Couldn’t resist to post this picture of a spring arrangement we created for your friend Colin Falco at Pulp & Ink. We purchase the vintage  jadeite vase recently and I will definitely try to get a couple more of them for our collection of antiques. The arrangement has pink peonies, hot pink garden roses called Baronesse, jasmine vine, ranunculus, wax flowers, veronicas and cherry blossoms.

I started working with Ipek and Morgan last year. They came as a referral to me from my good friend Liz Sisson at Studio Starling. From the moment I met them I knew I wanted to work with them. Ipek has the most beautiful smile that can light up a room and Morgan is so easy going… I knew I would have a great time.

Ipek and Morgan love all things vintage, and Ipek is pretty good at finding the diamonds in the rough in the middle of a flea market. They decided upon the Millcreek Barn without even setting foot on it, and what a find it was. It had everything they wanted in a venue to get married. The Millcreek Barn is two and half hours away from Chicago in a little town in South West Michigan called Watervilet. The barn has a beautiful outdoor area were couples can get married, an indoor area with lots of windows, a cute built-in bar, a stage for the band and oh yes… a fire pit. Hello s’mores late night food station!

Ipek also knew she wanted a very rustic but vintage look to her wedding. So we designed floral centerpieces, invitations and just about everything with that in mind. Signature cocktails….  we had to go old skool with those too. Morgan decided on Manhattas and Tom Collins. They were a hit with all the guests.

Our centerpieces were all similar but all slightly different. We covered the tables with burlap overlays and created collections of vases with the mason jars, books, votives wrapped in vintage lace and for the flowers we decided to give dahlias, olive leaves, queen anne’s lace, jasmine vine, white astarantia and privet berries a wildflower look.

Ipek carried a bridal bouquet of white astilbe, white wax flowers, queen anne’s lace, white dahlias, dusty miller, fiddle fern, scabiosa pods and white lisianthus.  We wrapped the stems with a burlap (for that rustic barn look!) but also gave it a bridal feel with vintage lace.

The men sported boutonnieres of white wax flowers and scabiosa pods. The stems were wrapped with twine.

We hung mini blue mason jars with chamomile and queen anne’s lace from the small ceremony pergola at the Millcreek Barn’s outdoor area.  I absolutely loved this look.

For the tables I let Ipek find all the little items that would adorn the tables. She visited flea markets and looked around places like etsy and ebay. She found quite a nice little loot…From old milk bottles, antique books, vintage bottles, blue mason jars, antique signs, an antique typewriter,  and even vintage handkerchieves.

We had a great time on the day of the wedding. For good luck the heavens opened and it even rained a little. We sure didn’t let that spoil the fun. Eventually, the rain stopped and we were able to do the ceremony outside. Morgan’s friend played the violin during the ceremony. Afterwards, we decided to kick things up a notch with a local bluegrass and folk band from Chicago who  played during cocktails and dinner. It truly set the mood for the day.

We couldn’t go all vintage though! So an 80′s cover band was hired to play tunes for dancing. Ipek and Morgan it was a pleasure working with you!

This wedding was featured in Style Me Pretty ~ Illinois. Visit the website to view more pictures by Studio Starling and learn more about the couple.

Liz Sisson from Studio Starling is a good friend of mine. We’ve done countless of weddings together. You can say in the short list of favorite photographers she is right there with the top three. So when she asked me a while ago to put some flowers together for her booth at this summer’s Indie Wed I just couldn’t pass up on the opportunity and more than anything I was happy Liz asked because she knows a lot of good florists.

The surprising thing with this request is Liz’s style and mine are very different from each other. I’m not a leaves kind of girl, and let it all lose kind of girl. But I knew Liz is. If there is anyone I know that is Indie… it’s Liz. I think that is why we work so well together. We are the Ying Yang when we work together.

Liz wanted a lot of free form…. LOTS! So we went ahead and used the so called “wildflowers” which really aren’t. Dahlias, zinnias, privet berries, olive leaves, astilbe, Queen Anne’s Lace, geranium leaves, grass and astarantia were my go to choices.  It’s all about how to design them. So this time around I let the flowers speak for themselves just in a “Liz kind of way”.

We used white milk glass for all the designs. It suits the designs well and of course, we got lots of it in different sizes, shapes and heights.

Love all the privet berries on this design. The tiny blue berries gives it that extra texture we are looking for and it’s leaves helped us achieve exactly what we wanted.

Lucky me the farmer’s market had zinnias this time around! So we used them along with a few black eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s Lace, Olive Leaves, asclepsia and a few touches of white wax flowers

And of course, why stop now? I just had to do two bouquets.

Notice the little detail of burlap and twine for the bouquet handle. We loved it.

Couldn’t leave the bridesmaids behind. So I created something with lots of wax flowers, Queen Anne’s Lace and asclepsia.

Best part of it all, I get to work with Liz, Nicole (Liz’s partner at Studio Starling) and the delightful Emily on two weddings this coming August!