We are so excited to bring to you a series of blog posts from one of our favorite couples (Mari + Josh) from this past June.  Tinica and Chrishaun headed up this fantastic event that started at the 6th & I Historic Synagogue in Chinatown.

One of our favorite elements of our decor for the couple was that one of the little guys in the ceremony dropped greenery and then the little girls dropped petals afterwards…just had a really pretty effect for the entrance!

We were able to use the standard chuppah provided by 6th & I and attached a pretty garland of greenery and peonies along with a gorgeous heirloom quality quilt made by the mother of the bride as a wedding gift!  Wait to see how we reused it for the reception in our next post!

Such a gorgeous Ketubah!!!

Stay tuned tomorrow for more floral and planning details at the reception.  Then we will do a 3rd and final post with some really fun portraits and silly photos that Tom took!!!

(Photos from Documentary Associates)

As we enter Labor Day Weekend, many are filled with thoughts of “This is the last weekend to wear white”!  But oh the joys of being a bride and wearing and using white whenever you want! I started off with these gorgeous shoes today as there is a beautiful wedding featuring them on the Eco-Beautfiul Weddings Blog today! Just click on the shoes to see more.

Below are a few of our favorite white wedding yummies for you to dream about this weekend!

Photo credits/captions of what we did in each photo – Left to Right, Top to Bottom

Elegance & Simplicity, White Delphinium at Thorpewood

Documentary Associates, White Chuppah at Woodend Sanctuary

Elegance and Simplicity,White delphinium and White phaleanopsis orchid lapel flowers at Halcyon House

Cappy Hotchkiss Photography, Garden Rose, white phaleanopsis, lisianthus, phalaeanopsis and peony bouquet at Halcyon House

K. Thompson Photography, Manzanita branches with roses and clear hanging votives at Brookside Gardens

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!!

I forgot my camera once again (wanted to kick myself!) so sorry for the blackberry images!  This past weekend we had a beautiful wedding at the Decatur House.  The bride used our brand new trellis that we recently built that can be used for almost any outdoor wedding.  The trellis can be used as a mandap and a chuppah as well.  The bride and groom chose the trellis since they had both an Indian Ceremony and a Christian ceremony on the same day.  It worked perfectly for both!

The bride provided pretty orange overlays.  We had beautiful and simple arrangements of Dutch green hydrangea, purple vanda orchids and orange roses in cylindrical glass vases for the round tables.

The long tables had the same flowers on long rectangular tables, plus they had submerged orchids in cylindrical glass vases with purple votives.

Congrats to Sangeeta and Clay!

Dreaming about your wedding day but worried how to keep it stylish, fresh and eco-friendly at the same time?  This 4th Installment for Earth Day Week is about how to keep the flowers and the details green!  That is what we specialize in.  Eco-friendly flowers and details is what makes your wedding yours.  If you are like most couples, hundreds (if not thousands) of them have gotten married at your venue before – so the only way to make it special is with floral designs and personal touches.

Working with a logistical team and local farmers, distributors and nature itself, we design an overall design scheme for you to help fit your style!  From flowers that are grown in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Holland (the last two have some of the toughest fair trade and wage laws in the world and Holland practically invented the cut flower trade).  Using a combination of carbon offsetting, commercial flights (as opposed to Fedex or UPS) and sheer information and research – we are able to provide you with the best possible options.  Our inventory boasts thousands of pieces of glassware from small to large.  We don’t charge a “rental” fee for them like most florists do – we just simply pick up our stuff at the end of the night.  With most weddings – we will take any leftover flowers to a nursing home (complimentary).  If not – we also compost!  Our in-house paper and glass lantern inventory is extensive and in every color imaginable.  And…if we don’t have it in stock – we will get it for you!  We have even used leftover beading from Christmas tree decor for a bridesmaid’s bouquet!  We love to upcycle and reinvent weddings.

In conjunction with our flower department and lighting, we have all sorts of decor and favor options available for you.  We have LED lights for our paper lanterns, in-house glassware (like mason jars for serving lemonade on a sunny wedding afternoon).  We also have over 500 pieces of vintage and modern glassware just for candy and food bars.  If your venue or caterer only has trays – we have trays, footed candy bowls, 3-tiered petit four/cupcake plates and more.  We have our own carpentry team in house to custom design mandaps, chuppahs, arches, trellis’, chalkboards, directional signs and more.

We help take your dreams and ideas and make them a reality with the extensive collection of items we have in our inventory to the extensive reach of vendors that we work with in the DC area.  We have an extensive information database gathered from around the world with our magazine team of writers, photographers, interns, researchers and photo editors (Eco-Beautiful Weddings).  There is simply no other event design firm in the DC/Baltimore area that has as much experience, inventory and knowledge about going green as our team here at Elegance & Simplicity, Inc.!  Go green for your wedding today – email us inquiries @ eleganceandsimplicity.com!

(Photo Credits from Top to Bottom – 1st Bouquet – The Observatory, 2nd bouquet – Marta Locklear, Beaded Bouquet – Documentary Associates, Praying Mantis – Amy Deputy, Triple Centerpiece – Documentary Associates, Hanging votives – Marta Locklear, Blue/Green Lanterns, Candy Bar, Lemonade Stand and Cake photos – Documentary Associates (cake by Cakes by Design), Paris Photo – K Thompson, Blue/green votives + Trellis with paper lanterns – Jennifer Hughes, Escort “card” Chalkboard (with calligraphy from Meant to Be Calligraphy – K Thompson)

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We are gearing up for the Eco-Beautiful Spring Mini Mag!  Stay tuned tomorrow as it is filled with green contents that you will need to jump on!

Over the years we have seen a lot of quilts at weddings.  It is one of the traditions that creates beautiful labors of love for couples and their families.

Above is a beautiful quilt as designed by Etsy Designer Tapestri.  They can create a special quilt just for you embroidered with messages from each of your guests.

This collage is from a previous post that we did about Margaret’s beautiful wedding at Rust Manor.  Getting creative with quilts is easy to do by setting up a station for everyone to get involved!

We have also used quilts for chuppah toppers as well!

If you want a a quilt for your chuppah topper – be sure to give yourself plenty of time to make it!  Getting both moms involved is a perfect way for the two families to come together to do a DIY project for the big day!

Quilts last for generations and are a wonderful way to reuse decor for your home!

Over the past few weeks I have met with so many fun brides that are looking for purples and lavenders for their wedding flowers!

So it got me thinking – I better do a blog post about this!  I created the above color palette as I met with one of my clients and we came up with a fun design scheme complete with flowers, furniture and colorful linens galore!  Purple has always been one of my favorite colors and can be used everywhere!  So here are my picks for purple for your wedding and your home!

(Credits Top Marta Locklear, Documentary Associates and ME!)

Some of the best purple floral designs use hydrangea, roses, calla lilies and orchids.  But don’t forget fresh lavender, veronica, delphinium, stock, aliums, carnations, agapanthus, caspia, statice, anemones, hyacinth, muscari and so much more!  Check in with us to find out what is available for your wedding day!

This photo from Apartment Therapy is just delicious!  This should inspire you to use purple with matte gold items for your wedding day.  Go with matte gold chivari chairs and gold rimmed plates to get this regal look! Heck – get someone like Kendall’s Cakes or Cakes by Design to paint with edible gold on your cake or wrap pretty matte gold ribbons around the tiers of your cake.  (And no – I will not spray any of my flowers with gold – sorry folks!)

And this beautiful combination of purples, aquas and blues is enough to make me swoon!  I am starting to dream of an amazing lounge combination with purple and blue flowers with funky aqua bridesmaid dresses!  The splash of red gerbera daisies adds the extra touch of whimsy!

If you have not found inspiration for your purple wedding and modern home landscape here – let me know and I will whip up something purple next week!

As we get ready for another weekend filled with weddings, I just got this photo off my camera today.  We have had such a wonderful year so far with many of our clients letting us get creative while using their own family heirlooms and treasures.  This custom designed chuppah we made for our client was no exception!  The bride’s mom made a wonderful and meaningful quilt for her daughter’s wedding. We custom designed the frame to make sure the quilt would sit well on top then added some curly willow with orchids on the poles.  It was so beautiful on that warm spring day at the Sewall-Belmont House!

Have a wonderful weekend and Mazel Tov!

The bride loved the peachy and pink combination of roses with cymbidium orchids with a dash of lisianthus and freesia for her bridesmaids and her beautiful white chuppah!  Stay tuned for more images form her wedding later this week!

]]> http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/spring-at-the-willard-hotel/feed/ 2 http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/woodend-in-the-spring/ http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/woodend-in-the-spring/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:55:00 +0000 Katie Martin http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/?p=613

Photos are trickling in from earlier this year and I am finally able to post about a few of them.

Brides love Woodend and we love being there!  Amy Czelusniak took these wonderful photos of Rachel & Paul’s Wedding.  I loved the colors she used and Amy always takes such amazing photos!  We created floral desiigns with lots of vibrant colors in the flowers along with an elegant and simple chuppah design with an Italian ruscus garland.

Congrats Rachel & Paul!

~Katie Martin

Here is a photo from Mary Gardella Hester’s blog post about the wedding this past weekend.  We love Mary over at Love Life Images!

photo by Love Life Images

Click on the photo to see the rest of the details from the wedding!  We provided lanterns for the umbrellas and beautiful garden style centerpieces for the table. They even had a Beatles cover band! So funny, as the other wedding we did over at Woodend (on the same day) had the entire wedding party and guests sing “Good Day, Sunshine” by the Beatles at the end of the ceremony!  I will post on that wedding hopefully next week!

Congrats to all of our brides this past week!

Katie Martin

Amanda with Occasions helped to create a beautiful eco-friendly wedding buffet for the couple.  All left-over food scraps were placed into compost bins and the food was amazing!

Here are a few photos from the day:

The chuppah was adorned with purple delphinium and white and green orchids!  We will be using it again next week at the Westin Grand!

The bride choose beautiful shades of lavender and purple flowers with a hint of green (including local fresh English lavender, delphinium, freesia, roses and calla lilies).  While the bridesmaid (her sister) had a simpler bouquet to match her pretty burgundy gown.

We love being able to be creative!  Using deer moss and curly willow to create a real tree-like feel inside the mansion with the escort card table.

The centerpieces reflecting the escort card table and the bridal bouquet.

We always have a fun time creating interesting concepts for a real eco-friendly venue such as Woodend!  We will be there next week as well for Soneela and Walker’s wedding!

Cheers! – Katie Martin

Our new structure gives us the ability to customize the size of the structure to fit your needs!  The basic structure is 6x6x8 feet as shown here:

You can attach greenery garlands and other fabric to the top!  We now can customize the top portion of the chuppah to fit the size of your stages.  We have a couple coming up that are 3×4 feet and 3×5 feet. One of the weddings we are customizing the top to accommodate a family tallit!

The structure is made of local, renewable lumber and some of the pieces of the wood that we have used for customizing the top has come from reclaimed wood that we have stripped and refinished – so it is eco-friendly as well!

Make this chuppah yours with fabric, flowers and size!  We look forward to being a part of your wedding day!

Cheers, Katie Martin

(Photo was taken by Steve Voss from Shulamit and Eric’s wedding at the Meridian House this past July 5th! – Congrats!)

Red and Gold are auspicious colors in the Chinese culture…we used just a touch of gold in the pins on her bridal bouquet!

Oh, Jennifer and Mary – how I love you both!  Love this photo!!!!!  These dresses were so fun and the hydrangea and rose color combo gave a yummy sorbet look!  Look how cute this bridesmaid is with her matching nail color!  LOVE IT!

Just have to make this note here…carnations rock!!!  Look at our carnation pomander here!  Again, yummy!  We tied them to the back of the bride and groom’s chairs after the ceremony. Unfortunately it rained and we had to move the ceremony indoors.

The bride changed her dress twice at the reception which is part of the Chinese wedding tradition.  Here is her beautiful 1st wedding gown.  I love the detail of the bow that had stunning, rough eco-friendly edges. Love, love, love the dress!!!

Here she is dancing in her second dress, a red and gold Chinese gown with the phoenix and the dragon embroidered on the dress.  Absolutely beautiful.  This was a surprise for the groom!

Find out more about Chinese Wedding Traditions in my upcoming book: The Everything Wedding Book, 4th Edition! 

Here she is with her her groom in her 3rd gown!  A stunning orange evening gown!

Everyone’s breath was taken away by the Chinese Lion Dancers!

The couple, so genuinely dedicated to each other and their traditions, had a day full of delightful Jewish and Chinese fanfare.  From the festive dragonfly kippot for the wedding party to the Horah!  The wedding day began with photos followed by the Jewish ceremony of the Bedeken and Ketubah (Jewish Wedding contract) signing.

Next was the wedding ceremony underneath the chuppah with beautiful music played on the Chinese guzheng.

The bride and groom were wrapped in the groom’s tallit by the mother of the groom, who performed the ceremony.   I absolutely adore this shot of the bride and groom.  Simply in love.  

Of course, no Jewish wedding is complete without Horah dancing!!!

There are so many other details from this wedding…but I will wait to post them to the website at a later time!  Congratulations to Susanna and Ariel!

Mazel Tov!

Katie Martin

I heard that Barbara from The Observatory was their photographer – so I am excited to see those photos!  I loved Claire’s color palette of ice blues, lavenders and cool greens.  Her bouquet was definitely the favorite that I made this past weekend!

Then Stephanie and Kevin delivered our striking monochromatic deep red floral designs to Marie for her wedding at Holy Trinity in Georgetown and their reception 101 Constitution’s rooftop terrace (by the way, catered by Avalon Caterers!)  Here is a peek at their centerpieces consisting of burgundy dupioni silk covered vases filled with bursting peonies, mini calla lilies, tulips and roses:

Arney, Tara and Charlie consulted and delivered flowers and installed lanterns at the GW River Farm for Claire S.’s wedding!  Here is Claire’s beautiful and traditional bridal bouquet:

Miguel, Chrishaun, Lauren and I had a fantastic time while consulting and doing the chuppah and floral designs for Susan and Matt’s ceremony at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue. The ceremony was followed by a festive and fun reception at the Woman’s National Democratic Club complete with our blue and pink colored glass candy jars filled with 30 different types of candy! I was able to take a quick sneak photo of their ceremony for you!  Eli Turner will have photos for us soon!  We also had the pleasure of having Chris Dunn play classical guitar for both the ceremony and cocktail hour.  If you have not had a chance to hear Chris play, he is truly THE classical guitarist in the Baltimore-Washington area!  We loved working with Susan from the beginning and truly enjoyed the day!  Mazel Tov Susan & Matt!

Then Tinica and Jeannine were at the Omni Shoreham for Leila’s wedding!  We do not have any photos from that wedding yet!  We did not do the flowers for them, but helped to coordinate their large and elegant Persian-American wedding!

Yes – all of the above was on Saturday!

Then – we went back to the Omni Shoreham on Sunday for Susanna and Ariel’s wedding!  All I can say is that it was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!  A truly cultural event with both Susanna’s Chinese culture infused with Ariel’s Jewish traditions.  Complete with a fabulous (and auspicious) gold and red dragonfly (a symbol of summer and happiness) embroidered topper for their chuppah and yarmulkes to the exciting performance by Lion Dancers at the reception. The bride changed her dress twice during the reception (as is customary in traditional Chinese weddings)!  There are so many details from this wedding, I could probably write a small book about it.  I don’t have photos yet – but Jennifer Domenick and Mary Gardella Hester of Love Life Images were both there to capture the moments!  I will post their wedding photos and more photos from the above weddings as I receive them from the various photographers over the next couple of weeks!  

More to come, Congratulations to all of our couples this weekend! – Katie Martin

• We now offer wall backdrops.  We designed this concept last year with one of our clients that is getting married in September.  More comprehensive and interesting than a typical pipe and drape backdrop, it creates a romantic mood and endless possibilities for making your wedding unique and interesting. The wall panels come in 8 feet by 2 feet wide combinations.  They are boxes making them heavy enough to withstand wind for outdoor ceremonies and we currently have 3 panels in our inventory.  We have the ability to make as many panels as you want with our in-house carpenter.  We cover each panel in the fabric of your choice!  Soon we will have swatch samples for you to choose your color!  However, keeping in tune with how original our brides our – we will use whatever fabric you desire.  Bring in a swatch of fabric with your appointment!  We can match your linens, bridesmaids dress or your venue colors.  We even had a bride bring in a swatch of her bedroom’s wallpaper!  Here is a sample of what the 3 panels look like next to each other.  We used them at both the Washingtonian’s Bridal Show and the Washington DC Couture Wedding Bridal Show in January. As you can see, we have shelves for the panels (customized to your liking) and the ability to hang photos!  The shelves can hold actual vases full of flowers or votives.  How do you want your backdrop to look?  After the ceremony – reuse them as a photo backdrop for your guests and more!

• Our 10 x 10 foot pergola style mandap/chuppah that we introduced to our inventory last year has won raves and is now being offered in a smaller 6 x 8 foot option.  The pergola style mandap/chuppah gives your ceremony structure a signature style.  Style the beautiful (and sustainable) wood with fabric, curly willow or flowers to make it yours!  Here is the 10 x 10 foot model.  The 10 x 10 foot size is wonderful for reusing after your ceremony to dine and entertain under!
• New recycled glass lanterns and sustainable material lanterns have been added and more coming soon to inventory in various colors and styles!  They are hanging in the mandap above.  Here is a close-up!