An Evening with the Mandarin Hotel

Let's just say this wasn't a typical Allow Me Event Design wedding.  But it certainly was a stunning affair!  With a lovely concept of quince, phalanopsis orchids, an abundance of candlelight, all set in a beautiful venue, you simply cannot go wrong. 

The client asked me to do this wedding only a few months before their date.  That's normally something that makes me a tiny bit nervous, but their simple vision and contagious excitement sealed the deal for me - I was in!  The wedding was held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and experiencing that view and getting to work with The Mandarin's exceptional staff made the entire journey well worth it.  And it was a journey, to say the least.

As the planning process began to gain momentum, I started to realize that their simple vision was much more of a precise and detailed vision - with very little wiggle room - than I had originally thought.  And, although we executed their vision beautifully, it wasn't until midway through the planning that I found myself thinking, "Hey, I don't think I can do a wedding like this again." Don't get me wrong - it wasn't bad. But I found that I was missing our style. I was searching too hard to become passionate for their vision. I started to feel like an intern for a stylist as opposed to a confident and accomplished designer.  

I realize it's walking a fine line when you pride yourself on being able to execute a client's vision, but I do this with the hope that the client has researched our work and has resonated towards it for a particular reason.  It's cool though, it was a well learned lesson and I was able to work with some great and talented folks as well as collaborating again with LI SOUND DJ and Lighting.  They did an awesome job as per the usual.   Margo from Classic Party Rentals really pulled through for me with the gorgeous linens and chairs.  The client also insisted on a lounge area, which Classic Party Rentals supplied as well.  

I was able to sneak in quite a  few Allow Me Design touches by using sweeping pahalanopsis orchids, a ridiculous amount of candlelight and just creating an overall feel of romance, which of course is a vibe I aim to achieve with each of my events, regardless of the client's vision - it's just what we do organically.

My friend, Ivie Joy, who also freelanced for me, had her friend and event photographer Angelica Yabenez Criscuolo come over (on very short notice - thanks Angelica!) to snap a few shots of my work.  She did one lovely job.  Take a look for yourself.

http://www.markjosephcakes.com/

The end.

Meandering in Motion

It's getting busy over here and I feel as though I have been blissfully unaware of the madness that is in front of me.   I've just been so preoccupied with this awesome weather, gardening, welcoming Instagram into my life, checking to see if I have any baking skills (I do, thank you very much!), being a mom and just taking it day by day.  You can't live exclusively in the moment all the time and you must think about the future, but sometimes the future can be exhausting.  Am I right?  So, here I am just floating in my little orbit.  And then it happened - a call from one of my clients asking if 'we are all set.'  "You sure are!" I'm in the future now and I'm ready to hit the road running. 

We are doing  more accounts lately and special arrangements for special folks.  I've been enjoying the last-minute requests to do small designs and non-wedding related events.  It gives me a chance to just be.  To see what's in the market that is fresh, interesting and presently inspiring. 

Below are a few glimpses from some of my favorite designs.  I'll most likely showcase one or two of these photos spotlighting the entire event in a later post, but for now here is a little preview of my meanderings as of late.

 

See you next year Anenomie.

Hey!  How did he get in here?  My son, Jack James.

Pistachio leaf, iris, sweet pea, rosemary, lavender, parrot tulip and amaryllis

I cleaned out the back of our garage and created this.  It's my first nameless home "installation."  I have a massive hosta coming in there on the right and I have since placed some creeping ivy.
 This babe is going to feed my eyes nicely throughout the summer.  

My friend Merida over at Chestnut Honey always guides me softly into the baking abyss.
She recommended that I try this  lemon sour cream cake and it turned out pretty awesome.
 I even took it an extra step, on my own,  and added a lemon icing. You go me!

Speaking of Merida, here is a really cool and earnest interview of her by goodfoodjobs.com

We've Got This Covered

The New York Magazine Weddings Spring/Summer issue is out and Allow Me Event Design has one of our bouquets on the front cover!   It was so exciting to see it for the first time on the newsstands.  They asked us to submit a few different bouquets, so it was a fun surprise to see which arrangement they chose.  It wouldn't have necessarily been my first pick, but it certainly was not my last.  You can read about the other bouquets we submitted for the cover here.

I think the whole composition is really lovely and I'm thrilled to have been a part of it.

Enjoy!

Let it be

I'm a fan of fillers and greenery and when the budget does not allow you to use an abundance of flowering blooms and the like, interesting and textured foliage can be just as lovely.

In fact, when I have the chance to design in such a way that the overall concept gives the feel that the flowers are growing out of the container (as opposed to out of the ground), I welcome the opportunity.  This, to me, is designing in an organic and whimsical way.  And it feels best when I'm doing almost no manipulation at all - letting the flowers fall, letting them just be.

The key here is to not try hard.  Have a little faith in nature.  Let the chips (or, in this case, the flowers) fall as they may and Mother Nature might just surprise you - remind you!  - of her beauty.

The goods:

white ranunculus

purple parrot tulip

hyacinth

succulents

and the oh, so lovely trailing clematis

New York Magazine Weddings - A Submission

We were asked to submit a few bouquets for consideration for the cover of New York Magazine Weddings coming out this spring. And oh the requirements. Like finding flowers in the dead of winter that were spring/summer like - in season when the issue comes out.  The design needed to be circular, small in size and tight in design. 

So I found myself having a staring contest with these flowers, just waiting for that moment where it was going to feel right to start designing.  I started one and then took it apart, and I did this three or four times.    Then I started with another, the hardest in my opinion - an all green succulent bouquet.  And it was then that I started to get into my groove.  That bouquet was my favorite and for many reasons.  One being that it was unlike any of the others - not quite what I was asked to design but most definitely a style I gravitate towards.  I waited to do this one because I knew it would be a challenge.  And it wasn't until I designed it that I felt the creativity starting to flow.  Next time I am faced with this sort of challenge I'm going to indulge it first as oppose to starting the obvious - It just loosened me up and inspired me to do more.

In any event, one of those bouquets was indeed chosen for the front page and I am so very excited.  I asked the editor not to tell me which one was chosen as I'd prefer it to be a surprise come newsstand day, March 21st.  

Some of my materials I used are below and the final product to follow.

David Austin Garden Rose

Fritillaria

Fritillaria

French Tulip

Liberstar Lily Tulips

Maidenhair Fern

My Final Four

My favorite bouquet:

Succulents, maidenhair fern, assorted fern and fritillaria

My least favorite:

Tuberose, fritilleria, parrot tulip, garden rose, ranunculus, maidenhair fern

This would be my first pick had I not created the succulent bouquet:

David Austin garden roses, french tulips, lily tulip and geranium leaf

French tulips, lily tulip, pink ranunculus, white garden rose, David Austin garden rose

A specific shade of beautiful

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time.                                                                                                                                V. Woolf

String Gardens

I've become obsessed with string gardens lately.  I made my first one with a miniature pothos plant just because it was in my house waiting to have a purpose.  It's also a foolproof plant, and I think it took me 5 minutes.  

You can wrap the base with almost anything that's durable.  Today I used a recycled thin rope but i'm thinking copper for the next time, which will be an oncidium orchid or a jasmine plant methinks. 

Below are some of my favorites.  

Go and discover more on String_Gardens on the Facebooks.

Even a tree?!

I believe this one is my most favorite.

Or, maybe it's this display...

Nope - wait a minute.  It's this one.  Yep.

Make one yourself!

 Here is my friend, Taylor Patterson of Fox Fodder Farm, demonstrating  

how to make a bonsai string garden for Wilder Quarterly Magazine.

And then there is this cheery how-to video.