The Full Bouquet

SEXY BOUQUETS

This lovely bouquet was created for a photo shoot last Spring. I used white phalaenopsis orchids, double yellow tulips, brazilia berry, vendella roses, dusty miller, sahara roses, and seeded eucalyptus.

This bouquet was created with purple lilac, burgundy spray roses, wine colored snapdragons, purple anemone, seeded euc, blue privet berry, and purple hyacinthus.

Purple tulips and stock were used to create this very simple bouquet. Fiddle head ferns were used to give the bouquet a bit of flair. Hand crocheted florets adorned the stems.

All images taken by Julie Renee Photography.

Happy day!!!

WINTER WEDDING- WHITEHALL MANOR-GLITTERIZED

This past weekend Holly Heider Chapple Flowers, had the pleasure of managing and styling Lauren's wedding at Whitehall Manor.  Every wedding we work on is a fabulous learning experience, and this wedding was no exception. Lauren and her mom are both busy teachers. They had some really great ideas for the wedding but they needed help getting everything set up and cleaned up. Since it was Winter, we had a little extra time on our hands and we took on some projects we have not taken on before. Essentially we had wedding withdrawal and time to help. The family had a place card display and candy bar that we did the styling and set up for. The ballroom would also need to be transitioned from wedding site, to reception site, so it made sense for us to stay on and help. 

We also set up the ceremony area by placing programs in all of the chairs, and reserving seats for the family.

This windowsill became the backdrop for the wedding, it leads up to an original huge arching window. This makes for a beautiful ceremony site. It is enormous and when we have a wedding indoors at Whitehall I love to use several centerpieces and tons of candlelight in this space.

Maids carried gorgeous bouquets of dark purple carnations, hydrangea, silver brunia that had been dipped in glitter, purple tulips, purple roses, lavender stock, and purple anemones.

Guests were invited into the original ballroom of the estate for cocktails.  Here they picked up little snowflake ornaments that directed them to the correct table.

We took great pleasure in glittering many of the flowers for this wedding. It was a technique we created over the Winter and fell in love with, so we were dipping flowers in glitter constantly. This wedding became our glitterized wedding.

See what I mean, this window is so pretty.

To create the brides bouquet we used purple hydrangea, purple and blue anemones, black baccara roses, mamy blue roses, agapanthus, and blue muscari dipped in glitter of course. Great grandmothers brooch was used to bind the bouquet. Notice it is silver and blue and could not have been more perfect for this purpose.

The glitter was important because the family had a subtle snowflake theme throughout the event. It was the glitter that made these typical Spring time flowers Wintery. We used dark purple hydrangea, purple cabbages, purple & blue anemones, purple carnations, purple mums,  ranunculus, snapdragons, delphinium, stock, muscari, tulips, hellebores, and scabiosa throughout the evening. Dusty miller and silver brunia were dipped in glitter to make the large centerpieces sparkle.

My silver mercury glass went perfectly with the look of this wedding.

In order to keep the family on budget we repurposed many of the florals. We were busy all night moving flowers from location to location. The maids bouquets, and the altar designs became centerpieces, and the place card table designs became the displays for the buffet.

Our candy bar creation was amazing and we had a wonderful time buying inventory for this space.

We loved designing the candy bar and we will be happy to design these in the future. We now own all of the glass, scoops, and fun little accents that make this type of design awesome.

It was a true pleasure to be with the family throughout the evening as we are typically home fast asleep when the fun is going on. This was a very busy night for us and it was amazing how much time went into setting up this wedding.  Our being here throughout the night was essential as there were so many jobs as florists we needed to do including the major set up and an outrageous breakdown. Our lovely new crystal stands took 3 people an hour to build & set up and 3 people an hour to take apart and box back up.  We often think as rental props as less expensive but moving all of that inventory in and out of a venue is insane. We had a full cargo van of non floral products that included glass, candles, votive's, candy bar equipment and crystal stands.  Flowers arrived in an additional cargo van.

Many thanks to DJ Aaron Hahn who kept the night moving.  Aaron owns the DJ company Matrimonial Sounds. We also had the pleasure of working with photographer Mike Pullum who was a friend and co- worker of the bride.

Many thanks to wedding planner and stylist Vicki Grafton of My Simple Details who came to photograph the evening on our behalf. Vicki is an awesome designer and a budding photographer. Vicki did an amazing job capturing our glitterized wedding. This was another fabulous Loudoun County Wedding.

ANEMONE'S & GLITTER "IN THE COOLER"

We are happy, happy, happy, to be rich in anemone, blue muscari, hydrangea, hellebores, scabiosa, tulips, and roses. To give some typical spring flowers a little bit of winter shimmer we hit our blooms with tack 2000 and glitter. Yes glitter. We had major fun in the flower shop this week preparing for Saturdays wedding. We will be styling and designing lots of different areas, so we will keep you posted but for now here's whats "in the cooler."

These blue muscari were sprayed with tack 2000 and then we rolled them in glitter. The blooms then jumped into my bridal bouquet.

My brides bouquet is so PRETTY!!!

For the maids we added glitter and sparkle to the silver brunia and the dusty miller.

Our bouts and corsages will shimmer as well.

We even crystalized some hellebores, we were full out mad women today glitterizing everything...

Our centerpieces also are wearing lots of... GLITTER!!!

My sweet baby Grace, has also found a new love for all things that GLITTER since her 2nd birthday last Sunday.

It looks like we are going to have a bright and sparkly weekend. I hope you do to!!

ALISON AND CHRIS - THE DUMBARTON HOUSE

2010 has been loaded with memorable brides, and weddings. I am so pleased to finally share the images from Alison and Chris's wedding this past Spring. Alison and Chris married at the Dumbarton House in Georgetown. Many of our current weddings are being held for submission with either magazines or blogs. Saving them and not sharing them on the blog, has become a true act of patience or a certain kind of torture. Yesterday Alison and Chris were featured on the Brides Guide blog with Martha Stewart Weddings. We were so honored to make our debut appearance with Martha Stewart weddings. This wedding was a true team effort, and I was thrilled to be working with Ritzy Bee Events, Kate Headley Photography, Design Cuisine, Chris Laich and The Dumbarton House.  Thank you to all the vendors involved, it was clear when Kates first images came in, that we had created something totally awesome.

I remember every little detail about this wedding. Allison came to me with an inspiration book she had created. The designs that appealed to her were natural but elegant. Due to the fact that she was having a "dessert and dancing wedding" we wanted to keep the flowers comfortable and inviting. Allison had requested a bouquet that was made of all blue flowers. At one point I think we even talked about light blue hydrangea, but that just seemed to pale and uninspired for this very vibrant and beautiful bride, so we decided on dark blue. Allison needed something unique and very special but blue can be difficult because there are not a lot of flowers that are truly purely blue, deviating to dark purple was not an option, so she said. I intended to use dark blue hydrangea, blue hyacinthus, blue muscari, blue thistle, blue privet berry, and blue delphinium. The day before her wedding she stopped by my house to drop off a few last minute items, we kissed goodbye, and seconds later she called saying " hey, you know those purple flowers at the end of your driveway, you can use those also." Ha, that was the money shot, she was giving me permission to use my dark purple lilac, so I whacked it right from my garden seconds after she left.  When allison allowed me to use the purple lilac, I added the purple anemones, and purple monkshood. It was the purple flowers that made her blue bouquet so beautifully blue. We also used dusty miller, rosemary, and seeded euc to add a sage blue or steel blue grey to the designs.  Her bouquet was bound with a vintage handkerchief, in fact I believe I used several different pieces of vintage lace.

 In an effort to keep this unique and totally Allison's, I suggested the use of the sahara rose for the maids bouquets. I needed a lighter toned flower to give her contrast against the blue maids dresses, but I did not want to go to white flowers because that would be to expected. So I used the taupe roses called sahara with a mix of the all the blue flowers of the day, we did use a lot of thistle and dusty miller in these designs. Ribbon for the maids bouquets was purchased on a buying trip in SFO and I was thrilled with the result.

Bouts and corsages are always enhanced here, they are little mini pieces of art. The grooms bout was made with blue thistle, rosemary, viburnum berry and delphinium.

Maria of Ritzy Bee had explained that there would be a collegiate theme and that she and the bride wanted a mix of vases. The bride had gathered a full set of white trophies and a full set of blue vintage vases, and I added old pewter cups, or silver trophies to the mix. I kept the blue and white separated throughout most of the wedding. All white flowers went in white vases with pops of thistle or blue berry and all blue flowers went into the blue vintage glass. In the centerpieces we used all the flowers of the day but we also added, white ranunculus, white tulips, white stock, and white spray roses. There were also awesome buffet pieces in large silver trophy bowls.

One of my favorite pieces of the day was the design I created for the wall at the ceremony site. In true Holly Chapple fashion, I saw the empty spot and designed a piece from my "doctor bucket," In other words I used leftovers.  The piece had thistle, delphinium, monkshood, anemone, my lilac, and aggies. I remember putting in whatever was in the bucket. I loved putting that piece together, I really thought it needed to be there so I just couldn't resist.

I have been waiting months to say this, "happy married life Alison and Chris. We loved doing your wedding flowers."

THE GOODSTONE INN- HOLLY HEIDER CHAPPLE FLOWERS LTD.

Truly, for all of my career I have wanted to do a wedding at the Goodstone Inn. This is the start of my 19th wedding season, and over the last 19 years we have done events at the Library of Congress, The Ronald Reagan Building, The Smithsonian's, DC's famous art Gallery's, and many other amazing venues, but my heart has always wanted to be at the Goodstone.  This past weekend I was honored to provide the flowers for Marianne and Albert. This couple actually became engaged while staying at the inn, so it was only fitting that there wedding would take place in this remarkable setting.

Even though I am a flower-girl, I am half horsey-girl ( my mom is a serious horse woman)  I think that is why this venue has always intrigued me; it is an old horse farm, and the estate's stables have actually been converted into beautiful guest rooms. There are also several cottages on the property for guests to reside in during there stay in Loudoun's horse country.  My favorite location on the property is this ruin of the original manor home. I thought it was the perfect back drop for the ceremony. I seriously wanted to design flowers for the second story windows, much to my staffs concern.

This place is so beautiful, I just wanted to scream with delight the whole time I was on the property.  Many thanks to The Posh Planner, Lisa Schulz, her design and management of this event was stellar. This was one of the biggest weddings this venue has seen, with several different tents or designed locations. We had a ceremony area, a dinning space, cocktail spaces, lounges, and a even a separate area for dancing, all with florals and decor. This wedding was so much fun to work on, and I am truly grateful Lisa suggested me for this event. GO POSH!!!

Our bride loved purple so a color palette of purple, red, and gold was chosen.

The bridal bouquet was created with purple anemone, purple stock, purple callas, purple agapanthus, purple hydrangea, purple delphinium, purple vanda orchids, deep burgundy red peony, and red ranunculus. I inserted just a few gold pins into some of the ranunculus, this gave the bouquet a hint of gold.

The tent featured one seriously long head table and 20 other round tables for guests. This main table featured two elevated designs and a series of smaller designs and bud vases.

Genevieve Leiper photography and her crew of amazing photographers captured every lovely detail. Honestly, Genevieve is the bomb.  Look how rich these photographs are. Go Genevieve, we love you!!!!!!!

I love the detail photographs of the jewelery and the brides shoes. If the picture is missing flowers, I usually skip it for my posts, but I just had to share some more of her amazing abilities. Gen. really knows how to capture the day.

A huge round of applause to Victoria Stiles who did hair, and makeup, Christina from Paperzest and of course the Goodstone Inn. This wedding was truly a dream come true for me, and I am so glad I got to strut my stuff at the Goodstone. I have always wanted to design a ceremony sight that was this grand...

Happy married life Marianne and Albert. I was thrilled to do your wedding flowers.