: Remembering a beautiful bride and a beautiful wedding

I was heartbroken to learn of the devastatingly untimely passing of one of our beautiful brides, Holly Kensicki Lind on March 1, 2011. We planned and designed Holly and Keith's wedding in September 2007 just as Holly was recovering from a series of surgeries and treatments to fight the cancer with which she was diagnosed shortly before her engagement to her grade school sweetheart Keith. It was a pleasure to work with her and her lovely family and I always marveled at her strength, fortitude and positivity throughout the planning process. On her wedding day, Holly was beaming, healthy and strong and my team and I loved being part of an amazing celebration.

I am so lucky that part of my job is to get to know my clients intimately and personally, to know their families and their stories, to share a time of excitement and joy and to be a partner in creating one of the most significant days in their lives. As much relief as I feel when we have successfully completed a beautiful wedding, I truly miss the daily interactions with my brides and grooms. They are as much a part of my life as I am a part of theirs.

In the years since Holly and Keith's wedding, I have shown examples of their menus, programs, flowers, cake and lighting to dozens of clients. I have told the story of how Holly's sister's invitation was tampered with somewhere in the post office and instead of receiving the beautiful invite inside, she received an envelope full of magazine clippings and fraudulent credit cards. I have altered the way I order chocolate covered pretzels for a candy station since the 8 pounds of pretzels we ordered for their wedding was so much that it came in a garbage bag!

I remember their wedding, and all of my clients' weddings, much like I remember my own - a blur of excitement, a whirlwind of activity, a rush of joy and, when it is over, a satisfying sigh of relief. I remember Holly as a beautiful bride on her first day of being someone's wife, as she basked in the glow of her own happiness and the happiness of others. I wanted to share these photos with you so that you, too, can know her [or remember her] just the same.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Keith and to their daughter Avery.












Thanks to Sarah Merians for retrieving these photos from her archives for this post.

"Dinner by Design" Signature Tabletop

Over the course of the past few years, it has been so much fun to bring a little taste of what I do in New York and around the globe back to my small Pennsylvania hometown. I have been able to design some truly spectacular weddings in and around the Scranton area and work for and with people I have known my entire life, but in a very different context. So, it was truly an honor when I was asked to create a design to display at the Lackawanna Historical Society's inaugural "Dinner by Design" event at the beautiful Scranton Cultural Center. Twenty event industry pros created tabletops to feast and fete and I was truly blown away by my fellow exhibitors' creativity and ingenuity.



As you know, I just adore black, so naturally I used it as the basis for my tabletop. I chose yellow as my accent color because the event organizers had asked me to talk about my design inspiration, and something in my mind brought me back to one of the first events I ever created... it was an art opening for a young experiential artist who created a sculpture out of opaque yellow acrylic and displayed it in front of the Flatiron Building. The piece required you to stand inside of it and allow the sculpture to transform the way in which you view the world (specifically the intersection of 23rd Street and Broadway/Fifth Avenue) from within it. The interactive nature of it speaks so profoundly to the interactive nature of event design as it is not beauty that you look at, but that you interact with as you eat, drink, dance and celebrate.



To me, this is the keystone principle of event design and what makes it a unique art form - we create beautiful environments for living, but unlike interior design where the goal is to provide an environment that can be enjoyed over an extended period of time, event environments must be experienced in their entirety within a matter of hours, but leave you with a feeling that will resonate for a lifetime. Many years after that art exhibit closed, I remember the feeling of standing inside that yellow acrylic box and marveling at how the cuts and angles made it look like the Flatiron Building disappeared and like 5th Avenue and Broadway went on forever.

Are you sorry you asked about the yellow? Oh, wait, you didn't ask. :-)

Anyway... some fun details: I wanted to create a branded table setting without ordering custom china, so I used a vinyl transfer with the flower from my logo to accent the salad plates. Since I am totally hot for the vinyl transfers and couldn't stop myself, I also used the vinyl on shiny black bellini chairs from Taylor Creative to create "placecards" for some of my imaginary dinner guests (do you think that Demi, Ashton, Brad and Angie would actually have dinner together?? Probably not.). Instead of a runner to add color to the black cloth, I designed a tablecloth with inverse pleats and then carried the yellow fabric through on the napkins and accent pillows. Finally, I created intimacy around the table with a custom built glossy black frame and netted curtain panels - since the color scheme and design components are graphic and bold, a softer environment around the table made it a bit more inviting.







Many thanks to Julie Jordan for many of these photos and to Party Rental, Ltd. for the china, glassware and silverware.

Cheers,

NewlyWish at The Wedding Party

Each year, hundreds of newly engaged women flock to The Wedding Library/Martha Stewart Weddings' Wedding Party event at the New York Palace Hotel, so, of course, my friends at NewlyWish wanted to make a splash and show off all of the fabulosity to be found through their boutique registry service. So, it was fun as always to collaborate with founder Amanda Allen to use some of the NewlyWish merchants' beautiful tabletop items to create a spectacular dinner table display. That was the easy part, though, since the challenge was how to show the diversity of merchandise that is available through NewlyWish - particularly those things that you wouldn't put on a dinner table! Luckily, inspiration from an upcoming wedding design dawned on me and I realized that we could style mini merchandise vignettes in simple white cubbies from Taylor Creative Props to give the brides a little taste of all of the many beautiful things that NewlyWish has to offer.

The look was bold and whimsical which made it pop in the busy room with many other wedding vendors on display - just what we hoped for! Once again, I am grateful that Amanda invited me to work with these beautiful items and style them into something unique and special. It was great fun to be part of their amazing success at such a prestigious event and I am already looking forward to our next project together!



The entire tabletop was inspired by these amazing black and white plates from Bobby Berk Home. They are bold and graphic and just downright fun, so I had to just go with it and make the whole table fun! Those black and white anemones, literally standing on end in a bed of hot pink roses, couldn't have been a more perfect fit for this look.



I layered a charger plate, dinner plate and salad plate to show off more of NewlyWish's merchandise, but also to have a perfect way to include the pink napkin in a way that would create contrast between the plates.



I had a really good time making these escort cards... I had that roll of cute black and white patterned ribbon in my ribbon drawer for at least two years, and was elated to finally have the perfect spot for it (shown around the centerpiece container as well). What can I say? Crafts make me giddy!



Adjacent to the dinner table display were the vignettes displaying all that NewlyWish has to offer.





Ever since my last NewlyWish styling gig, I've been obsessed with styling food, so I really wanted to make sure to show as many vignettes as possible with real food components to offer context to the merchandise.



As soon as I thought of the cubby idea, I knew that rolled towels had to be involved. Since my gym doesn't inspire me to work out, at least it inspires me to design!

All photos by Sofia Negron

I know you must be hungry to see some new wedding work on here, so sit tight... the season is upon us! Just a few more weeks til I'm in full swing and it will be weddings galore. Til then, let me know what else you'd like to hear about and see - I am always in need of some blog-writing inspiration!

A Spectacular Summer Spiderman Soiree

I almost said no when my wonderful former clients Ines and Augusto asked if I would design a Spiderman-themed birthday celebration for their 4 year old son Diego. The truth is, that beside planning relatively low-key parties for my own kids, I really don't generally work on children's parties. But, when Ines told me that she wanted something as fabulous as their wedding was 5 years ago (one of my very favorites!), I couldn't turn it down. Needless to say, I am so thrilled that I was able to reunite with this family for a beautiful, warm and absolutely adorable party. Bring on the birthdays!

Diego is a major Spiderman fan, but as you probably already know, I am not much for over-theming any sort of party (even for a 4 year old - sorry folks), so I used Spiderman as my inspiration for this laid-back, red and blue bash. I found a gem of a location in the Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island. We used the lawn of a beautiful mansion and erected a dining tent and two small activity tents. Since it was a gorgeous August Day, guests didn't even use the mansion except for the restrooms! My favorite part of the whole design was the styled dessert and favor table, but it wouldn't be a great kids' party without the requisite bounce house, face painting, build-a-bear station, and of course, the web-slinger himself... Spidey!


Guests were welcomed to the party by a pair of skywalkers.


The sweets and favor table featured all red and blue candies and treats along with thematic toys like Spiderman bouncy balls, bubbles and custom-made pinwheels.


I used lucite trays flipped upside down as well as styrofoam boxes wrapped in white paper to give some dimension to the surface.


What could be more perfect than red velvet cupcakes?


Kids could take these gable boxes to store all of the loot they collected throughout the party.


The birthday boy undergoes his transformation with the real Spidey looking on!


Imperfections in the tent ceiling were disguised with inexpensive paper lanterns in the theme colors.


Simple summery centerpieces were perfect for a kids' party with a lot of adult guests.


All great parties have great cakes - and this one was done by Cakes by Mona.

All photos by Sharon Schuster.

This party was nothing but fun and I look forward to my next kidtastic celebration! Wonder Woman, perhaps?

A Look Back: A Magnificent Indian Wedding

I can hardly believe that it has been a whole year since my amazing experience in Bangalore, India planning and designing Rushmi and Vikram's wedding. It was a project that was exciting and challenging in so many ways, from the solo international travel to learning the religious and cultural customs of a South Indian wedding to deciphering the services and talents of wedding vendors who had never pushed their own limits in the ways I was requiring. I know for certain that this whole project could have fallen flat had I not had the unwavering trust of the bride and groom and both of their amazing families. They took a risk by hiring a White, American, Jewish New Yorker who had never even been to Southeast Asia to plan a traditional Hindu wedding with a little Western flare, and I will forever be grateful. It was an experience that made me a better designer, a better planner and a better person. I eagerly await the next opportunity to explore a new part of the world and a new part of myself. You can read my original posts here(1), here(2), here(3) and here(4).

Take a look at this beautiful couple and enjoy...


This is the traditional entrance gate at the front of the property. Notice that in between the two doorways we hung a large mirror to ward off evil.

The venue is called The Tamarind Tree, aptly named for this magnificent tree just inside the entrance gates. We enhanced its beauty with strands of lights and hand-strung flowers.

This is the view of the front of the property from the entrance. The pond was home to hundreds of floating lotus flowers on lily pads and the steps were lined with varying sizes of pillar candles. The large structure was set for cocktails upon guests' entrance, but was later transformed into the dancing area.

The groom was escorted on the patterned petal aisle by the bride's brother and followed by her family. In the background, you can see the mandap created with gold, red and amethyst fabric and adorned with strands of jasmine.

During the traditional Hindu ceremony, the bride is showered with rice under the mandap.


This is the interior property at a glance. Because of the rain that followed soon after this photo was taken, we don't have any pictures of how this looked when the sun went down and the candles and the lights started to glow. The head of my Indian production team, upon first seeing it all illuminated, said it looked just like heaven. That was just one of many times that the amazing, talented, and earth-shatteringly hard working Geethanjali Santosh melted my heart. The structure on the right with the flower strands on the poles housed the dinner buffets. The rotunda in the center was where the band played and the structure on the left was the bulk of the dinner seating.



The long tables were adorned with a landscape of pieces... tall branch arrangements with hand-strung orchids and hanging candles, low vases with red mokara orchids, small glass with submerged orchids and floating candles and low pave'd collections of vibrant flowers.

Bangalore's first ever 6-tiered wedding cake was decorated with chocolate by Henna artists to create the authentically Indian motif.

The bride and groom's fathers embraced under a sky illuminated by fireworks. This was my first time ever facilitating fireworks at a wedding - and it was amazing!

Amidst 500 guests and a lot of excitement, this wedding was warm, intimate and full of love. Strangely enough, I found that to be true of my entire experience in India. Certainly, it is busy and crowded and a tad chaotic, but I cannot remember ever being embraced as warmly and openly as in my time in Bangalore. Now, it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

All photos by Sudhir Ramachandran

Happy anniversary, Rushmi and Vikram! And a very happy and healthy New Year to all of you!