Compote Envy

The Chapel Designers...who are we...what are we about.  We are about beautiful flowers and designs. Perhaps beyond that we are about camaraderie.  We are about supporting each other in the day to day business of creating no matter where we live.  We are about sharing ideas.  We are about laughing with each other.  We are about caring about each other on a level beyond business associates.  We are almost 40 strong with a love of beautiful things created from nature.



On our recent trip to gather in New York City, many of our group had the opportunity to take a course at Flower School New York;  The Art of the Compote with Areiella Chezar as the instructor.  Ahh...the compote...such a simple vessel. 
Carol and I were instantly drawn to the pieces we saw emerge from this class.  Our group suddenly became compote crazy, at least those who weren't already in that category.  Across the country there was a search on for "compotes"...where, what color, can you paint them, what materials.  We have had a great time watching the designs emerge from this group of Chapel Designers.
Isha Foss, one of our group, came up with the idea of a Blog Blitz...for lack of a better title.  What if each of us created a compote and then posted it on our blog?  What if we each then provided a link to all the other blogs in our blog posting?  Well, you can imagine people jumped at the idea.  An idea is born and embraced.
We had a great time designing in our compotes and are happy to share the results.  As much as we love our compotes...what we really LOVE is being a part of the Chapel Designers!

Here are our compote designs!  We certainly hope that our west coast brides come to embrace this style. We would love to see them featured in some of their weddings!

 

And now for the Blog Blitz, as promised!  Click on the following links to see some of the other Chapel Designer's compote designs!  Be sure to check back, as more links will be added as they become available!  We love our Chapel Designers!

Isha Foss Events  http://www.ishafoss.com/2012/05/floral-compotes.html
Alluring Blooms http://alluringblooms.com/ode-compote/.html

Floral Verde LLC http://floralverde.com/blog/?p=800

Flirty Fleurs http://www.flirtyfleurs.com/?p=9609
Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD http://thefullbouquetblog.com/?p=20905
Fleur:ology http://fleurologydesign.com/?p=397
Exquisite Designs http://www.exqdesigns.com/blog/?p=1900
Petals & Hedges http://petalsandhedges.com/blog/?p=868
Bare Root Flora http://barerootflora.com/index.php/blog/45-the-art-of-the-compote-denver-wedding-flowers
Loda Floral Design http://lodadesigns.blogspot.com/2012/05/floral-compote-design.html
True Florette Floral Design   http://trueflorette.com/succulents/the-compote
Courtenay Lambert Florals http://courtenaylambert.blogspot.com/2012/05/art-of-compote-goes-national.html
Grapevine Floral Company http://grapevineinbloom.com/?p=228
Modern Day Floral http://moderndayfloral.com/blog/?p=4036
Sebesta Design http://sebestadesign.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-classic-compote-arrangement/
Petals and Promises, llc http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petals-and-Promises-llc/108746239185151
Sweet Pea Floral Design http://sweetpeafloraldesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/amazing-compote-gandy-dancer-rehearsal.html



Ribbon Love

We are so excited to see the return of beautiful ribbons in wedding work!  It seems that the past several years there has been a downtrend in ribbon usage.  We have started seeing some beautiful bridal bouquets in publications and on stellar designer's websites.

We were thrilled to see one of our bride's inspiration photos to be one of Ariella Chezar's amazing bouquets, shown here. Amazing flowers and bouquet, and LOVE the ribbons!

You can imagine how excited we were to actually take a class in NYC from Ariella.  More from that experience later in this post.



Here are some photos of our ribbon escapades on our NYC trip in March.

We started at M & J Trimmings.  We walked into this destination and were overwhelmed with amazing ribbons, trimmings, appliques, brooches and more.  Every direction we turned, it was floor to ceiling eye candy!

A wall of sparkle and bling!

 Our last day in the big city and one last stop. Good that ribbons are easy to pack!

Our next stop was Hyman Hendler and Sons.  This store was absolutely amazing.  Full of vintage ribbons from around the world, in addition to many of their standard ribbons. From their website "Vintage Novelties Ribbon Collection, consist of Jacquards, Brocades, Florals, and Stripes in combinations of Satin and Grosgrain, Satin-Grosgrain-Moiré, Satin and Velvet – stripes and plaids, with plain or scalloped edges."  Oh my!

Gorgeous stripes...I think we had to touch most of these!

Some absolutely luscious shades of double faced satin.  How to even begin to choose?

Then there was the selection of black and white!  Instant love!

Oh...oh....oh...look at these!

And these!

Peggy is going back for this one!

And these, too!

These next few photos are from our fellow Chapel Designer, Liz Rusnac.  Tinsel Trading was the third stop on our adventure.  Once again, amazing trims, ribbons, silk flowers and overall wonderful.  I think we were so overwhelmed our cameras never came out.  Thanks for sharing these photos Liz.  We are glad someone had their wits about them!

Yes, this is an entire wall of silk flowers!



One of the many highlights of our week in NYC was our design class with Ariella Chezar at the Flower School New York!  Are you kidding me?  So wonderful to be in the same studio, let alone design there!

So beautiful!

Carol's Bouquet

Peggy's Bouquet!



As you can see, ribbons are a wonderful addition to a bridal bouquet.  In case we haven't convinced you yet,  here are a few more beautiful bouquets created by Ariella.

Martha Stewart has had a huge impact on wedding trends.  Her latest Weddings magazine cover features a wonderful bouquet with a beautiful ribbon bow!

Ribbon loving brides, we are here and ready for you!

Celebration Florals Heads to NYC!

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to New York City!  How did this come about?  Social Media! We have followed a fellow designer on the east coast for many years.  Last year she asked via Twitter Who wants to come to NYC?  We were a bit slow last year (and had no idea how Twitter worked) and didn't attend. Instead, we followed along on her blog... Not this year!  Oh, what an experience and where to begin?I think a little bit at a time, is best.  There were so many amazing events, I just want to tell about all of them!
We flew to NYC on Saturday in order to be ready for the first event on Sunday night.  We had really no idea what to expect.  We all met up at Matthew Robbins Design Studio.  Our hostess,  Holly Heider Chappel greeted us at the door with a copy of Matthew's newest book.  Stepping over that threshold signaled the beginning of our NYC Chapel Designer's flower adventure!  I am not sure we knew what to expect.  Almost 40 floral designers in the same room at the same time?  AND Matthew Robbins?  Wow...

Matthew and Holly

Flowers!  Oh yummy! Flowers provided by Floribundance!

We all came home with Matthew's newest book Inspired!

Our first evening ended as we made our way back to our hotel in a floral haze!

A Southern touch for Amy and Steve

Our wonderful couple Amy and Steve came to us with an inspiration photo found in a magazine.  Many of our couples do.  They see something about the colors, the style, the feel in a photo.  We love to help develop their dream from there.  When Amy mentioned her southern roots, we knew where we were heading...raw cotton bolls and magnolia...LOVE!
Late January in Oregon can provide some interesting weather. The week prior we had snow and lots of rain. The wedding day though proved to have clear skies, even some blue skies!  BeckenRidge Vineyard was beautiful in it's winter state.  Actually, went perfectly with the day.
We love photographers who capture our work in a way that we just cannot!  How we love the photographs from Angela of Tekoa Rose Photography!  Keep scrolling for more!

We love succulents and managed to get a picture of this from the bride's bouquet.  The white frilly tulips aren't too bad, either!  One of our favorites and not very easy to come by! This bouquet also had air ferns, silver brunia, white wax flower,  dusty miller, seeded eucalyptus and southern magnolia!

Each Maids bouquet was similar to the bride, minus some of the goodies.  We added the raw cotton to their bouquets for some fun accents!

The bride chose pewter, cream and white as her colors. The flower girl orb started with an orb of pewter satin ribbon with the small flower accents. We love how this look worked the pewter into her flowers. Such sweetness! Thanks again Angela for capturing it for us!

Small cocktail bistro tables were accented with black cube vases with pewter accents and a fun assortment for flowers.

Amy and Steve chose a combination of both tall and low centerpieces for their reception. White hydrangeas provided the base for these pieces.  Beautiful seeded eucalyptus, curly willow and southern magnolia finished off the tall pieces.  The low centerpieces included some silver brunia and white waxflower.  Loved the finished look of the room!

We would be remiss in not mentioning our friend Heidi and her wonderful Sweet Dreams Cupcakery! We love our flowers, we also LOVE Heidi and her treats! Oh my...just take a peek..

CONGRATULATIONS to Steve, Amy and Shadow!  We loved getting to know you! Happy married life!

Thank you Angela for sharing some of the images from this great wedding.  If you would like to see more from Amy and Steve's wedding (more flowers!) head to Angela's blog here:  http://tekoarose.blogspot.com/

To see more wonderful work from Sweet Dreams Cupcakery head here:  http://www.sweetdreamsbakes.blogspot.com/