Welcome to the Bella Signature Design Blog!

We are so happy that you came to visit our blog! Bella Signature Design focuses on creating a custom, stylish event that is highly personal, with details that synergistically come together to create an atmosphere that is a direct reflection of you. My passion, as a designer, is to infuse your event with all the little things that speak to who you are, and to share that with your guests in a stylish, unexpected way. Our blog will be changing in the next few weeks to reflect our vision and our passion, so hang on for the ride and enjoy!

Feel free to peruse the posts, look in our archives for some great advice and be sure to leave comments on what you like. We love hearing from you!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Leah and Adam, part three: The sketch

Our final post for this series is the design process that went into this particular event (see post 1, the feature on Azzura Cafe, and post 2, the fun before and after photos).

When Leah first approached me to design her wedding, she wanted shades of red, with black and champagne; but she wanted the ceremony to feel light...so we designed a mostly light, champagne colored ceremony with punches of black and red, and a deep red and sumptuous reception

Here is our original ceremony sketch: (illustrated by the fabulous Lisa, who does all of our renderings for us - it really helps our clients to see what they are going to get!






My original design included ceiling draping, to soften up the ceremony space. I really wanted guests to feel ‘enveloped’ in the space! The room itself was also draped, and everything was to be lit in a soft champagne color. Leah, our bride, absolutely LOVED this look!

Several months later, however, we had to make some drastic budget cuts, and we had to go back back to the drawing board (Pun intended!). Sketches are expensive (I myself can't draw at all!) so we worked from the first sketch, and Leah put her faith in me that the changes I suggested would keep the look she wanted yet be affordable under the new budget.

Knowing how much Leah had liked this original look, I really wanted to keep as much the same as possible, while still making a significant cut in her cost. This isn’t always possible, but if the client is flexible, sometimes there are great ways to cut down on expenses! Instead of having stand-alone aisle flowers such as seen above, I thought we could get double use out of the square centerpieces we had designed for the square guest tables, so instead of the black cylinder vases and round arrangements above, we simply used square stands and some of her square centerpieces.


We replaced the champagne aisle runner with a less expensive white one, and decreased the quantity of the red roses on the ‘altar piece’, but added in some fabric to keep it lush. Unfortunately the ceiling draping had to be cut as well, which made the look not as soft as I had designed, but the square lighting fixtures in the venue matched the square containers, which helped keep the overall design integrity.
What do you think?

Photo by Philip Meadows

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