Photoshoot at The New Haven Lawn Club with Carla Ten Eyck, Datura, White Dress by the Shore and Jennie Fresa
Last Tuesday I had the fun opportunity of modeling for Carla Ten Eyck + Team on a photo shoot they were doing at the New Haven Lawn Club (which is super dreamy by the way… all the unique rooms and spaces, plus that checkered black and white floor!), with The White Dress by the Shore, Datura, and Jennie Fresa Beauty. It was a ton of fun! I wanted to share some of the photographs of all their beautiful work, including the insane floral designs of Datura.
Arn’t they GORGEOUS??
Yeah…. its a shawl… made out of orchids!!
Can you believe this parasol made out of FLOWERS and LEAVES? It was so angelic! I want one!
Jennie Fresa and her studio did all the hair and make up for the day. They did an AMAZING job. Jennie is launching her own product line and used all of her products on us too!
All the dresses, including that fun short little white dress, were all courtesy of our friend Beth Chapman at The White Dress by the Shore. My favorite dress was the red Jenny Yoo one above…. it is so beautiful!! I’m considering ordering one for our rehearsal dinner!
To see more beautiful images visit Carla Ten Eyck, Erik Maziarz, Katie Slater, Graham Scobey and Ashley Scobey.
So.. after this post… its all about my wedding. Stay tuned!
Spring Centerpieces from Blush Floral Design
I spied these really gorgeous spring arrangements on Blush Floral Design’s super fabulous blog the other day and wanted to share! Elisabeth has such amazing style and I love everything she creates. Major talent! I love the lilacs — they are my favorite flower and so in bloom right now. I love when you drive down some of our country roads with the window open and you can smell them!
Inspiring Spring Tablescapes
I think all of us are over winter, and what better way to remind us of what is to come than a little spring tablescape inspiration! All these tablescapes are not only colorful and spring ready, but they incorporate fun vessels like painted tin cans, vintage egg cups, bud vases with chandelier crystals, and green depression glass drinking cups. I also love all the mercury vases and candle holders used in the fifth picture… so timeless and romantic!
Connecticut Weddings 2008: Bouquets
One of my favorite details about a wedding is the bridal bouquet. So much about a brides personal style is wrapped up in one bouquet of flowers! I know photographers love to capture the bouquet in a way that pays tribute to a bride and her style. There is something really beautiful about seeing a bridal bouquet, alone, waiting to be brought down the aisle. These are some of my favorite bouquet shots.
Photographs courtesy of Carla Ten Eyck Photography, Robin Dini Photography, RAW Photo Design, RJT Pictures and Orchard Cove Photography.
Part of the Connecticut Weddings 2008: A Year in Review series
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: A Year in Review
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: Getting Ready
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: Bouquets
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: The Ceremony
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: The Bridal Party
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: Ring Shots
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: The Little Guys
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: The Bride & Groom
- Connecticut Weddings 2008: Party!
Holiday Centerpiece: Carnations
Elisabeth from BLUSH floral design posted a fabulous purple centerpiece on her blog and I wanted to share. I just love these carnations in varying shades of purple. Believe it or not, carnations in bulk (like these) can look so gorgeous. The key is to use a lot and make your centerpiece very full. I agree with Elisabeth, too, that with these flowers the you can use the container to dictate the style of the arrangement. You can use square chunky vases, tall cylinders, old candy jars or medicine bottles, or mint julep cups. Although, I really love the antiqued vessels she used. And the sequin balls? Gorgeous! They’ll sparkle too in candlelight and are a touch of necessary glamour.
If you’re too busy for arrangements this season, give Elisabeth a call. Blush is offering holiday inspired arrangements at a really fabulous price. Get all the details here!
Romantic Wine Miniscape: Part Deux
My creative juices got the best of me a few days ago and after some more discussion with my Destination Connecticut Wedding (look out! That is one of our new packages! ?) bride, I created some more floral mock-ups! We went with some thick and short chunkie vases and two unexpected vessels… my beautiful “Duck” wine decanter from Pottery Barn, and some vintage glass Coke bottles. If you’ve been reading my blog for a long period of time or know me personally, you’d know that I love using unconventional and unusual things in my tablescapes to amp it up or change the definition of the design. I also love brides who are “daring” enough to have a variety of different table designs at their event. The modern wedding is moving away from those tried and true traditions of uniformity and I couldn’t be happier. Why should every table look the same and why do you’re bridesmaids need to all wear the exact same dress? Dare to be different – but be sure to be yourself! Now, back to my mock ups…
Be sure to click on the thumbnail to see the full-sized version!
I’m a big fan of grouping things in odd numbers… 3’s, 5’s, 7’s… it looks more natural and less forced. I also believe in varying the heights of grouped objects as it adds a nicer dimension to a table display. Using my unconventional Coke bottles, we came up with this fun tablescape that would be beautiful on a dessert or sweet table, favor table, or repeated on tall and thin cocktail height tables for your cocktail hour. You can also use single bottles adorned with one flower each as décor on your passed hors d’oeuvres tray(s). It’s a little bit country, totally unpretentious, and absolutely fabulous. You can find old Coke bottles virtually anywhere, and they are dirt cheap to boot. I love the look of the thick, green-tinted glass. I wish I had taller versions of this bottle because the mixture of the short and tall would look spectacular! This mock up is completely gratuitous as it doesn’t go with my Destination Connecticut Bride’s theme, but I wanted to share the idea with you anyway. . .
In keeping with our romantic wine theme, I grabbed my beautiful and sleek “Duck” wine decanter that I purchased from Pottery Barn as a Christmas present to myself last year. It’s no longer for sale, but you could probably find it on eBay or something similar at another department store. What I loved about this vessel is its sleek and continuous lines. The arrangement is glamorous without being pretentious. Its unexpected but it makes sense, which is important in any good design. We decided that we are definitely using my wine decanter in the bar area, along with some wine bottles and an additional wine decanter from Pottery Barn.
On the tables we’re going to use a mixture of low and tall vases filled with garden flowers and roses. The bride wants it to look “polished yet deconstructed” which should be an interesting challenge for our future florist. The low vases will be similar to the ones pictures below, and we’ll use my cork idea to fill tall cylinder vases which will have similar flowers in them.
What do you think? What are some of your favorite unconventional vessels?
Brown & Green Bridal Shower: The Nitty Gritty
I love weddings and I equally love to plan smaller, more casual and intimate affairs. When our clients approached us with their décor ideas for a brown and green shower, we ran with it and really made every penny go as far as we could. With a little preparation, creativity, and persistence, you can come up with equally beautiful and affordable tablescapes for your next event. I wanted to share with you where we purchased all of our vases, crafting items & supplies. I also wanted to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how we pulled all these small details together which I’ll follow up with tomorrow.
But first, our shopping list:
8 chunky square votive candle holders
$1.97 ea, Wal-Mart
5 Tall, thin vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store
3 Tall and chunky mosaic vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store
4 round, traditional vases (not pictured)
1 ea, The Dollar Store
4 packages (two per pack) of 7 inch & 9 inch tissue “bells” (for the kitschy factor!)
$1 ea, The Dollar Store
6 packages of tissue paper in brown, green & hot pink (8 sheets per pack)
$2.29, Wal-Mart
3 packages of stick-on crystal embellishments
$2.29 ea, Martha Stewart Crafts
3 Rolls of ribbon (thick brown, brown/white polka dot, thin green)
$2.97 ea, Wal-Mart
1 Roll of cooking twine
Free, because we don’t cook!
80 stems of fresh assorted mini gerbera daisies
$79.80 (with overnight international shipping!) farmstogo.com
Grand Total: $135 (give or take some cents)
Items used but already owned by us:
Stampin’ Up! Engagement Stamp Set with rubber stamps and ink pads
Cardstock for tags
Hole puncher
Floral wire
Wire Cutter
Circular paper cutter
Fabric glue
Tealights
Not bad, right? The key to beautiful and affordable décor is to shop around for the best bargain. I recommend looking in the stores we’ve mentioned, plus places like Home Goods, The Christmas Tree Shops, Ocean State Job Lot, Big Lots, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Target, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, and your local discount store. These are all wonderful resources and you can sometimes find the “find of a lifetime!”
Shopping for discounted flowers can also be really difficult. To be sure that you order the correct amount of flowers, do a trial run of your centerpiece beforehand. It’s always good to have some extra blooms on hand, as the shipping process tends to eliminate a few beauties from the bunch. Also, if you are ordering the flowers yourself, make sure they are delivered no more than two days before your event (unless otherwise specified by the floral company). You want to make sure that the flowers you’ve chosen are at the peak of their blooming cycle and are as fresh as can be (no one likes half-dead flowers!) If your floral budget is limited you can do what we did – tie the blooms together to mimic a bouquet. I think it’s just as elegant as a lush and full arrangement.
Tomorrow I’ll provide you with some tutorials on how to take all the ingredients we’ve purchased and turn them into our décor!
Part of the Brown & Green Shower series
- Brown & Green Bridal Shower
- Brown & Green Bridal Shower: The Nitty Gritty
Flower Delivery!
We’re doing a fun bridal shower this weekend and our flowers for the event just arrived this morning! I wanted to share with you all the beautiful mini Gerberas we’re going to be using for the place settings. We get such a great discount through our floral vendor that for small affairs like these, we love to do the flowers ourselves. Luckily we only had two casualties, which I plopped in a tea cup filled with water since there was hardly any stems attached. Each individual stem comes wrapped in this petite meshing, and believe it or not, it really provides some security to the blossoms during shipping.
I really do adore these flowers because they are very playful, vibrant, and cheerful. You can use them in a variety of different ways, and what I enjoy most is they can be dressed up or down, depending on the vessel and other flowers surrounding them. They make quite an impact on their own as well. We’re going to group them by color and put them in small chunky vases and tall skinny vases. I also have some pretty thick and tall fuchsia mosaic vases that we’ll use with either the white Gerberas or maybe load them up with pillar candles. We’re also doing some inexpensive “dressing up” of our vases, which I’ll be sure to post photographs an and a tutorial of after the event!
