Isabella

For my boyfriend's niece's one year birthday last week, we gave her a photo shoot. My friend Erica came over to their house and shot some gorgeous photos! She is wonderful at shooting babies. Check out her website, and a sample of the images of Miss Izzie!:

Toast, Taste, and Tour II

Here are the last few shots to share from Sunday's Toast, Taste, and Tour bridal event. This dinner table and cocktail table shown above were set up to show off what would be a lovely match with the rest of the event. These seasonal French tulips are SO beautiful right now - and check out those huge succulent blossoms down at the base of the flared crystal vase!  The smaller wooden box is packed full of fragrant peach hyacinth blossoms - one of my favorites!
































The custom canopy was covered in rich gold and dusky nile blue damask fabric which went so beautiful with the touches of gold (from the amazing chandeliers {thanks to Frost Lighting} as well as the urns and the rental dishes).  The featured flowers were all in tones of soft peach flowers. These amazing focal pieces placed at the end of the aisle featured so many beautiful flowers including open champagne roses, apricot parrot tulips, cognac anthurium, peach amaryllis, and garden stock. Love!

















Photos by Erica Barraca
Decor by Botanicals, a branch of HM Designs

Event Coordination by Kara Underwood of Magnificent Milestones

Toast, Taste, and Tour I

These are the first of some images that I wanted to share from an event I worked on this past weekend. I designed the following with the wonderful Kara Superfine of Botanicals, a branch of HM Designs for the Toast, Taste, and Tour bridal event put on by the adorable Kara Underwood of Magnificent Milestones.

It was a progressive event that took brides on a trolley led tour through four of Chicago's best venues. Our designs were featured in the historic Cafe Brauer in Lincoln Park Zoo. The event had a great turn out for a cold Sunday morning, and they were all happy to warm up while enjoying the delicious treats from The Entertaining Company (the white hot chocolate finished with a chocolate dipped marshmallow detailed with a bit of edible gold leaf was my personal favorite!).

These are some of the bouquets we made for the event. Each one was designed in a different style and color palette - to appeal to every taste! This first one of various tones of white, ivory, silver, and taupe was so elegant. Silver brunia berries and dusty miller foliage perfectly accented the open garden roses. The stems were gathered and bound in luxurious taupe velvet.
















This one is a vivid combination of rich raspberry and bold orange tones. Cattleya orchid blossoms and ruffly spray roses were combined with gloriosa lilies, ranunculus, and fresh kumquots (!). The bouquet was detailed with glossy green coffee foliage and coordinating satin ribbons.
















I loved every one of these bouquets - from the open peach amaryllis; to the fluffy white peonies; to the cascading and unusual anthurium; to the highly textural green collection of succulants, maidenhair fern, lotus pods, and cymbidium orchids!
















More to come on this fun afternoon!
Photos by Erica Baracca.

Birthday Cakes

I just got these delicious rose water cupcakes with mandarin frosting for my birthday! Mmm...

Little Pretty

I mentioned Erica Baracca before. She is brought on periodically to shoot some of the weddings I help design; here are a couple of my favorite images of/by her. She is a great graphic designer, does adorable and clever letterpress greeting cards, and obviously takes gorgeous photographs. She is soon to have a baby boy, so there is definitely more to come on this Little Pretty...

www.flickr.com/photos/littlepretty

Real Wedding: Beth and John

This is a wedding I worked on last summer with the fabulous Jesse Deckard at Botanicals, a branch of HM Designs and the charming Lauren Carter of Lola Event Productions. The bride is an architect so she had wonderful style and a great eye for color and design. The color palette was an unusual but stunning combination of navy and baby blues, rust orange, vibrant citron/chartreuse, and rich burgundy - along with polished wood.

The bride also wanted some 'green' elements to the reception - hence the potted plants on the guest tables. All of those vividly colored coleus plants were donated after the event to be planted.

Every single table had a custom designed manzanita branch 'chandelier' suspended above it, creating a wonderful and dazzling ambiance throughout the Great Hall of Cafe Brauer in Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.















These wedding pictures were all taken by my friend Erica Baracca. Check out her gorgeous pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlepretty