The Full Bouquet

Friends, FedEx and "in the cooler"

Today was quite the day, we are quickly moving back into full throttle Holly mode. The day started with baby Grace at 6:00 a.m., once I had her settled I packed lunches and I prepared for my first client of the day who was coming at 8:30 a.m. I had a floral design student arrive at 10:00am and then we went into designing. My first piece of the day was Lynda's bridal bouquet. I knew Lynda when she was 7 years old. I used to date her brother and I spent a lot of time in their home when I was young. Her family was absolutely the reason why I wanted a big family. In fact Lynda was the 7th child of the family and I have 7 kids as well. Her family seriously had a big impression on me. I adored this young lady and I recently reconnected with her in SFO. She literally saw that I was in CA. through Facebook and we agreed to meet. It had been at least 27 years since I had seen her but we had a blast meeting as adults. I promised her that when she married I would do her bridal bouquet. Being true to my word I FedExed my first bridal bouquet to CA. Yep California, lets all hope, wish, and pray that the bouquet makes it safely to the little girl I knew and loved.

I created Lynda's bouquet of wine toned callas, black magic roses, and black beauty roses. The bouquet was placed in a paper mache bucket.

We stuffed cotton into the center of the callas to protect the lily, we wrapped the bouquet in cotton t-shirts and stuffed the bouquet into a box. We actually stuck the bucket to the bottom of the box with putty, hoping it would make it more secure. We wrapped cotton and paper all around the bouquet to keep it tight and snug.

We also placed a grooms boutonniere in the box.

Making this bouquet was such a pleasure and I am hoping this story has a happy ending. I am sure I will twitter the results tomorrow. I am so excited for Lynda and I am so glad I got to be a part of her wedding.

These lovely designs of yellow and gray were created for our friend Jamie of Simply Chic Events.  

Next we started designing for tomorrows wedding. During this time my student just watched the comings and goings of a day at Holly Chapple.

These designs will be placed in silver compote bowls

I designed a bouquet of gray feathers, white roses, sahara roses, blue hydrangea, silver brunia, and dusty miller for tomorrows bride.

Huge balls of blue hydrangea were created for my silver stands.

Here are the pieces hanging "in the cooler".

We also had a visit from my man Don.

Don is doing an exhibit tomorrow and we created a centerpiece for his table using foliage's and branches from his property. Seeing Don was such a happy thought. We LOVE Don and I am ready to see him at my door every week. He is my favorite neighbor! Yep I will say it again we LOVE Don!!!!

We also had a visit today from photographer Genevieve Leiper and my past bride Kristin ( a story about her is coming soon.) The house was hopping all day long. Throughout the day I was able to answer questions and share knowledge with my student. We did a final consult at 5:00pm and sometime after 6:00pm my student left. When I had a few minutes to reflect on the day I was blown away by all that had happened.

My last big project of the day was ordering flowers for my sisters wedding. Next week I will be designing in TX. Being the nontraditional bride my sister just sent me pictures of the dresses and the colors of the wedding today ( I could kill her). Yep this one will be the challenge of a lifetime. She keeps saying "its no big deal, you can do this, it's only 25 tables." I can already hear the fighting and the screaming. Where are my scissors? Vases you needed vases?

Happy night!!!

SEXY BRIDAL BOUQUETS

In December I provided photographer Anne Robert with two bridal bouquets.  I made them just for fun and for the sheer pleasure of having more of Anne's amazing images in my portfolio. The first bouquet was inspired by the incredible burgundy hydrangea leaves that were growing right out my front door. I added blue privet berry, red cabbage roses, red tulips, arborvitae from the garden and magnolia to complete the design.

The next bouquet was created with white mini calla lily, white tulips, white cabbage, silver brunia, white cabbage roses, dusty miller, ornithogalum, dried wheat and lotus pods. The bouquet was wrapped in burlap.

I love these bouquets and I love these photographs. Thank you Anne for capturing my work so beautifully.

Happy Day!!!

GIVE ME PEONY

This time of year I have flat out flower withdraw. Luckily for me, I do have some winter weddings this year, and that will make the DT's a little easier to handle. I look outside and see my frozen gardens and I want to scream "give me peonies." Here are some peony creations from last year. I hope they bring a little bit of Spring to your day and mine. The first pictures is a tree peony from my garden. I know, delicious right!!!

White, pink, or red, I don't care, just give them to me. The above 3 images were taken by photographer Anne Robert.

No matter how I arrange them, I simply love them. Photograph by Kristen Gardner.

Photography by The Regeti's.

Every single one of these hot pink lovely peonies came straight from my garden. I literally walked through my garden creating this bouquet.

These maids bouquets featured my hot pink peony and viburnum, also from my garden. Last two photographs by Genevieve Leiper.

Photograph Ron Jones. White and pink peony mixed with white lilac, pink ranunculus, pink lilac and bupleurum.

I look forward to Spring and having peonies in the garden.

HOLIDAY DECOR FOR CORP. AND FOR WEDDINGS

These lovely designs were loaded up and headed to Alexandria for a wedding this past Saturday. Surprisingly enough we still have weddings. Mix the weddings in with the corp. work and we are crazy busy.

Our bride wore this awesome corsage on the sash of her gown instead of holding the typical bridal bouquet. The corsage was stunning and matched the look of the day perfectly. The wedding featured one long king table with 10 very full and lovely centerpieces and then clusters of hurricanes and candlelight. I heard the catering staff was in awe when we left the site.

Our next event was a corp. party for the Immix group. The holiday party is typically held in the corp. offices. The above, all white design, greeted guests as they arrived.  It is amazing to me the way designer and Senior Account Executive Meagan, of RSVP catering, can always transform the space. This year was truly remarkable. Meagan turned the whole entire media center into a lounge complete with furniture and a white dance floor.

 All red designs were added to this completely white space.

These fun white cocktail pieces were displayed outside of the lounge where the walls are red. It was fun to play off the colors of the rooms.

Long contemporary designs flanked the board room tables. I loved the look of these designs. It is fun to be contemporary as well as classic, all in the same weekend.

Three large snow balls were created and placed on clarinet vases with silver balls. The vases lined the hall and the food stations.

Mini snowballs were used for cocktail tables on the opposite wall. These designs were so freaking awesome. I literally woke up in the middle of the night wondering if I could roll carnations in white glitter to make them look like snowballs.  To make certain that the glue and glitter would not harm the flowers I did a test early last week. We also rolled the glass square vases in glue and glitter. I loved this inspired creation.

The file cabinets were converted into an incredible floral showcase.

I left this job just in time to head back to Leesburg for an event at Rose Hill Manor. Here comes the classic vintage look...

Three 40 feet long king sized tables were created for this event. A huge round of applause to corp. planner Beth who came up with the concept. I was in love with the linen and the theme.

Each table featured 3 manzanita trees with hanging votives and crystals. Silver foliage's and dried wheat were our accent colors with the cream flowers.

Each table featured designs in mercury glass vases and designs in burlap. We loved the look of these elements with the black toile patterned linen.

Guests were treated to carriage rides by Harmon Carriages and a lovely dinner provided by Occasions catering. This was such a beautiful event and I was so thrilled to provide these super designs. BTW, I now have enough mercury glass for next years weddings. I am sure the mercury glass is going to be huge next year!

Many thanks to photographer Anne Robert who was willing and available to come out and photograph the tables. I can't wait to see the images from this event. One big problem I have found with corp. work is that there is often not a photographer at the event.

Since Anne was coming out I popped these two bouquets together just to give her a little more to shoot.

Another successful weekend.

KARLI AND RICH- WHITEHALL MANOR-HOLLY HEIDER CHAPPLE FLOWERS-TRACY TIMMESTER PHOTOGRAPHY

Karli and Rich's wedding is complete and total eye candy. Several things help to make this event so amazing, number 1- the couple is gorgeous, 2- you can never go wrong at Whitehall Manor, 3- Vicki Grafton from My Simple Details seriously knows how to design and plan an event, 4- photographer Tracy Timmester did some of the most amazing pictures I have seen this year, 5- there also happens to be pretty flowers, provided by me. Sit back and enjoy, our pretty wedding that was so pretty, it was featured on Style Me Pretty.

The bridal bouquet was made with Don's famous Dahlias, black baccara roses, red coxcomb, red orchids, red roses, and red mini callas. I love the drama of this bouquet.

All of the vendors on this event can bend and take a bow, because this wedding was a total success. Triple "S" stylish, sophisticated, and sexy.