With this new wedding – we added a few new things to our inventory!  One of the more exciting aspects of this wedding was the beautiful down to earth farm feel to match the fact that we were actually on a farm!  We purchased these beautiful vintage framed chalkboards to show guests where to sit!  Our calligrapher did all of the calligraphy in chalk pen!  We have two of these chalkboards in house now!

We were able to get this custom bunting custom designed by Giggleberry.  Perfect for decorating the ceremony band tent along with the backdrop (not shown here) that we made with fabric and custom painting.

One of our favorite items in-house are our hanging blue glass lanterns!  These were hung right over the dance floor in the barn!  Major dancing at this wedding as contra dancing was the center of attention!

With over 250 guests and three different types of entrees we needed to have a way to let the waiters know who was getting which type of meal.  What better way than to use rocks!  We used green, gold and white to distinguish the entrees.

Stay tuned tomorrow for floral design details from the wedding!

(Photography by Mary Kate McKenna)

We had 7 events this week and we are gearing up for 3 more this weekend!  Spring has definitely sprung!

Just wanted to give you a little peek at some of the things we did.  My favorite from a University of Maryland event we did were this smart little billy ball boutonnieres with yellow ribbon!

Very simple light blue delphinium lapel flowers for a small event at the White-Meyer House. Along with this elegant buffet arrangement:

French Tulips are some of our favorite flowers to work with in the spring…

We’re off to the Newseum, 2 Private Home and the New York Spring Bridal Market this weekend – so there will be a lot to show you in the upcoming weeks!

Have a great weekend and enjoy these last few days of Cherry Blossoms!!!

As we wind down 2010, I will start posting some of the favorite flower designs that have inspired our brides and grooms the most and are the basis for a lot of our new designs for 2011 weddings!  I will try to post “Flower Faves” at least once a week for you!

I thought I would start with yellow this week as it has been such a popular trend color in 2010.  Billy balls being the center of attention obviously!  The first two photos were taken by Documentary Associates from Kate and Mark’s wedding that was featured in the Washingtonian Bride & Groom. The above bouquet was featured in our 1st issue of Eco-Beautiful Weddings Magazine (photo by Love Life Images).

This is also one of my favorite yellow orchids displays that we had at a fantastic orthodox Jewish wedding at the Meridian House (photo by Steve Voss).

And I will sign off with the underrated yellow pin cushion!  It apparently takes a daring bride or groom to use these!  I love love love pin cushions as they also come in orange and they are just fun fun fun (’til her daddy takes the T-bird away fun)!  Fantastic colors year round!  (photo by Documentary Associates)

Let us know what your favorite yellow flower is!  I certainly have not listed them all here!

Grab a cup a coffee or a glass a wine and get ready as this post is long!  There is simply no way to break up  this post into smaller parts!  The details of this wedding are just so much fun and better to see all together!  We have done two previous posts on the decor of the ceremony and cocktail hour (along with 3 teaser posts!) Now the finale!

Even with this overall Atrium room shot at the Ronald Reagan Building – you still can’t see all the stations of fun at this wedding!  To give just a little backdrop – Jordan is a school teacher – so some of the props might make more sense once you see them!

To bring in the true school spirit – we ordered some basic student high school lockers and painted them for the couple.  We still have them – so let us know if you want them for your wedding! It was the talk of the wedding and everyone had so much fun looking inside and seeing all the fun photos [if you look closely enough here - you can see her dad Rick Scott (who is currently running for Governor in Florida)].

Another fun station was the “Map Station”.  Since both Jeremy and Jordan love to travel so much – they wanted to see where everyone else has traveled to.  So we placed pink and green pins on the maps for where Jordan and Jeremy have been and asked the guests to place the yellow pins (as shown in the letters J) on the map for where they have been.

Then we had the photo booth.  I will most likely do a whole other post just on the photos from the photographer (Documentary Associates) that took the photo booth photos as they were hilarious!

(You can’t have a photo booth these days without props – we got these from Etsy!)

A couple of days ago we showed you the program we designed…here is the menu that matches!

There were so many flowers everywhere at this wedding that there just is not enough room in this post to show them.  We had tall arrangements filled with green and white dendrobium orchids along with jaguar pink orchids and yellow mokara orchids!  The two long head tables for the wedding party had lots of fun different shaped vases filled with seasonal local flowers including local hydrangea, peonies and roses.

One of the funniest things about this wedding is that Jordan wanted to possibly trip up the guests by numbering the tables with prime numbers (take a look at the photo above this one and you can see that table number is #29).  Carla David Design did such an amazing job with these table tents, the map station, soda station and lemonade/pink lemonade/limeade bar signs (below).

And now…the cakes!  Cakes by Design did such an amazing job!  I still can’t get over how she was able to create Jordan and Jeremy’s dog and how she used the decor on the groom’s cake to look like the masses/crowd (GENIUS!)

And…their super fun candy bar!

It was an amazing party and we had so much fun designing it!

Congratulations Jordan & Jeremy!

Wedding Planning, Floral Designs & Decor, Lanterns, Stationery, Candy Bar – Elegance & Simplicity, Inc.

Venue & Catering - Ronald Reagan Building

Photography - Ralph Alswang

Band + Ceremony Music - MSE Productions

Videography - Blue Sky Films

Lighting & Fabric Draping – Ampa Events

Cake – Cakes by Design

Linens – Table Manners

Bridal Styling – Polished Image and Style

Hair – Elegant Hair by Giselle

Make-up – Carola Myers

Detail Signage – Carla David Design

Photo Booth Photography – Documentary Associates

Rehearsal Dinner – Arts Club of Washington

Transportation – Chariots for Hire

Accommodations – Willard InterContintental

]]> http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/jordan-jeremys-reception/feed/ 3 http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/jordan-jeremy-cocktail-hour-details/ http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/jordan-jeremy-cocktail-hour-details/#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:15:23 +0000 Katie Martin http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/?p=3869

Without showing you too much of the actual reception until tomorrow, this gives you a glimpse of how fun this wedding was!   This was the view from the oculus in the Atrium at the Ronald Reagan Building (where the cocktail hour was held).

Here is a fun close-up of the cocktail hour arrangements with moss covered vases with twine and curly willow and filled with pink peonies and yellow orchids.

The escort card table arrangement requires a few photos since it had 4 dimensions with 3 arrangements and the beautiful pink escort cards.

The escort card arrangement was comprised of a low yellow fabric colored vase filled with pink peonies and vibernum.  The tall vase was covered with moss, curly willow, twine, and yellow orchids [which also had manzanita branches with hanging pink votives attached to it (not shown)] along with a medium size vase filled with a submerged green cymbidium orchid stem and river rocks.

The sushi bar was a huge hit!

The guest “sign-in” was their matted engagement photo by Documentary Associates - we just provided the pen and the cute floral arrangement (please notice that cutie patootie ribbon on the vase as it totally matches Jordan’s bubbly personality)

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post where we show the utterly fun and unique reception that Jordan and Jeremy let us create for them!

(All images by Ralph Alswang)

]]> http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/wedding-planning/jordan-jeremy-cocktail-hour-details/feed/ 0 http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/jordan-jeremy-part-iv/ http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/jordan-jeremy-part-iv/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:05:17 +0000 Katie Martin http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/?p=3836

Yes – we are on part four of our Jordan and Jeremy’s Wedding and I think there will be at least 2 more posts! Of course – the 1st three posts were just teasers and sneak peaks from camera phones!  However – we have gathered all the photos from Ralph Alswang and  we were finally able to sort through and show the best of the best!

Today – I am going to focus on the 1st part of the day through the end of the ceremony as the details are a plenty.  From the beginning to the end of this – you will see Jordan and Jeremy’s color palette of pink, yellow and green!  Of course – pink is the main color – starting with her cute purse and bouquets (above)!

It was a scorching hot day in DC.  They took a quick drive over to the monuments with Ralph in order to take a few portraits -which lasted all of 5 minutes!  Getting over to the Ronald Reagan Building was in their best interests at that point!  Her beautiful gown was bought at Kleinfeld’s in New York city – a Kirstie Kelly dress that Robin from Polished Image and Style helped her pick out!

Their wedding had a theme of travel, fun, school and love!  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post to figure out why there is a map behind this program and why the parasols!

You might recognize the reclaimed wood trellis from a previous post – but we are so happy with this structure as it has been used 3 times since their June wedding in different ways!

I loved creating this bouquet for Jordan!  It’s not often that I get to use yellow peonies – but we had them here!  The entire bouquet was comprised of peonies, ranunculus and freesia.

A quick kiss after the ceremony before heading off for more photos and the cocktail hour!

Part V tomorrow!

]]> http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/jordan-jeremy-part-iv/feed/ 0 http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/more-floral-designs-from-candace-chris-wedding/ http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/more-floral-designs-from-candace-chris-wedding/#comments Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:00:37 +0000 Katie Martin http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/?p=3700

This is a continuation from the floral design post from Candace and Chris Ourisman’s wedding at the Ourisman home.  We just simply had flowers everywhere!  Too much to post in one blog post!  Above is Candace’s bouquet with garden roses, hydrangea, snowberries, freesia, rosemary, lisianthus and scabiosa.  We finished her bouquet with a hand-dyed silk ribbon to match her beautiful gown from Jorge Manuel.

As we mentioned in our previous post – we have a whole new “fleet” of white milk glass from this wedding.  We scoured local antique markets and a few other places and found some of the most beautiful and adorable milk glass pieces!

If you take a close look – you can see the beautiful new votives (off to the left is a gold chalice and back in the center there is a green bubbly votive cup).  We now have over 2000 votive cups in different colors and varieties in our inventory!  Whew – that was a lot of counting during our Fall Warehouse Clean Up!!!  Also – every single table had its own individual frame – some were vintage and some were vintage-inspired.

We had about 20 vintage tea cups in our inventory before this wedding – but we added about 5 more (including this beautiful tea cup and saucer set).

Stay tuned for more decor and details!

]]> http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/more-floral-designs-from-candace-chris-wedding/feed/ 1 http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/new-york-fashion-week-recap/ http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/announcements/new-york-fashion-week-recap/#comments Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:54:51 +0000 Katie Martin http://www.eleganceandsimplicity.com/blog/?p=3641

Robin Fisher (from Polished Image and Style) and I had such a jam packed and fun-filled day in New York City last week for fashion week!  We had a few appointments and we attended two runway shows (and got in a little shopping – all in one day)!

We started our day off at the B Squared Pubic Relations (run by the lovely “Beths” – hence B Squared) firm that represents a lot of jewelry, handbag and fashion designers).  The above photo is all about the Jemma Wynne Collection – which one their bracelets was featured in the new Fall 2010 issue of Eco-Beautiful Weddings!  Loved seeing more from the collection live!  Real semi-precious stones and recycled gold!  YUM!

Robin fell in love with this gorgeous necklace from Fulham!

The above are more pieces from the exquisite Fulham collection – made with upcycled item and natural stones in Canada!  Look for some of these pieces possibly in the December or March Issues of Eco-Beautiful Weddings!

Robin was able to get us in to a great eco fashion show – one of the first with real passionate designers.  I loved the collection from Vivienne Pash.

Hotness is all I have to say here!  This lovely 100% silk dress has some amazing detail work on the “straps” made by artisans in Turkey.  Sempre Lei is a brand new designer and we fell in love with this little white dress – perfect for an after party or honeymoon!!!

We saw a few other designers and lot of yellow everywhere!  So don’t be surprised if you see yellow galore in Spring!

Robin and I are excited and gearing up for the Anniversary Issue of Eco-Beautiful Weddings!  Time Flies!  I hope to do another post about the amazing purse I found – stay tuned for that!

Here’s to Eco-Couture!

I apologize that I did not get this post up last week!  I was hoping to make the floral explanation series a weekly thing!  But doing a destination wedding for a friend took priority – I will share those photos with you soon!

Today I want to talk about dahlias.  We are entering the best season for dahlias.  You can get them throughout August but they really start to  look amazing in September and October.

They come in a variety of colors and we love working with them as they give any arrangement nice texture.  Colors include the vibrant orange above, peach, white with a hint of green, magenta, purple, burgundy, yellow and light pink.  I will warn you though – they have a very pungent. musky smell to them.  If you are easily affected by the smells of flowers – I would stay away from this flower.  However, they are hearty flowers and on average they are moderately priced.

Our favorite place to buy  dahlias are from a local farm and from our growers in Oregon.  Why?  These are the most eco-friendly ways to go.  Of course with local farmers we are giving back to the local economy and there is one farm in particular we love that we also buy fruits and veggies from.  Then, the farmers in Oregon are able to produce their dahlias without pesticides and that we love!

I will say that even though the bouquet above is comprised entirely of dahlias, I do not recommend this all the time.  The shape of most dahlias make it more difficult to make a perfectly rounded shape for a bouquet. However, if you like the English garden or loose garden look for a bouquet – they are perfect choice.  We also think they are fantastic for centerpieces and large garden altar displays.

As we get closer to fall, we are starting to order more and more dahlias.  If you are planning your fall wedding for next year – keep dahlias on your “to do” list!

Here is the second installment in my floral design series.  This week’s flower is roses.  Last week I started with my most favorite flower (hydrangea).  This week, I continue on to a flower that tons of people love – ROSES.  They symbolize love , friendship and romance for so many people.   They are available year round and come in every single color (and two-tones) except blue (naturally)…and no – I won’t dye roses blue for my clients.  Sorry folks!

A rose is timeless for sure.  You can never go wrong with it as a rose bouquet will still look lovely 75 years from now in your photos!  For some practical advice – I never recommend using an all white rose bouquet.  An all-white rose bouquet sounds appealing at first – but white flowers with a white dress make for a very non-descript photo (and your bouquet will end up looking like a bundle of marshmallows floating in front of your dress – just my opinion).  I realize I may be stepping on some toes here.  I know there are all white weddings out there and we have made all white bridal bouquets (in fact – one is going out this weekend).  You can ask any seasoned photographer and they will tell you that they love color in their bridal bouquets!  All white flowers cost more (by the way).  Why? Because we have to buy extra in order to make up for the 15-20% of the flowers that come in with browning edges and we know that every single bloom needs to look pristine!

I am going to let you in on a big secret that every florist does not want you to know.  Roses don’t cost all that much more than other flowers.  Nope – you know what cost more – the stripping of the roses.  That’s right!  We have to strip every single rose so it does not tear you (or us) to shreds.  Those pesky thorns are the reason why I don’t love roses.  Yep – I hate stripping them…and we get sliced by those nasty pointy things every time we go to strip them.  They are evil I tell you (the thorns that is)!  There are varieties that come without thorns!  YAY – SCORE!  However – they are typically not available year round and they cost more.  So in the end – roses just really cost the same as most flowers – its the labor that kills us.  So when you are asking your florist to make you an all white rose bridal bouquet – they will most likely need to buy at least 50-75 roses – strip each one individually (unless they have a big rose stripping machine – which I don’t have) and then start on the design.  Remember – they will also most likely have to throw away (or hopefully compost) 10-15 of those roses as they will not be perfect.  You are not paying extra for the roses – you are paying extra for the time, perfection, and design.

There really is a never ending list of what I could write about roses – so I am going to stop here and post again at some point about roses in a second and possibly third installment over the next few months. Stay tuned!

(top photo – Jennifer Domenick/Love Life Images, middle photo – The Observatory)

This was such a fun bat mitzvah that we did in late spring from repeat clients for their 2nd daughter’s bat mitzvah in Bethesda!

She really let us great creative by using our cupcake trees along with wheat grass to place along the edge of the kid’s tables along with nestled cupcakes!

The adult tables had tall arrangements with ginger, eremurus (foxtail lilies) orchids and elephant leaves to remind the guests of their family’s heritage in Costa Rica!

Thanks to Debbie Delardi over at Cakes by Design once again for her amazing cupcakes!

By the way – we have a number of the cupcake trees in stock for rent anywhere in the Washington, DC and Baltimore areas!  They have been super popular this year with our clients!  Not exactly the best photos we have ever taken – but it got he job done!

Mazel Tov!

For those of you who do not follow me on Twitter – I thought I would go ahead and post the three images that I posted to  Twitter the day of Jordan and Jeremy’s wedding on June 26, 2010.  Keep in mind all of these photos were taken by my Blackberry – so they are not the finest in photography!  Those will come shortly from Ralph Alswang!

As you can see – this was a very bright and summery wedding!  I can’t wait to show you all the pink, yellow and green yummy details.

We created our signature photobooth for Jordan with her colors and style from her wedding.  Above is Jen Franz from Documentary Associates who took the photos at the photobooth during the reception! I can’t wait to show some of the funniest photos I have ever seen from a photobooth and the funnest props!

Now this photo is really terrible and does not show the true essence of this decor piece at the reception.  We brought in actual school lockers that we painted in their wedding colors!  We still have the lockers in stock as we just could not part from them!  Inside the lockers were her stuff, his stuff and then in the yellow locker – their stuff.

There is so much more to show – so stay tuned for the professional photos – which will be so much better than these!  But I just could not wait to show these to you!

We were so happy to be a part of Jordan and Jeremy’s wedding day last weekend at the Ronald Reagan Building!

We custom made a lot of very fun details for their wedding that I can’t wait to share once I get the photos back from Ralph Alswang!

Above – you can see our new trellis that we have in stock.  It is with reused wood and is seven feet tall by five feet wide by three feet deep!  We added curly willow, peonies and green cymbidium orchids.  We also provided our custom gold  stage cover, pink step and pink and yellow aisle runner.  I can’t wait to show you the rest!

Congrats Jordan and Jeremy!