WEDDING BLOG

Elegant Newport, Rhode Island Wedding – Jess and Jeff

December 13, 2012 | editorial team

What a gorgeous couple and stunning wedding we have today! Jess and Jeff created an elegant Newport, Rhode Island celebration that thoughtfully incorporated their Haitian and Chinese heritages. Such a wonderful way to honor their families – I love it!

The Couple: Jess and Jeff

The Wedding: 8.12.12 – Castle Hill – Newport, RI

What were the top three priorities for you in planning your wedding? Mirth, elegance and a sense of timelessness.

What wedding traditions or cultural traditions did you incorporated into your wedding and what did they mean to you? Being from different cultures – my family hails from Haiti and Jeffs from China – it was important to us that our cultures be represented at our wedding. We included subtle touches – for example, each guest was given a fortune cookie alongside a slice of Haitian cake for dessert. Inside each fortune cookie were messages with our favorite love quotations and lucky numbers that read 8-12-2012,” our wedding date. We also had a surprise performance of a Chinese traditional lion dance by the group Woo Chings White Crane of Boston. The dance wards off evil spirits and wishes the newlyweds prosperity and good fortune in their new life together.

Were there any places where you broke the rules in your wedding planning? Why and how did you do that? I wanted to personalize and customize everything from the programs, which were newspapers (a nod to my background as a journalist), to the menus with our monogram on them. We even found ways to get our guests to help personalize our day by having the traditional guest book turned into a guest quilt. Guests signed patches that will later be turned into a family quilt – a souvenir that can be passed down through generations.

What was your biggest wedding planning success? Our primary goal was to have a timeless, elegant festivity that was not short on the essential fun. We still have guests telling us what a fabulous time they had at our wedding. The dance floor was always packed, and the photographs reflect the incredible amount of joy and love that we shared on that day.

What was the most important thing that you learned through the wedding planning process and what would you tell other brides-to-be? Make a statement. Your wedding should have your personal touch throughout, and I think its safe to say that you want people to feel like its an authentic representation of who you are as a couple. If you can define that early, youll be great shape in making the day truly your own.

The Wedding Team:

Photographer: Mikhail Glabets
Event Designer: Exquisite Events of Newport
Day of Event Planner: Atiya Charley
Ceremony & Reception Venue: Castle Hill
Videographer/Film Maker: Long Haul Films
Officiant: Lark dHelen
Invitation Designer: Lela New York
Florist: Sayles Livingston
Cake: Sin Desserts
DJ: Ra-Mu and the Crew
Live Music: Occasional Brass & Strings
Live Guitarist: Brian Mello
Live Performers: Woo Chings White Crane
Favors: Personalized Wine Bottles

Thank you Jess and Jeff for sharing your big day with us!

Favorite Wedding Bouquets of 2012 From Junebug Member Florists

December 12, 2012 | editorial team

This has been such a fun week! Beautiful flowers wedding bouquets have been pouring into my inbox from our Junebug member florists, and it’s like Christmas came early! Each designer sent their personal favorite bouquet of the year and a little information about their creations. And lucky you, because I’m going to regift, and send all the beauty and inspiration to you!
Bella Rugosa: I loved designing this for my bride who wanted a bold mix of pink florals in a tight pave design with lots of textural interest.

Photo by Dan DeLong of Red Box Pictures

Christopher Flowers: This is my favorite from this year because it was kind of an unusual color palette! The wedding style was a mix of antique and modern touches.

Photo by Lucas Mobley Photography

Fiore Blossoms: Pure white peonies, ruffled garden roses, and dark viburnum berries were full of wintery romance. This bouquet, created for a winter bride, was so gorgeous in the snow!

Photo by La Vie Photography

Flora Nova: I loved the softness and the vintage touch of this bouquet lots of David Austin English garden roses made this a super romantic bouquet. Trailing amaranthus add old English garden flair.

Photo by Ashley Paul Studio

Floressence: I made this bouquet in June for a super sweet bride who sent me a few inspiration images and then let me roam free in the wholesale market. Poppies were just starting to burst from their casings, while overripe peonies and garden roses carried the sweet promise of warmer days. The whole bouquet totters on the cusp of spring and summer, freshness and decay – and pretty much says everything I love about flowers.

Photo by Laurel McConnell Photography

Garden Party Flowers: This bouquet epitomizes seasonal and sustainable. It was designed for a bride who embraced those ideals and loved the palette and texture of late summer’s bounty and glory. I loved the challenge of creating a piece without flower blooms to showcase nature’s beauty in every season.

Isari: A romantic loose spring bouquet with blush roses, anemones, poppies, trailing jasmine vines, pieris, ranunculus, dusty miller foliages and scented geranium bound with pale nude silk ribbon.

Photo by onelove photography

Kathy Wright & Co.: Composite flowers unto themselves are not anything new. Since I was a very young floral designer, I have been pulling the petals off poor unsuspecting blooms, and making them into larger than life specimens. I love the new and unusual shapes and textures they take on in their newly enlarged state, and find that I get the most amazing responses from my clients as they truly have never seen anything like it before.

Composite flowers are time consuming and also can wear on your patience, as each individual petal must be put into position. But the end result is pretty cool, and for some brides, it is the perfect solution to finding a unique statement to compliment their beautiful wedding dress! This composite rose was crafted from the petals of a white Anastasia rose.

Photo by Barnett Photographics

Krista Jon: I love the simplicity and subtle edginess of the color fade. We did quite a few ombré bouquets this year, but this peach one maintained such an elegant and soft feel with a slight nod to the unexpected…I also happen to adore the bride on a personal level, so you can imagine the love that was put into each bloom for this entire wedding.

Photo by Paula Luna

Peony & Plum: This romantic bouquet had all the classic English flowers…garden roses, delphinium, Queen Anne’s lace, and ranunculus. The end result was feminine and so summery!

Photo by Love Life Studios

tic-tock: An uncommon, yet signature tic-tock bouquet featuring intricate work, blended seamlessly with a mixture of soft, pastel florals and embellished with sparkling details.

Photo by Kris Kan

Willow & Bloom: Ashley and Chad are New Yorkers with southern roots that were planning a pacific northwest wedding. We loved incorporating flowers and foliage in Ashley’s bouquet that reflected each of these locations. We used elegant white roses and callas (so chic New York!), southern magnolia foliage, and northwest thistles and blackberry.

Photo by Laurel McConnell Photography

Wisteria Lane: I love this bouquet because it is unusual – the raw cotton and the dried pods juxtaposed next to the frilly garden rose are a striking combination!

Woodland Flowers: This is a bridal bouquet from a spring wedding that we did this year that incorporated some our favorite flowers: black-centered anemones, pink peonies, ranunculus and tulips. We also loved the owl timepiece the bride Kate chose for her bouquet handle that represented her steam punk theme.

Photo by Christopher Gendron Photography

So much loveliness! A huge thanks to our member florists for sharing their work with us. And for more floral inspiration, visit our image gallery where you can browse through flowers from real weddings and even search them by color.

Elegant LA Wedding in White, Grey, and Papaya – Myesha and Craig

December 11, 2012 | editorial team

coral gray white

Myesha and Craig threw a festive, elegant LA wedding, just one short month ago, with the prettiest color palette. The white was ruffly, the grey was calm, and the papaya was punchy. I love how photographer Adrienne Gunde even shot the around-the-town photos in areas of the city that matched the palette. Lovely!

Adrienne said: I could see it from our first meeting over cucumber mint lemonade…the way Craig looks at Myesha. And Myesha looks at Craig. There is so much love between these two, expressed in a bouquet of white roses delivered to Myesha that morning, a tearful first look, heartfelt vows (and a fist bump!) during the ceremony. They met 4 years ago while both working on the Obama campaign, and it seems to be fitting that theyre getting married just when elections are rolling around again. Both Myesha and Craig are full of style, and I adored the urban elegance and bright colors that filled this day. They also incorporated bits of Myeshas Jamaican heritage into the wedding, with little jars of rum as favors and a cake that was brought in straight from Jamaica!

The Couple: Myesha and Craig

The Wedding: 9.29.12 – Maguire Gardens – Los Angeles, CA

What three adjectives best describe your wedding? Modern, classic, fun

What was your wedding color palette? Papaya, white, and grey

What inspired your personal wedding style, and how did you incorporate your style and personalities into your big day? We like things that are modern, clean, and uncomplicated. We wanted to incorporate all of that into the wedding so we kept the colors simple: we wanted the flowers to be understated, with a focus on the accent color of papaya. We wanted the accent color to pop without being overwhelming. We arent very traditional so we focused more on having fun and catering to the guests than on wedding traditions. We also loved the contrast of the garden in the heart of the city with skyscrapers – this gave the wedding a little twist and kept it fun.

Looking back, what are the moments, decisions or memories that you love the most about your wedding? The decision I loved most was the location. It was very unique, and made our big day that much more special. We also wanted to focus on lighting to set the mood – which worked out very well with the setting. Getting ready with my bridesmaids and spending time with them was another highlight – I will always cherish that. The last moment that jumps out at me is the first look pictures: for both of us to see each for the first time and for the photographer to capture all that love and emotion was a wonderful memory to hold on to.

What piece of advice would you give to a bride planning her wedding today? Dont do everything by yourself. Get a planner – even if it’s only for week of. I didnt have to worry about a thing. My wedding planners were great and helped navigate me through a process that is more complicated than one might think. Also, remember to enjoy every moment of the wedding: it will always turn out better than you envision.