Alease & John - Perfectly Pretty Pinwheels

I had an amazing experience working with Alease. She's sweet and creative and has a wonderful sense of humor. Her pinwheel concept was a blast to work with and think up ideas for. And the more color - the better! The two of us designed her wedding on-line because she lives in California. Only when we were finished with almost everything, and she came home to visit her family, did I meet her face to face. And I have to say she's as much fun in person as she is on- line.

Alease wanted a bouquet full of Spring colors and we managed to do just that! Her bouquet was filled with roses, tulips, ranunculus, craspedia, stephanotis, lisianthus, hydrangea, and delphinium in a wide range of colors. I even used all different colored pins to secure her white satin stem wrap. John wore a white rose - just perfect for the groom.

Each bridesmaid carried a bright bouquet of just color of tulips. Their escorts wore boutonnieres of stephanotis with matching ribbon wrap and pins inside.






Moms carried small bouquets of blue and yellow iris mixed with pink roses. Dads wore boutonnieres of yellow spray roses.

We used two very colorful topiaries to "frame" Alease and John during their ceremony. I'm so glad that the sun stayed out.


Alease based her entire wedding on a whimsical pinwheel theme. Her fantastic invitations featured pinwheels. And pinwheels were the placecards for her guests - which they would later add to the centerpieces. Alease and John also chose to number their tables with the numbers that were important to them, rather than consecutive numbers starting with #1. You can see a bit of that on my centerpiece pictures.

Alease and John have a rabbit named Guinness, who is sooo cute. Naturally, since it's Easter time, I thought rabbits and Easter candy - the perfect companions. So Alease took pictures of Guinness for me and he "starred" in the cocktail table pieces. Each table and the bar had a different Guinness pose. Notice the bunny shaped candy in and around the vases. Finding it was the hardest part of this arrangement. And by the way - Guinness is paper trained!

The centerpieces were so bright and colorful. I've included just four of the 15 different flowers we used. Alease's step-dad made the wooden boxes to hold the grass and Alease picked out the ribbon. Guests "parked" their pinwheels in the grass box on their table. Each table had different containers of Spring flowers. Kind of like an indoor garden at La Massaria. I can't wait to see Sarah Schulte's professional pictures which I know will be superior to mine. Happy Easter and Happy Passover to all my friends and family!

Party Time!

Ironically, I had two 50th birthday parties to work on last weekend. The first was a surprise party that a gentleman was throwing for his wife. It was left up to me to design something unique using roses and candlelight. I painted pots a metallic silver that matched a silver web covered pillar candle that I placed in the center. Surrounding the candle are red roses and black painted ruscus. Before the party, the lovely staff at Columbia Station sprinkled red rose petals around the base of each pot. I really liked the final look of these.

These are the centerpieces that I created for my brother Jon for his 50th birthday party celebrated that same weekend. Not a flower in sight! I wanted to share Jon's playful side along with how he's changed through the years. Since his friends know him as Jonny "O", painting O-shaped wreaths gold as picture frames was a no brainer. I used 11 different double sided photos of my little brother - one for each table - and I had a blast working on each and every one of them.