A Winter Wedding, Englewood NJ

You couldn't get a better day for a winter themed wedding. Seriously, it had snowed just enough the day before to stick to the tree branches, but not the roads. This = amazing wedding pictures.

I'm always a little jealous when I see beautiful backdrops, like this, for wedding photos...on my wedding day the remains of a tropical storm blew through.

The reception was held at the Women's Club of Englewood. A sweet place with enough room for a weddings of about 100 guests.

I took this picture from the stage where they can fit 3 more tables.

The brides colors were purple, white, and gold. So I used gold ribbon to wrap the boutonnieres and bouquets. There were three styles of boutonnieres. The groom: An anemone (white with dark purple center), a white rose, and a fiddlehead fern...this mirrored the brides bouquet.

The groomsmen: a white rose and fiddlehead fern....to mirror the bridesmaids. Two young ring bearers: a single purple anemone.

The brides bouquet: White Roses, tulips, ranunculus, anemone, and fiddlehead fern.

The bridesmaids: White roses and fiddlehead fern.

The centerpieces were 'snowballs', white pomanders of carnations a top 3 different mercury glass stands/vases. Some I had picked up for the bride on my shopping travels months before the wedding, the vases with the crystal on the outside and the snow flake design I picked up the day after Christmas at Peir 1. They have the best blow out sale, and while the big snow storm began to roll in, I was hoarding all the holiday vases I could get my hands on

I had ordered the floral foam spheres I needed to make these with what I thought was plenty of time before the wedding. I ordered some other stuff at the same time...the other stuff got to me 4 days before the wedding, but I was waiting for the spheres. I kept thinking "They will be here tomorrow...the other things I ordered came..so it must be on it's way". I tried calling customer service, but they have the wackiest hours...so I waited some more. The day before the wedding I realized they weren't going to come. I was planning on making all the centerpieces the night before...so that plan was scrapped. Day of I was up at 4:30 am to travel to a floral supply warehouse to buy some more, then home to make the boutonnieres and bouquets...which my assistant (aka husband) delivered for me so I could finish the centerpieces...then off to deliver and set up those. All in all I was finally finished and home at 5pm. What a day!

And BTW....still waiting for those spheres to show up!

Delightful Dahlias

August 28th, 2009

The weather was touch n' go as the remnants of Hurricane Danny scooted by, but the early morning rain stopped and things dried up. 

This bride was very laid back and such a pleasure to work with... And it was the first wedding I used my new fancy Canon Rebel...which I have a lot to learn about...as the photographer at the wedding pointed out when I was taking pictures with my hand in front of the flash!  

At first our plan was to use fuchsia Calla Lilies for her bouquet, but she saw a picture of some Calla's that actually faded from the dark fuchsia color to a cream and I was able to get them for her.  

The Groom's boutonniere matched the brides bouquet

Now for the Dahlias!

The bridesmaids carried bouquets of Dahlias in three shades, dark pink, bright pink, and lavender.  Dahlias love their water and were more difficult to work with than I had anticipated.  While I've used them before they've never been as much as a focal flower as they were at this wedding and there were a few lost petals along the way.  But nothing that anyone else would probably notice.

And the groomsmen matched the Bridesmaids

Me getting fancy with the new camera!

We arrived on site pretty early after dropping off the bouquets and boutonnieres to give ourselves time to set up for the ceremony and the reception.  The idea for the ceremony was to create arrangements that would serve double duty and be moved into the reception room after the reception was over.

The bride wanted two arrangements for the ceremony to be displayed on pillars that I have for rent, but she gave me full creative licence.  The cuteness of the Dahlia blooms and the brides desire for pomanders for the first two rows of seats helped me come up with this idea.  

And here is everything after it's been moved to the fireplace in the reception room.

I know the professional photographers pics came out much better, once he sends them to me I'll share them with you.  

The aisle was lined with bright pink and lavender rose petals.

And last but not least are the centerpieces.  Early on the bride had mentioned to me that she liked Bells of Ireland...so I incorperated them into the centerpiece.

And my preggy self felt great, even though I had been on my feet all day.  I even planned to surprise my husband and take him to a Yankees game the next day, we went and they won.  Maybe a little too ambitious for being 9 months pregnant....I feel great when I'm pregnant (I have a 21 month old too) which puts me in denial how pregnant I am.  I ended up with a strained ligament in my poor belly and was off my feet for two days while it healed!