The Full Bouquet

THANKSGIVING WEEK- OH, WHAT A WEEK

I am not going to say we had a great Thanksgiving week, that would be a bit of a lie. It was however still a week full of blessings and reasons to be thankful, we just weren't as blessed as we usually are. The week started off really well with the arrival of my 2 kids who are currently attending college. With everyone back in the house there was a certain kind of peace, well maybe that is the wrong word, how about comfort.  We did happen to lose a child or two periodically to a flu bug that seemed to be in the house but we managed to fit time in together between the flower orders that were being created for Thanksgiving tables. I love the above piece that was designed for a new customer who also confirmed that she wants me to do her daughters wedding. She also confessed the girls are only in middle school. I am glad to know I have a fresh group of brides growing up every day.

We also received a request to create several bouquets for a magazine. The designs were created and given to photographer  Genevieve Leiper who got them photographed and sent in for possible print.  I was grateful to have peonies in my house the week of Thanksgiving.

We made our debut appearance on the Martha Stewart blog the Brides Guide. Our wedding can be seen here.

On Wednesday we spent time in the shop receiving the flowers for our bride Lara. We never do weddings on Thanksgiving weekend. I try to keep this weekend reserved just for family but I got really tempted with the whole look of the wedding and the vendors involved so I committed to design during the holiday weekend. Baby Grace was a huge help processing the flowers. We also did a whole lot of cooking on Wednesday to help prepare for dinner at Grandmas house.

On Thursday the new Holly Heider Chapple website launched and this was a whopper for us. It took several months of preparation to get the site ready to go live, primarily because I decided to create a new site in the height of wedding season. We will be adding additional information and weddings to the site so it will be a great way to see our most current work.

First thing Thanksgiving morning, I created this design for my moms table that was made with leftover flowers and hydrangea leaves from my garden. Favorite part of the design was absolutely the hydrangea leaves from my garden. The deep burgundy leaves were amazing and a total miracle because they had not been burnt yet by frost.

We finally made it to Grandmas house and everyone was so happy to spend time with their new baby cousin, Clayton.

Baby Grace spent a good bit of the day sleeping, playing with her cousins was exhausting. It seems I don't have any other pictures of the day because everyone was so busy eating.  In addition to the Thanksgiving festivities we had a little trip to the ER with a family member who had previously cracked a rib and the break began to throb and required a trip to the hospital. While I was as the hospital I started to feel very sick and left to go to bed. I woke in the morning feeling not quite right but I had my wedding to design so I hit the flower shop.

Upon creating this beautiful bouquet I headed to the ER. I thought I was having a major medical emergency only to find out that I was having an attack from the same virus my kids had. I thought my gall bladder, kidneys, stomach, and eyes were falling out. Please note I had 5 of my 7 kids naturally so I am not a whimp. This was a whopper.  I got treated for nausea and pain and headed home to bed because I had a wedding to deliver. I could have left this to the flower shop girls because everything was finished and beautiful but I wanted to see the job through. So I loaded up with the girls and headed to the wedding. Here are a few pictures from Sat. event.

We will hopefully see more from this wedding very soon, but I heard it was stunning.

We also got the Christmas lights up and the boys got in a little football.

If you minus out the 3 trips to the ER, the entire family having the flu, and our first Thanksgiving ever without our son Alex, Aunt Carla and Uncle Ed, you could still call this a pretty amazing Thanksgiving week. My absolute favorite part of the week was staying up late and playing games with my four big kids.

This is my whole clan and I took this picture last night just before we headed to bed and just before we said goodbye until Christmas.

What a week!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE COOLER, IN THE OFFICE, AND FAMILY TIME

The energy in my house is perfect right now, all of my kids are home and this is absolutely when I am the happiest.

Our day started with  trip to Eli's preschool for a little pre Thanksgiving celebration.  Big sister Abby got home just in time to visit with us at the school.

Casey, and Kelly, got to check out working in the new office. Our makeover is going to be a huge help. We went through countless emails, ordered flowers, wrote invoices, and worked on the new website which is very close to launching.

Our cooler is holding flowers for two weddings and we look forward to delivering both of these events.

Now that Alex is home our house is full, and I am totally content.

Good night and enjoy the family around you!!

ELODIE IN THE COOLER

This may be the last time you see Elodie in the flower shop, so for a little fun, I threw her "in the cooler." Elodie leaves for France on Tuesday. It will be sad for us to see her go, we have gotten very used to having her here with us. Elodie has been able to apprentice on 23 weddings, since arriving here, just 4 and half weeks ago. That ought to give her a clue about the wedding world.

Today we delivered the most amazing wedding flowers to our bride Katy. We provided full service styling and detailing for this event and I will share all of those little treasures with you on Monday. The above flower basket was one of the many remarkable designs we created for this awesome family.

After we delivered Katy's wedding flowers, we got back to work on our events for tomorrow. I am providing the flowers to 3 lucky brides tomorrow. 

The flower shop girls were awesome this week, and I am so grateful for the creativity they share with me, and I am always grateful for the laughter.

Tonight was a really late work night for us, most of the designers did not leave until after 9:pm. Thankfully they held down the fort while I ran Elijah, Sam, and Grace down to the school for a little trick or treat.

Big brother Alex also just got home for the weekend and he immediately went into carving pumpkins with the little ones.

The flower shop comes in handy when its kid craft time.

Here is our jokester Riley!

Night, night!!

 

A New Baby and "In The Cooler"

This was a typical Friday night for me, until I got the call that my sister was about to deliver her second child. I have four sisters, two sets of twins. This baby coming is likely to be the last of 15 grandchildren for my parents.  I quickly put my bridal bouquet "in the cooler" and headed to the hospital. I arrived just moments after Clayton Heider Van Pelt was born. My new nephew is adorable, healthy, and a sweet little miracle.

 

 

 

Abby made it home from  JMU for the weekend, so we girls had a blast checking out our new baby.

 

This is my daughter Hannah with new baby Clay.

We also of course have a busy wedding weekend ahead of us. Our designs range from very traditional to very organic in nature. Here is a quick trip through the cooler and then Auntie Holly is off to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out these amazing orchid dahlias from the one and only Don.

 

 

 

What a great day!

 

The Last Few Days

 

I have missed a few blog posts, it has been beyond wild in the Chapple house. We are busy getting brides down the aisle, preparing for the weddings of the fall, meeting with 2011 clients, and we are packing up some of the Chaplets and sending them off to college. Our oldest Alex left last week, we have been through this before so it is painful but not gut wrenching. Packing up Abby to go for the first time could definitely be called gut wrenching. In spite of all of this family drama we have continued to produce some amazing designs. 

The bouquet above was created for Lindsay, it was designed with coxcomb, callas, dahlias, orchids, zinnia, roses, hydrangea, stock and scabiosa.  The wedding took place at the famous Whitehall Manor.

 

 

 

Here are some great shots of the remarkable Reget's at work. I love taking pictures of photographers on the job.

 

Our centerpieces were rich and vibrant and I loved the silver accents.

 

We added these pink crystals to the designs just before we headed to the wedding. I have had them in my shop for over a year and I have been dying to use them.

 

 

A huge round of applause needs to go to Jason at Market Salamander, he created this cake to look like the couples dog. His work and attention to detail was outrageous.

 

 

The real wedding cake was as lovely as the grooms cake was unique. I was amazed by the talent of this young baker. He is top notch and I bet we see him on TV some day.

 

We also provided these happy yellow designs to a wedding on Sunday. We had an event on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday last week, all while we were getting the kids off to school.

 

This bridal bouquet was created with yellow billy balls, white cabbage roses, creme de la creme roses, green hydrangea, green berry, and yellow spray rosees. We also added some white hydrangea from my garden.

 

We used football mums to create mini bouquets for the moms.

 

We have lots of amazing events coming up, I am in awe of what we will accomplish over the next few months; all with a broken heart. We miss you Abby this one hurts big time.

 

This is a photo of Abby ( she is on the left in the stripped shirt) just as we headed off to college.

 

Here she is in her new home away from home, at JMU.