The bride, the weather, the flowers; all classic beauties this evening. We have great weather today - for the 3rd weekend in a row - gotta love September! Cool breezes and 78 degrees set the stage for a gorgeous outdoor ceremony here on the patio at the Pavilion at the Visitor Center. My camera or my talents shooting do no justice to the beautiful flowers framing the couple.

Erin was so beautiful this evening, even with her tears shared with her dad right before she went down the aisle. The girls wore purple dresses that were so beautiful and they will certainly be able to wear those again. Meg from Sweet Peas of Jennersville did the flowers. Classic, elegant, simple - we love her sense of style.  Liz Marden has the cake this evening and tomorrow as well. We wish Mark and Erin all the best in the world!

Sweet sweetheart table

Erin made her guest book from shutterfly

Liz Marden Cake

Hey everyone. I want to get these great pics out to you so you can see the cool things we had on Friday night here. Everyone had a tremendous time and I can not thank my staff and the great groups of professional vendors that I am so privileged to work with including Dave from CinemaCake, Kendall from Eclatante, Maya from Beautiful Blooms, Steve Croce - Dj extraordinaire, Meredith from Winterthur Floral Department, Eventions Lighting, Jim Graham - amazing photographer (please see some of his handy work below) and so fun to work with, my colleagues at Longwood Gardens - Michelle and Sara, our amazing bakers - Liberty Lane Bake Shoppe and Liz Marden Gourmet Cakes and Desserts, and we got some more decor help from Special Occasions and my favorite person Claudia and Party Rental supplied the look once eclatante and blooms did the design for these 3 tables.

Beautiful Blooms flowers, Eclatante Design

Special Occasions Linens, Winterthur Florals

Special Occasion Linens, Asian Lanterns Hung, Winterthur Florals

Winterthur Rolls Royce

Gazpacho Soup Shooter

Thai Shrimp Salad Cones

Eclatane Design, Beautiful Bloms Flowers - love this as a modern take on a head table

Beautiful Blooms

Winterthur Floral Department - so whimsical

Pecan Chicken with Tamarind Shrimp

Filet and CrabCake

Portabello crusted Chicken with Seared Scallops

Eventions - Draping in the VC

Previewing the salads

Hi all! What a weekend - our tasting showcase on Friday, wedding on Saturday, and we hosted the annual graham partners event on Sunday and all day Monday - whew! Saturdays wedding was delightful! I have had so much fun with these two families. Tim and Sarah are really the first of their group of friends to get married and everyone was just so excited to be a part of it.

The weather held - it was hot and sticky but we had pre-ceremony beverages for the bridal party while they were taking pictures and the guests enjoyed themselves though they were all happy to get back to the VC in the air conditioning!

Meredith and the team from Winterthur Florals id the centerpieces. I think the pop of color on the napkin is a nice touch as well.  Joel Plotkin was the photographer and he did a great job as always - though he needed help for this one as he has a broken arm right now!

Cake - Liberty Lane Bake Shoppe

Seating Chart - framed

Candy Table as a Favor

Flip Flops set up in the restrooms for guests

More flip flops

Winthur Floral Department

Visitor Center - ready to party!

Good evening everyone! We just had the best weekend - 3 weddings, 3 gorgeous couples, and 3 great ceremonies with no rain plans in site - whew!

Friday evening started the weekend with Leah and Raleigh. This cute couple dated all through high school and college and they look like they were literally made for each other. Yukie did her flowers and Leah was stunning in an ivory lace dress with a 40’s inspired hairstyle - she looked so coordinated with the estate. They started with ceremony and cocktail hour at the reflecting pool and then moved back to dinner and dancing at the Visitor Center

At the pool - getting married!

ready for guests

Cake by Liz Marden - brandy almond buttercream

Slide Show on, placecards in wheat grass

Lined up, but watching the slide show!

Saturday night had a very vivacious crowd attending. We started with the ceremony at the pool and then Kristin and Mike snuck some alone time in for pictures and the guests hopped on the shuttles and came back to the patio for cocktail hour. Their evening continued as they danced and had a ton of fun in the Visitor Center. I loved what Theresa Florals did with the centerpieces - 3 different table arrangements, and eventions lit the room wonderfully. I got to work with Kristin from all about events planning - she is so laid back and relaxed - a great person to work with!

Liberty Lane cake

Theresa Florals - different floral arrangements

Another floral arrangement - my favorite

Placecard table

Eventions lighting - the perfect finishing touch

Tonight wraps up a busy weekend - I actually just met the bride and the groom for the first time yesterday when we did the rehearsal! I actually worked with the mother of the bride and w planned the whole thing with her in California!! Ceremony on the patio, Steve Croce is playing the music (so I am totally relaxed cause I am working with the best tonight!), and the Winterthur Floral team did the flowers on this wedding. I love this cake that Kimberly designed - I think it might be my favorite (or maybe I am too biased as I know it is the sunshine cake!).

Ceremony on the patio

Winterthur Florals does the arbor

Liberty Lane Cake - this may be my favorite one I have seen in a long time!

Winterthur Florals

A lot of hard work went into making this weekend so successful including my bridal attendants Lauren and Jessica and my great team in the kitchen and running the events including Josh and Adip. I can not do all of this without these great people and they are the same ones that are going to be taking care of your weddings if you are lucky enough to be getting married here.

Hopefully you are finding the pictures inspiring. I look forward to bringing you more next weekend. Have a great night everyone!

Friday the 14th we worked with the grooms family for a change of pace with a great rehearsal dinner. 70 people in the Gallery with 3 food stations and some light stationary hors d’oeuvres. White Stripe linens from Special Occasions gave just the right amount of pop. I do hope we did not outshine the wedding the next day!

White Stripe Linens for the Rehearsal DinnerStationary display for the rehearsal

Saturday the 15thwas GORGEOUS - I mean that was a typical May day - the reason so many people choose this month to get married! We did something different - which of course I always love - and the mother of the bride had the idea to have the ceremony on the East Side of the Gallery. Now we have done that before but not where we had it. MOB asked us to place it in a different area and I thought it came out really well.

You know how we LOVE to change desks into bars!The Bride makes her entranceMe shooting Jim Graham shooting

Flowers by Yukie did the sweet and simple flowers - I love the height the orchids give to the Gallery!

Mary Jane finishing placecards

Different cake idea

We are in full wedding gear right now with 3 this weekend. You may have noticed my email and phone responses have slowed down a bit - I will get caught back up after this weekend!

Good evening everyone! Wow - last night was a lot of fun. I am sitting here reading emails from people who attended last night - both brides and their families and our great vendors, all saying what a great vibe there was in the air.

Guests were checked in by my wonderful bridal attendants, Jessica, Jessica, and Zanthea. Michael Hunter and his fellow musicians gave us some great background music. Guests mingled in the lobby while sipping apple cider cranberry spritzers and trying 10 of our fabulous hors d’oeuvres, including my personal favorite, the lobster and brie burrito. We also set up the bruschetta station - yum! Special Occasions did the great linens and the Winterthur Floral Team did a great job on all of the florals in the front. Dave Williams of DVideography was able to showcase some of his marvelous work as well.

Winterthur Florals, Holiday Inspired

After “cocktail” hour, guests slipped into the main room and were greeted with an amazing room and so much to see. Steve Croce was spinning some tunes, Brian Toner with Eventions had some great lighting, and we had both of our cake vendors - Kimberly Withers and Liz Marden.

Eventions GoBOWarm Lighting

Claudia from Special Occasions worked with me and we set up so many different tables with collections for the spring, summer, and fall to inspire. Theresa Floral did the flowers, each one different and beautiful.

Sweet ideas for the sweetheart table

Flowing orchids on the buffet - Theresa Floral

We also featured some of our standard linens and worked with our friends at Party Rental to show off some great enhancements including glassware, chargers, tea lights, other color cushions, and chivari chairs. Theresa made the white collection simple yet sensational and the Winterthur team took ivory to new heights.

Party Rental Glasses, Theresa FloralParty Rental Chargers, Winterthur Florals

And of course there was more food if I am going to call this a tasting ,right? Salads, salads, and more salads. 5 great entrees and 5 featured items off of our fun stations. I have a vegetarian couple getting married here and the chef whipped up 2 great options for them to try as well. Everyone got to try so much food and we should have gotten everyone up and dancing to burn some calories before Thanksgiving.

And don’t forget - this was our first one. Shoot me an email or respond to this post to let me know your thoughts and feedback. Have a great holiday everyone!

Eclantante Entrance

Nov 12th was my first holiday party of the year. Kendall Brown, Donna O’Brien, and Claudia Seyler of Eclatante Design, Beautiful Blooms, and Claudias Make-Up Studio respectively, held their holiday party open house early so that all of us “in the biz” could make it before the holiday rush.

Kendall and Leila were the consummate hostesses, streaming between the shops and welcoming guests outside while Donna and Mya mixed and mingled and kep the flow going.

I caught up with some old friends and colleagues that now work for Feast Your Eyes catering. I sampled some great red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing and an adult milkshake with what else but Bailey’s in it! There were some warm firepits outside with make your own smores stations. Heaters lined the walkway between the shops and there were throws for brave guests to curl up in and snuggle and people watch (or was that just me?).

I got to say to some other great people including Mike Kehr and his team and Dave from DVideography. Mary Reugg from Brides Philadelphia was also there. I snapped a couple quick shots - take a look.

Festive Scene

Sexy Claudia

Comfy Throws

Cool Ice

Hi everyone
Check out Kendall’s blog for the great October Color Story and some more photos from our photo shoot:
http://www.eclatantedesign.com/blog

October is almost over, just a few more weeks to our inaugural catering tasting showcase on Nov 24th!

Our wedding season is over for 2009 and I thought I would take advantage of the break to write on a few topics that I thought about throughout the year but did not want to post on in lieu of weddings. This one has started to come up a lot this past year - vegans. What is a vegan? Vegans are people who eat no animal products (including no eggs, dairy, and usually even honey) as opposed to vegetarians who simply do not eat animals/meat (including beef, poultry, fish, etc). Why do you care you might be thinking?

A few times this past summer we had a guest tell one of our butlers that he or she was a vegan. They insisted that they had noted that on their response cards. Our team would spring into action but coming up with a vegan entree in the middle of serving a few hundred guests is no easy feet! We aren’t talking pasta and a red sauce gang - we are talking about veggies and fruits and natural products that we want to taste and look good.

We want to take care of your guests needs and the more information we have ahead of time the better we can serve them. We want you to tell us about every allergy you know - even if you think that item is not on the menu. Same with vegan vs vegetarian and even when your great grandfather wants a well-done steak. Taking care of these things for your guests allows them to enjoy your wedding without worrying about being hungry or getting sick.

I can tell you that I was at a wedding a few months back and had noted vegetarian on my response card. After a cocktail (okay, maybe 2) and no vegetarian items at cocktail hour I was ready to eat dinner. 1st course came out - wedding soup - meatballs. They had no vegetarian alternative. Second course, salad with bacon. Again, no vegetarian course. Now I am starving and everyone at my table is uncomfortable knowing they are eating more and more and I have nothing in front of me. And yes, they did have a vegetarian entree for me but they should have known to take care of each course for me - we do!!!

Moral of my long winded story - let us know what your guests need and we can determine for them what they can eat - from the bar snacks to the desserts. Any questions - don’t be afraid to ask us - we work with this all year round!

I had a great time today working on a photo shoot with our buds from Eclatante - design and planning and our other fellow colleagues - Donna from Beautiful Bloooms, Marie Labbancz Photos, and Claudia on hair and make-up. I can’t wait to see these shots published. Here are a few of the pictures that I took. As soon as I get the professional ones I will have them up for you to see how cool this was!

Reflecting Pool

Blue like the water....

Staging the ceremony space

Lower Level of the Pool - Super Cool Aisle Runner

Reflecting Pool - Lower Level

Hi Everyone - we have just decided to try something different this coming year and everyone I have chatted with is so excited for this cool opportunity for all of our pending brides -

On NOVEMBER 24, 6:00PM - 9:00PM  - You are invited to our first ever Tasting Showcase!!

The nitty gritty - Per your catering packages you still get the same amount of people that come. We will do these every 6 months so please plan accordingly (next one to be in June!). Want to bring your friends and family? Register with us for a small per person charge. If you are getting married and want to come to more then one of these - please do - again, a fee will apply after your first one, but it will be a great way to network.

What will you get to see and do? - when you step into the VC we will have a photo show on the screens, a great cocktail hour band and a mocktail bar for you. We will be passing tons of hors d’ oeuvres for you to try.

You will then be graciously moved into the VC where you will see flowers, lighting, tablecloths, and of course - Food!! We will offer both stations and served options. Our bakers will be on hand to greet you and tempt you with their wares. I will be there with my whole team - Chef Jason, Rachel, Mary Jane and our great bridal attendants - Jessica, Jessica, and Zanthea.

We are inviting some past brides and parents so that may chat with you and share ideas and offer suggestions on everything you might be wondering about.

The fluff - We are so excited to make this change and by not doing the individual tastings any longer, be able to offer you more food, and direct access to approved vendors and a room full done up - a complete design inspiration for you. Our hope with this date is total convenience for you and your family since it just 2 days before Thanksgiving and we know that so many of you are already traveling into the area.

We will still need to schedule time for each bride to sit one on one with me and map out all of the details for your event. Each meeting will take approximately 1 hour and we can schedule those from here on out.

Please email me with your acceptance!!