Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Halloween has never been my absolute favorite holiday (although I love holidays in general) because I'm not as much into the scary aspect of it, but I love some of the fantasy that comes along with it! I went to a halloween party last night and saw a fabulous pumpkin that looked just like Cinderella's carriage - the pattern can be found at the Hallmark website, and here is the picture from the site:

In thinking about how to host a non-scary, elegant Halloween Party, I would use the traditional colors, playing them up with mixed shapes of plates and glassware, and have lots of fabulous fabrics and textures, like this one see on M-A-Belle's blog:

Fall, festive and pretty

without being too spooky.

I LOVE the orange feather wreath (also found on M-A-Belle's blog) above - fabulous!

We do get the occasional Halloween wedding - a few years ago I did a fabulous Halloween wedding at a warehouse - that was SO fun to decorate! The bride dressed in a beautiful Ball gown- she was incredibly elegant, and her veil was made up entirely of peacock feathers and went all the way to the floor -stunning! All the guests dressed up, which made for a very fun and unique evening - I'm sure that is one wedding those guests will never forget!

What is the most remarkable/unforgettable part of your wedding?

Daniela

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Peonies!

Ah, I love the fact that we can Peonies in the fall! Peonies are one of the most fabulous flowers in the world, and our great connection with growers in Chile and Peru allows us to offer these for amazing bridal bouquets and even centerpieces - if you are willing to pay the price! Importing these beauties are not cheap, and although we do not usually encourage people to import product from far away during the summers season when there is plenty of local product available, the local pickings are slim October through March, and so there is not a lot of choice but to bring something in from a warmer climate. And if you are going to do it, it may as well be fabulous AND help support a sustainable flower farm!
Here's what will be available (in somewhat limited quantities - when they are gone they're gone!) November through January:

I LOVE the pink one that looks like a giant Ranunculus!

Daniela

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Color Trends: Gray

Gray has been the new black/brown for a while now, and this past weekend we had a lovely color palette of aqua, sage, dove gray and pops of burnt orange. Being that this wedding had a Pacific northwest coastal theme, the colors were perfect: subtle, mysterious, beautiful. To put this kind of color scheme, especially gray, into flowers, can be a tough call for floral designers, however. There's always the easy route when presented with a difficult color; to go with all white/cream and just incorporate the color into the ribbon, and the ghastly choice of using dyed or fake flowers...(although I LOVE the use of vintage millinery flowers). I really wanted to past both of these options, even though we really wanted to use gray. Luckily, there is some great gray foliage out there, like lambs ear, dusty miller, and gray Brasilia berries, silver tree and eucalyptus. We even used the back of bear grass in the centerpieces, as they have a gray tone versus the front sides glossy green. Centerpieces themselves were made out of driftwood, with clusters of roses and loops of grasses - very northwest coastal!

The bridal bouquet featured ivory garden roses, lisianthus, gardenias, fluffy ranunculus, pampas grass, brasilia berries and dusty miller.One of the driftwood centerpieces. Other centerpieces included tall tufts of grasses, steel cubes with mounds of burnt orange roses and mint julep cups of lambs ear.

The Chuppah was made out of driftwood, draped with eucalyptus duppioni silk and accented with roses and grasses...pictures to post when we get professional ones (we were a bit too busy to get any ceremony set-up shots!)

Daniela

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New Chiavari Chairs

Wow - sorry for the long delay in posts, we have a big event this weekend that we have been making custom furniture for, sewing wall drapery for and today, stripping about 1000 stems of roses for - phew! We also had a fantastic time doing a photshoot today for a stunning bridal magazine - we can't tell any details until the magazine is published, but we'll give you lots of details then !

One of the blogs I read is Sasha Souza's great blog, Sparkliatti (see blog roll on the right). Today she mentioned the new line of Chiavari Chairs that is coming out, and I had to share!

We use Chiavari Chairs A LOT at weddings, the most common colors being the walnut brown and gold, but we have also used white, silvers and black...some of the new colors coming from Royal Table USA out are bright red, clear, and Glow-in-the-dark!! Not so sure about glow-in-the dark chairs at a wedding, but perhaps at a party...Sasha on her blog mentioned a bar mitzvah, and I could totally see that! I LOVE the idea of the clear bubble Chiavaris though, modern yet elegant. Will someone PLEASE bring these to Seattle??

Daniela

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Covet Mondays: Schwa Designs

Not only is Lauren of Schwa Designs sweet and unassuming, but very talented! Her designs are organic yet clean, beautiful yet, at times, simple. I think what I love most is her color combinations, she has a way with combining colors and hues that just makes me want to buy something for every day of the week!

I totally love those smoky gray quartz earrings, below - what a fabulous bridesmaids gift if your wedding is one of this season's HOT colors, like slate or charcoal.

I covet these earrings below, though - elegant, fabulous go with an evening dress or your favorite pair of jeans.

Thanks for your great designs Lauren - Seattle is lucky to have you!

Daniela

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Bella Signature Design featured in Bride and Bloom Magazine!

The latest issue of Bride and Bloom Magazine arrived today, hot off the press - and we are featured as a "Featured Coordinator"! B&B is an amazing design magazine read by both brides and those in the trade, and while based out of Los Angeles, they have gone nation wide and are found at Barnes and Nobles and all major book stores and magazine shops. We extremely honored when they chose us a few months ago to be one of their featured coordinators!

I was asked how I would interpret the theme "Hollywood Glamour." Since I knew two other Planner/Designers would be interpreting the same theme, and always of course trying to do something new, I wanted to mix the more typical "old Hollywood glamour" that brings to mind black and white, with the new Hollywood of today which is just as glamorous, but in a more contemporary way with clean lines yet overflowing lushness...

I dreamt up a color palette of gray (the new contemporary "black"), lacy nude (Old hollywood glamour) and fuchsia (Fresh color in Hollywood right now). This immediately brought to mind Wildflower Linens, with whom we had worked previously on a photoshoot for Grace Ormonde, and whose linens we have utilized at some of our most luxurious weddings here in Seattle. We used a silvery gray duppioni silk linen, fuchsia napkins and Chiavari chair pads and a fabulous nude "Empress Lace Linen" chair cover. Stunning! We wrapped our vases in a slightly darker slate gray silk, to really make the Fuchsia "Milano" roses pop off the table (and of course used them in reckless quantities!!). The bouquet featured fuchsia Peonies and exotic Aranda orchids, wild Sweet Peas, Astilbe, Tulips and Garden Roses, bound by a slate gray double satin ribbon. Pedersens Event Rentals is our all time favorite rental company here locally, and naturally we went there to pursue their newest choices in stemware and flatware. We ended up using their brand new platinum and gold rimmed glassware which really fit in with our gray and nude palette, and fabulous square gold chargers and white square china. Fabulous! Even the flatware was intriguing, with an almost sparkling yet contemporary design.We invited Jen of Jen's Desserts to create a glamorous cake, and she surprised us by bringing two! Her first design was her sparkling sugar cake, which I think is absolutely exquisite - clean, simple, yet ultra glamorous. It was the one Bride and Bloom chose too! Her second cake was also very creative, and featured a gigantic fuchsia/purpley flower (Jen said she was inspired by the Sex and the City movie!) For invitations, Brown Sugar Design created fabulous menu's, placecards and table numbers to go with a rich letterpress invitation they have in their line, on ecru paper and gray letterpress. The menu's and other table designs featured thick dove gray stock with yummy ivory writing.Check out Brown Sugar website (above) for some fabulous designs! Favors, which unfortunately weren't shown in the magazine (they only have so much room on one page) were by Glassybaby, and if you've followed my blog, you've read my previous blog about these great votiveholders!

And of course, none of this would have been possible if we weren't allowed to shoot in the fabulous Sodo Park, one of my very favorite new venues, and had it all captured by one of my all-time favorite photographers, Bradley Hanson (who is all over this blog!). I can create all the beauty in the world, but if it's not captured in an artistic way, it is lost forever.

Thanks to all the vendors who allowed me to bring them together in the very short two-week time frame we had, and thanks to Bride and Bloom for believing in us!

Daniela

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