This gorgeous wedding I did in September was featured on Grey Likes, last week… The theme was spanish with a strong color palette of orange and blue.

For the ceremony I had a simple arbor built. Then I draped it with alternating strips of orange and blue fabric.

For the bride’s bouquet I used a mix of locally grown dahlias in various shapes and sizes mixed with muscari, orange garden roses, tulips and calla lillies. For the grooms’ bout I used a calla lillie and wrapped in the same striped ribbon as the bride’s bouquet.

For seating cards, I placed a single clementine to hold the card down which acted as a paper weight and a fun snack for guests.

For the tables, I used La Tavola‘s fun retro linen in blue. I love the fun geometric pattern. And for even more pops of color I painted cement containers in two tones. The tall rectangular containers were painted a red and orange while the star shaped container was painted with cobalt blue and turquoise.

For guest tables, I used large wood boxes surrounded by white tile I painted. I simply taped a triangle on one side of the tile and then spray painted the exposed portion a pretty orange/red. I loved, loved the bold color palatte of this wedding, would you be so bold?

I love  a wedding full of vibrant color, and this wedding I designed last year had one of my favorite color combos: turquoise, orange, and hot pink. For her bouquet, I used pink garden roses, orange dahlias, sweet veronica, scabiosa pods and maidenhair fern and then wrapped the stems with a deep turquoise silk.

Their ceremony was held under the oak tree at Gainey Vineyards. The bride had a thing for hearts (she actually wore a heart shaped necklace on her wedding day) so I created a big heart out of orange rose petals.

I used the couple’s bird and heart logo on their seating card chart (I actually printed a large copy of it and then used an exacto knife to make a stencil out of it). A collection of vintage fans were placed in wood boxes filled with more orange rose petals.

For her tabletop design, I used a burlap runner as the base to pop the colorful flowers off of. A mix of hammered containers, petite mason jars and aqua glasses from Anthropologie held an assortment of garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, orange lollipop dahlias, orange roses, tuberrose, geranium, and a bit amaranthus. I bought a bunch of old books and tied with them with more turquiose silk, sort of like old book satchels. At each place setting I hand braided torn silk strips to use as a napkin ring. I also switched out the usually white plates for orange ones to add even more color. I love the vibrant, playful look! You can see more of this wedding over on Style Me Pretty, right here.

A wedding I designed last year was featured on Style Me Pretty last week. I loved the colorful palette and the vintage school yard theme we did. More on this wedding soon…

And The Rainbow shoot was featured on The City Sage. Enjoy!

Tuesday: I hit up Alfie’s which is another antique market that ranges from 19th century up to the 70′s. Lots of glass, silver sets, vintage ad posters, and a post modern bench made of pencils,

Wednesday: My flowers arrived from the market and I cleaned and prepped them. The hydranga in England is seriously jumbo (each indiviudal bloom is like 2″ accross) and the garden roses were super fragrant. With flower prep complete, I met my dad and husband and we hit up the National Galley and British Museum. From there we met the rest of the family in Covent Garden and had a proper curry (after many proper pints to be sure).

Thursday: I met Kirsten and we went up to Cambridge and walked to the little village of Granchester to have tea in The Orchard. I studied in Cambridge for a summer when I was in school and I loved the countryside walk from Cambridge to Granchester. You walk along the river cam, the cows hang out with you on the foot path, there are weeping willows, white swans, its basically idyllic England.  Its one of my favorite places in the world and its been a hang out spot to just about every major English literary writer for the last hundred years (this is the spot called “Forever England” in Rupert Brooke’s poem.). Also, the scones there are so freaking good.

On Friday, I arranged all the flowers in the various containers we had collected over the last week, had my nails done (very necessary after you’ve been playing with flowers) and packed up all the decor.

Saturday, was wedding day! I got my hair and makeup done early so I can run over to the reception and set everything up. I met my sister over at the ceremony site and watched her marry her sweet husband. The English registry marriage service is short, but sweet. I loved the tradition of showering with confetti the bride and groom as they leave the register’s office. I might have to steal that idea. The reception was quite the party, the groom’s family is Irish and they are certainly not shy about their love of Jameson (but then neither am I).

Sunday, I flew home exhausted. I had a wedding that following Friday, 9/16, so needless to say I’m still quite tired. Its been a busy three weeks. Anyhoo, I’ll share photos of Cambridge and the wedding when I can. It was so much fun to design my sister’s wedding especially since we have similar tastes, the man she married is a total sweetheart, and  England is one of my favorite countries. A big congrats to my sister and her husband!

All photos by me and my crappy cell phone camera.