Beautiful Bouquets

One of the most intimate details of a wedding design is the bridal bouquet.  I really think of it as a fashion accessory for the bride, and since brides tend take their dresses pretty seriously, I take the task of creating the perfect accompaniment to their fashion statement to heart as well.  I think about the color, size, shape and seasonality as well as how we will accessorize the handle so that it is the ultimate finishing touch.

I have had many, many favorites over the years, but I wanted to share some recent beauties that have made me {and the bride!} a happy girl!

This huge, elegant cascade included standard and garden roses, calla lilies, phaelonopsis orchids and hanging amaranths. It was a major statement piece for this bride, but she will agree that a bouquet like this is quite heavy! If you want to carry a large bouquet, you better tone those arms before your big day!

*photo by Roey Yohai Photography

This was a delicate and petite bouquet made only of calla lilies and french tulips.  The bride's gown was quite slim, so the bouquet echoed the silhouette.  We tied the handle with powder blue ribbon to coordinate with the ceremony decor accents. 

*photo by Roey Yohai Photography

Peonies are amongst the most requested wedding flowers, but their availability can be quite limited. Since this bride's one and only bouquet request for her November wedding was peonies, we crossed our fingers and toes, praying for availability at the very early point of the winter peony season.  Good thing we got lucky because this round, lush bouquet is made solely of pale pink peonies. 

*photo by Allan Zepeda Photography

This gorgeous bride had a penchant for succulents, so the design of her bouquet began with those unusual blooms.  We added a variety of peach flowers including garden roses, calla lilies and dahlias for seasonality and tied the bouquet with fabric from the bride's gown as well as a sentimental locket showcasing a photo of her beloved grandfather. 

*photo by Brian Dorsey Studios

For this spring wedding, we featured white anemones along with peach garden roses and added white lisianthus to create an airy, whimsical feel.  The handle of this bouquet was covered with fabric from the bride's mother's wedding headpiece and was tied with a piece of blue velvet ribbon for her "something blue."

*photo by Christian Oth Studio

Even with all of these bouquets in a similar color palette, it is easy to see the amazing variety of styles and personalities you can create with just a small bunch of blooms.  

:-) Lindsay

All's Well That Ends Well

So, a few of you may have heard about a little bit of drama that came our way this past April when a long-beloved venue in New York City closed due to structural damage just days before we were to produce a wedding there.  Yup - not a typo - DAYS.  The media got wind of it and so did many friends in the wedding industry and, needless to say, there was a lot of buzz swirling around us and this very lovely couple, Lisa and Keith, who were really just trying to mind their own business and get married.

But, sometimes things do not go as planned, and sometimes we need to dig deep and call upon our thirteen years of event planning know-how to make it all happen.  Here's the very abridged version of how it went down...

Monday at 11 PM - news story breaks (on every news outlet in NY!) that Angel Orensanz was evacuated during an event due to a structural problem

Tuesday at 7 AM - Department of Buildings closes the venue with no further information and I start calling venues to see who has availability for that Saturday

Tuesday at 3 PM - Venue visits begin... Cedar Lake, Williamsburg Savings Bank, Skylight One Hanson all fit the bill, but the bride does not "connect" with any of them

Wednesday at 10 AM - Visit to The Highline Hotel... sparks fly! Book it!

Wednesday at noon - calls to new lighting, sound and staging companies, calls to tent companies, re-jigging of rental orders (4 different rental companies on this beauty!), calls to transportation companies

Thursday at noon - new contracts signed, timeline re-worked, new floorplans made, all vendors advised of all changes

Friday at noon - changes continue.... through 6 PM when we had to mandate a stop on all additions, changes and tweaks

Saturday at 8 AM - load-in, set-up and.... GO!

It was a busy and stressful few days, even more so for the bride and groom and their families than for me and my team, but we were all burning the midnight oil to make it happen. We were very lucky to have the support of a lot of great vendor partners as well as many friends throughout the industry. But, here's the good news.... or the great news.... despite it all, this was a spectacular wedding.  Dare I say, maybe even more spectacular than in its original iteration.  The stakes were high for us - especially with the whole wedding community and the press looking on - but from that first moment on Monday night when I heard the news and knew what would have to be done, I had the utmost confidence that we would pull it off. And I'm pretty sure we did (phew!).

My motto is and has always been "all's well that ends well" and I have to admit that no wedding has ever proven it more than this beauty for Lisa and Keith:

Bride in Monique Lhullier holding one of my favorite bouquets we've ever made!

Our escort mirrors re-imagined with a floral accent on top.

Floral chuppah with crystal strands to add sparkle... not to mention a fully glittered rose gold runner from The Original Runner Company!

Tiered program booklets with a floral motif inspired by the couple's spectacular 

invitations from Ceci New York.

I can take no credit for these super-chic yarmulkes... the bride ordered these all on her own!

The Highline Hotel cleans up pretty nice I'd say!

Hundreds of taper candles made for a major wow factor.

Half of the tables had champagne sequin cloths to the floor and the other half 

were wooden tables with copper sequin runners.  

The bride's amazing mom embroidered every napkin with each guest's

 name - these were the placecards!

Ridiculously gorgeous cake by Ron Ben-Israel

All photos from the talented Glen Allsop of Christian Oth Studio.

All's. Well. That. Ends. Well. Period.

Robin and Paul: A Modern-Meets-Classic NYC Wedding

I met Robin about five years ago when she was the maid of honor at her big sister's wedding - which we planned! Who knew that her date that night would be the guy she dragged into our office all of these years later to talk about planning and designing their big day?



Robin's bouquet was made of all white cattaleya, phaelonopsis and cymbidium orchids to complement the sweet whimsy of her Vera Wang gown.




Paul wore a matching double white mini cymbidium boutonniere.

Robin had her eye on Tribeca Rooftop for her venue since her sister looked there all those years ago, so that was in the bag from the start. It was a perfect fit for this wedding which had many of the traditional "big, fancy wedding" components, but the sleek, loft space created an ideal framework for Robin and Paul's modern aesthetic. We maintained that balance throughout with simple choices like mixing traditional round tables and modern square ones, building luxe, full floral arrangements atop contemporary lucite stands and formal place settings with unusual china and glassware accents mixed in.





Tables alternated between these huge, lush pieces and trios of architecturally constructed pieces. Featured flowers are dahlias, roses, mokara, phaelonopsis and cymbidium orchids, all in magenta and amethyst tones.



To add a little whimsy, we created three different styles of cocktail napkins, each with its own "fun fact" about the couple.

We also got a lot of inspiration from the invitation that Robin and Paul selected from the beautiful Bella Figura collection. They chose a fun liner which we played with and modified so that we could carry it through various elements in the wedding.



On the right, the Bella Figura invitation is featured. On the left is the Save the Date that our artist Heather hand drew and painted just for Robin and Paul. It is a one-of-a-kind art piece paying homage to NYC!



These square menus fit perfectly into the square charger plate, so from a distance it looked like a custom plate!




Sincere thanks to Christian Oth for providing all photos

Robin and Paul were such a pleasure to work with - easy going, fun and open-minded. It will never cease to amaze me how the actual mood at a wedding truly reflects the personalities of the guests of honor... the day and night flowed with extreme ease and effortlessness, which after months of planning and many hours of setup, gives me unspeakable joy to watch.

Wishing you a happy and healthy Easter and Passover,