The Hanging ‘O the Green

It is warming up to be a pretty day and I have been cleaning up around this place…packing up the Mardi Gras decorations and pulling out St. Patrick’s Day.  Just scrubbed my front door clean and now the hanging’ of the green!

The Most Beautiful Wedding Ever…and a Floral Paradise

We attended our friends’ daughter’s wedding recently and were blown away by its beauty.  It was simply the loveliest event we have ever attended and the attention to detail was outstanding.   It was a big box invitation that  had  us smiling to receive it.  The best part was we would be able to see so many of our old friends from Texas. 

Below is the “out of town guest”  welcome box we received in our hotel room

filled with nibbles that she likes, he likes, a wedding weekend booklet with maps, places to see and eat at, etc.       

and a “do not disturb” door hanger for the morning after.  

There were 2 of these enormous arrangements at the entrance the club.  The event director restructured the club with many new rooms (literally added new temporary walls) so that the vast rooms would be more intimate.  I have tried putting up pictures of what the club rooms would normally look like.  None of the clubs wall space was used…everything was covered with a second carpet or with new walls.Here is what the club entry normally looks like.  The entry doors (behind the piano) open to an airy and wide room, but the event designer wanted a dramatic entry and also needed to create lots of space for his army of workers to orchestrate this production.  This area was cut in half and the opposite sides were used for service.  Here’s what he created…

This is the first room you entered…both walls covered with a hedge of laurel leaves and lights.  As soon as you entered, you could smell roses…we will see why! The opposite wall featured gorgeous photographs of the bride in her light pink wedding dress.  Guests signed the pink glass tiles with best wishes with gold pens.You enter the second room and are greeted with 6 servers on either side of the entry offering you a myriad of cocktails…with “He Likes” (a delicious vodka and cucumber puree mix), “She Likes” (a rhubarb/strawberry and champagne cocktail), wines and martinis.  Do you notice the walls have changed to black?  That’s to showcase the stage behind these servers where a violin quartet will play for a few hours…they are plugged in and rocking out!  “Gangsta’s Paradise” be this violin quartet was amazing…but not as amazing as below…

This is the stage backdrop…a fresh rose 6’ x'6’ ombre painting…just the scent alone was heavenly.  Here is a picture of the piece being assembled that I pulled from the event planner’s Instagram page.This amazing shelf arrangement adorned walls used in a passageway to one of three rooms…the martini room, the cake room or the wedding room.  Three box shelves covered with fresh roses and topped with candles.  Notice the bar below the shelves with seats to offer more seating. 

   Each of these three rooms had pink cartouche sign with the name on it and a sweet rose garland above it.

Huge antiqued mirrors with fresh rose wreaths hung on the temp hallways

      The “Martini Room” looked like this before they worked their magic…

They custom fit temporary Lucite shelving across all of the windows and lined them up with votives. The wedding date made of ice was the focal  point of the bar and flanked with two huge arrangements…fresh oysters, shrimp and crab claws were served on a bed of white hydrangeas underneath these arrangements.  What’s that huge thing out the window?   Look at those votives…that arrangement creating it’s own column…the very simple ranunculus floral arrangement…the ballet slipper pink sequined table cloth…it was a visual feast!     The entry into the “Cake Room”

Here’s what the room normally looks like…notice those large white sunroofs…

They turned them into fresh tulip chandeliers and covered new walls with fresh greens to create another bar.

Imagine this times 6!  The tablecloth fabric was wonderful.  The temp wall behind this was a food station and the cake room beyond that.A better look at the tulips and hedge wall…

   These were on either end of the food bar…you can’t see the orchids very well here, but they were huge. 

The groom’s cake stood on a flower pedestal that connected to the champagne table and then to the bride’s cake.  Stunning mirror adorned with more roses. The Champagne table with orchid garland…

which was connected with more flowers to the bride’s cake.    

The pink pillows on this seating group was the same Dupioni used on the wedding invitation box.

   The club space used for the wedding room

  And after!

Notice the custom fret work cornice boxes with ombre curtains, the large led TV (with doorway cut out for access to restrooms)

    The led TV played incredible scene from nature and then showed the bands playing The hand painted roses on the carpet   And the outside…the simplest bar…yet simply beautiful

French furniture vignettes with those pink pillows  The mirrored table ran the length of the club patio

Paper flowers decorated the heart shaped topiary at the entrance to the geo-dome

And a nice shot of the back of the back of the club…complete with geo-dome for live entertainment later in the night. Moving images were projected onto the dome from nature or from the golf course.

As it got darker and cooler outside, huge baskets with pink, white and peach pashminas were offered to the ladies.  Mother Nature smiled on this winter wedding day with a high of 69 degrees.  The bride and groom watch the fireworks show and then lead their guests into the geo-dome for more surprises.    

It was huge inside and the though my pictures are not the greatest, you can see how large the ribbon chandeliers were that hung over the crowd.  The “birdcage in the back was the photo booth which was set in front of another magnificent wall of roses. The other pics give you a feel for the size of the room.

So we cocktailed for a while and anticipated the rest of the night…then the stage filled with a 14 piece band complete with brass and violin

There was a white spotlight on the obviously vacant center mike…the band cranked up “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” and when it got to the last verse, “so let me introduce to you the one and only “Billy Shears”…they replaced it with (as he walked up to the mike),

Bon Jovi! Great pics, huh? Sorry!

What a thrill and he was great!  He sang just a few of his songs and played lots of other stuff like Twist and Shout, Baba O’Reilly, Under Pressure and more.  So much fun!

                                            After this band was finished,  some other fantastic act from Los Angeles came on for a long set and killed it! There were so many wonderful details and surprises about this memorable wedding…this was us at the end of the night! We will never forget it!