On a Winter's Night

What a weekend!

Last night's wedding was, in a word, spectacular. After a year of planning, all of the ideas were realized in a simply ephemeral, luminous, and magical evening.  As you can tell, I can't find enough adjectives to describe the effect! On a very very cold winter's night, how wonderful to be a wedding guest and be transported to another world - all under a big white tent in the middle of a dark golf course at Merion Golf Club.

Cory, my wonderful bride, had a very distinct idea of what she wanted - the purest of white flowers against dark green foliage - a very clean, simple design but lush and abundant. The greens were to be magnolia and salal - no Christmas greens in sight! This was not to be a Christmas wedding, rather a Winter wedding, resplendent with candlelight, mountains of white hydrangea, and pure white Irish linen - all housed in a heated, vast tent populated with palms and planter boxes of magnolia.

And the candles and the glassware! We lined the entire perimeters of both tents (cocktail and ballroom) with hundreds of pillar candles standing in a random assortment of glass hurricanes. Candles were everywhere - at the end of the road, at the entrance, on every table, on every wall imaginable. Between the candle hurricanes and the arrangements, I had over 600 pieces of glass on-site. I had stopped counting at one point!

For the centerpieces, I used thousands of stems of white hydrangea, white Tibet roses, white Eskimo roses, white ranunculus, and salal greens. All arrangements were placed in either glass trifle bowls or 3-ft tall glass flutes. For the bridesmaids' bouquets, I created tiny all-white nosegays of roses and ranunculus to set off their navy taffeta dresses and Cory's bouquet was a larger version with roses, ranunculus, gardenias and greens. Heavenly!

I so loved working with Cory and her family. From beginning to end, working with them was fun, creative, and a true collaboration. Thank you for asking me do the flowers for your wedding - I was honored to be your florist!

Here are some photos with my point and shoot camera - apologies for the blurs. I also don't have any photos of the bouquets, but I will get them up on my website as soon as possible!

Daytime:

Earlier in the day, putting the final touches on the tall centerpieces -

Upper Terrace (cocktail area) - you'll see how different it looks at night -

Heading down the stairs to the Main (Ballroom) Tent. We framed it out with Magnolia -

Looking back up the stairs to the Cocktail area -

We begin to light the candles as the sun sets -

The bandstand - 10 ft toparies flanked enormous window boxes and white pots of fresh magnolia - we also tented out the bandstand ceiling to create a warm effect. Everyone loved it!

The cake, covered in fresh gardenias -

Getting ready!

Nighttime:

When guests pulled up, they saw candles that seemed to go on forever on the many walls facing the drive -

The guests entered the interior ballroom and were met by roaring fires in the two fireplaces and this arrangement of all hydrangea. It was lovely -

Guests walked through to the cocktail terrace - candles flickering on the walls, luminous lanterns overhead, urns of hydrangea at the four corners, jazz trio playing in the corner -

Eight cocktail tables scattered throughout with navy silk ribbon tied around the glass vases -

At 7 o'clock, guests were invited down into the tent - the 'fence' was removed, and the band struck up a lively tune -

A view back up the staircase - magnolia roping, candles, and huge urns of hydrangea at the top and the bottom of the stairs -

A tall centerpiece -

A low centerpiece -

Masses of candles -

The right side of the ballroom -

Center -

Left -