outside the flowerbox

This month we were so inspired by the bright fresh colors of 1950′s era plastic and bakelight jewelry. The soft corals, greens, and turquoises that so defined the baubles of the times are just thing to brighten up any winter wedding. We love the idea of putting a modern twist on the tried and true color combination and using such a bright palette amidst the pearly gray overtone of these long winter months. The gorgeously packaged (and equally gorgeous tasting) chocolates from Brooklyn’s own Mast Brothers and delicious nosh from Michael Stuart Catering were just the thing to top of this light hearted affair. Thank you to the fabulous Green Building situated right here in Brooklyn for letting us use your space, and to Lovely Bride for the super chic dress from Quail Bridal.

Credits:

Floral Designs and Styling by Poppies & Posies

Photography by Jen Huang

Food by Michael Stuart NY

Venue: The Green Building

Dress: Quail Bridal from Lovely Bride

Models: Samantha Shay Sanderson & Andrew Sanderson

[images from Jen Huang]

Outside the Flowerbox: Vintage schoolhouse inspiration

Outside the Flower Box with Poppies & Posies

We found the idea of a vintage schoolhouse inspired wedding to be so playful and fun! In the end, weddings are about celebration, laughter, and a little joi de vivre! There is absolutely no reason you can’t carry this through into your design too! Who doesn’t love chalkboards, vintage tins, old school pencils and playful plates? The possibilities are endless and would surely make any wedding as cute as a button.

We we’re inspired to run with this concept after we visited Jen Huang‘s new studio and spotted her gorgeous dining table (made from reclaimed wood) and vintage, French, schoolhouse chairs. When the amazing team over at Mélangerie offered to design the seating cards, menu, and table name for our shoot we knew it was the perfect project to collaborate on. They really took the tablescape to the next level with their adorable details!

We tracked down a couple of vintage crayon tins on an antiquing trip and paired them with vintage glass bottles. In keeping with the schoolhouse theme we placed old books down the length of the table and chose bright, playful flowers for our arrangements. Our favorite pairing was the red gomphrena and chamomile with geranium leaves. They resembled strawberries and looked almost edible!

Mélangerie ran with the inspiration and came up with the idea of using chalkboards. Both the menu and table name are hand-lettered onto antique chalkboards. The place cards are pieces of book board they painted with chalk board paint and then hand lettered. To complete the setting, they tied a piece of chalk to each place card with apple red ribbon to match Jen’s chairs. Parfait!!

xoxo Poppies & Posies

[images from Jen Huang]

Outside the Flowerbox with Poppies & Posies and Domestic Construction

A bit about the shoot…

This month Domestic Construction and Poppies & Posies teamed up and got creative with a hardware inspired wedding shoot fit for a Brooklyn bride! The ladies got together to discuss ideas for a collaboration and started chatting about how much fun it would be to design a wedding completely from hardware store acquisitions…and so that’s exactly what they did! Stuart & Welch catering, Clean Wash Letterpress, Lovely Bride, Calipher, and Missy Photography joined the team to create the perfect metal shop wedding!

Domestic Construction…We were on the same page from the start! We didn’t even discuss colors before hand and the pipes we painted turned out to be the same color as the flower arrangements they made. The metal shop (*thanks to our friends at calipher) ended up being the perfect setting for this exciting wedding. whatever we forgot to buy at the hardware store was easy to come by here. We created the floor out of scrap metal we found lying around… we even found two perfect circles for the bride and groom to stand on! colleen of cleanwash letterpress created all the menus and name cards and they couldn’t have tied things together better. It’s not every day that a few girls get to live out their secret fantasy of getting married in a metal shop.

poppies & posies…We headed over to the hardware store to get inspired for the shoot and wound up finding fabulous detail elements to incorporate into our tablescape. We convinced the owner of the hardware store to give us his us old round sanding paper pieces to use as our place mats and we discovered that long bolts makes for the perfect cocktail stirrer (new ones of course)! Faucets posed as great seating card holders and fresh cocktails were passed on a big round blade. Our goal was to create a romantic atmosphere in an industrial workshop by pairing the hard, metal elements that we found at the hardware store with soft, romantic flowers. We used juliette garden roses, veronica, amaranthus, unirpened blackberry, queens anne’s lace, and nigella to create the perfect tablescape. Lastly, the bride’s bouquet was placed in a brass pipe to tie it in with the rest of the decor.

Clean Wash Letterpress…I made an inspirational trip to the hardware store where I found purple sand paper and a roll of green carpenter’s masking paper which I thought would be a great complement to the simple brown ink and chip board. Staying with the hardware store theme, I focused on simple and recognizable tools for the illustrations. YouWorkForThem‘s Trihart font was the perfect fit.

Stuart & Welch Catering…Trying to figure out a menu that fit into a hardware theme wedding wound up being quite enjoyable. I used one element you’d find in a hardware store in each dish, such as a fresh herb salad with “blowtorched” manchego toast, slow roasted salmon with “hacksawed” carrots, roasted cippolinis, and pumpkin vinaigrette, and seared lamb loin with stuffed squash blossoms, and “painted” currant compote.

Cassandra Quinn, Couples Stylist, from Lovely Bride…I chose the Badgley Mischka Kiki because I think it provides a nice counterpoint to the industrial theme of the shoot. This to-die-for dress is both edgy and ethereal with its light layers of raw edged chiffon, the true white of it also plays nicely against the grit of the space. The necklace by Untamed Petals is perfect in keeping with the feel. I love it’s combination of soft oversized blossoms and hardware like multi-chains. The vision for me revolved around pairing the perfect dress with with the space, everything else was secondary. My husband wore his own Zara suit and the tie is from our “original” wedding…what a nice surprise that it went so well with my gorgeous bouquet!

Missy Photography…We asked Missy Photography to join us to capture all of the vendor’s hard work. We knew her eye for detail and soft, feminine style would be the perfect pairing with our design concept. She really made everything come to life in such an organic, sweet way!

[images from Missy Photography]

Outside the Flowerbox: Science inspired table

The ladies of Poppies & Posies have done it again with a fabulous science inspired wedding!

About the shoot…
We’ve been chatting about doing a science inspired wedding for some time now. It seems that every time we go antiquing (which is pretty often) we’ve come across vintage lab equipment and antique medicinal bottles that we couldn’t pass up. They were just begging to be used in a tablescape and ultimately were the elements that inspired our vision for this shoot!

We chose to shoot the tablescape in an outdoor garden because it felt like the perfect natural environment. Each beaker, bottle, and science vile was filled with soft, delicate flowers such as blush dahlias, white scabiosa, garden roses, and vines to create a romantic atmosphere.

We brought Bryn of Paperfinger on-board to create the perfect seating cards and table numbers for the shoot. We’re always blown away by her elegant calligraphy and attention to detail. Her table number was based on the periodic table and we used the mini glass science tube stoppers to hold her oh so sweet seating cards down.

No wedding is complete without delicious cuisine and neither of us would rather eat any other food than that cooked by Stuart and Welch catering. They prepared grilled ahi tuna with local corn, heirloom tomatoes and avocado. The vibrant colors of the dish perfectly ‘popped’ off our tablescape.

Jen Huang joined us for the day to photograph the spread and as always we were blown away by her talent! Her attention to detail and unique perspective really brought it all to life on film.

Jasmine Johnson of BridalBod wore a utterly breathtaking dress designed by Sarah Seven and provided by Lovely Bride. We adored the non traditional and super fun look that a short dress created. Small quirky touches, such as our anatomically correct heart boutonniere and a dinner menu designed using an antique periodic table finished off our science inspired wedding.

The possibilities for designing an entire wedding around this theme are endless. We imagine an entire seating chart painted on glass microscope slides and a dessert bar filled with jars of colorful “elements” (think gold leaf covered chocolates and blue rock h20 candy) would be just the thing to make any wedding unforgettable!

Credits:
Flowers & Design Concept by Poppies & Posies
Photography by Jen Huang
Food by Stuart and Welch Catering
Calligraphy by Paperfinger
Sarah Seven dress provided by Lovely Bride
Models, Jasmine Johnson of BridalBod & Davraam
A special thanks to our intern, Annie Huang!

[images from Jen Huang Photography]

Poppies & Posies is a member of Brooklyn Bride’s preferred vendor listings

Outside the Flowerbox with Poppies & Posies

I’m so excited to welcome Sierra & Juliet of Poppies & Posies as a new contributer here on Brooklyn Bride! These lovely ladies will be joining us every month to showcase fabulously modern florals…today, we start with a shoot inspired by a recent trip to Costa Rica…

modern floral arrangement

Recently, Poppies & Posies was lucky enough to take a trip to Costa Rica. The unusual plant life and exotic flowers that encompasses the country side there were incredibly beautiful. One particularly inspiring piece of flora that we stumbled upon was a flowering vine. The vine had draped itself all over an ancient tree. Its bright yellow florets looked like the were glowing in the sunlight. It was truly other wordly and made the entire P&P team stop and stand in awe at the base of the tree for an inappropriate amount of time. The locals later told us that this vine only flowers once every two years and and when it does it only last for a day or two. Alas, when we went back two days later all of the petals had already fallen from the vine and the tree was bare again.

Our tablescape was designed in the hopes of transporting each guest to that almost other worldly, tropical jungle. A leaf canopy was built for the guests to sit under and large fiddle heads, gloriosa, and moss provide a jungle-esque runner. If you look closely there are butterflies and tiny turquoise beetles hiding in the flora of the tablescape. Janelle Sing handmade the seating cards with mini illustrations of bugs and mini pineapples provide a holder at each setting. Crisp white china and simple silver flatware provide a modern edge.