Lee created a lovely welcoming landscape of rose petals, peonies, and votives.
The guests entered into a large white tent with two magnificent chandeliers. Please note beautiful embroidered chair covers that the bride selected.
Stepping through the tent to the pool, floating tulip bouquets, à la Ken Marten style, greeted the guests at eye-level.
Here are two of the four head tables with the extra-fancy flocked black and white tablecloths...
...and contrasting Tiffany blue tablecloths.
The higher-than-expected response rate necessitated the popular bride and groom to add four more tables at the last minute. We stretched out the thousand locally-grown tulips by wrapping each bouquet around five large water tubes. The other reason we had to stretch out the tulips was that I was hoping for big, beefy Dutch tulips but the Iceland's volcanic eruption prevented any Northern European shipments from arriving into San Francisco.
Tracy came up with the idea to use the six bubble vases around the submerged tulip inside the tall cylinder to add visual interest for the seated guests.
We had enough flowers and containers to create extra sets of the black glass cylinder trios:
The bride loves lime green and the "Limon" philadendron leaves fit the bill. The biggest cylinder of the trio had a two-inch band of black and white fabric wrapped around the middle to coordinate with fabric used for the wishing tree vignette.
It seemed that everyone had a hand in creating the signage for the wedding. Between the sisters, daughters, nieces, and nephews, all the signs got done with only a couple of panic trips to Michaels and Walgreens.
But it paid off because quite a few guests left their thoughts and wishes with the bride and groom.
Guests had a choice to eat their delicious meal in the tent...
...by the pool...
...or in one of the cabanas.
And those who wanted to dine in a more secluded and quiet place, they could hang out behind the cabanas in front of the fountains at one of the cafe tables.
There were 421 floral or candle containers, all but two had water inside. It would have been impossible to create this event without many, many hands with a large helping of team work to set it all up and take it all down at the end of the evening. We are all thrilled that the evening went off without a hitch. The next morning, a guest clutching a bouquet of white tulips paid us the highest compliment as we waited for our cars to arrive: "We all had a fantastic time. It was the perfect mix of fun festivities with just the right touch of gala."
To the bride and groom:
"May a flock of blessings alight upon thy backs."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
21 comments:
Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious!!!! That is the most effective use of tulips I have ever seen in my life! You done goooooooood, girlfriend! I hope the bride was appropriately appreciative of that staging, because it was simply gorgeous! I can't use enough of these...!!!!!!
I can't even imagine what it must have cost to buy a thousand white tulips, not to mention all the other accoutrements. I'm sure all the guests will be talking about it for months! Your services may be in extreme demand. Hope you were looking for a new career!
After your previous post where you talked about what you were going to do with 1,000 white tulips I looked forward to this post to see how it turned out. Great job. Beautiful. How did you find the whole thing-from your post it seems like you sailed through it?
I can't even fathom doing this myself.
Great job, for sure! The flowers were very beautiful and made for a wonderful feel for the reception. Lovely, just lovely.
Wow! It must feel great to have pulled that off! What a beautiful wedding. Love the colors and of course the flowers looked fabulous!
Oh wow...look like a gorgeous setting for a beautiful wedding!
I would love to go to this wedding, Dutchbaby, and I would love to help you beforehand.
All that planning and preparation, and the beautiful setting - those tents and cabanas - paid off. Simple and elegant. Tiffany blue is maybe my favorite color, and with black & white, it takes on authority and balance.
Love Lee's entree table, what a way to begin.
Exquisitely designed and implemented, my friend. Brava!
Exquisite. Stunning. Thank you for stopping by my humble blog and letting me know about that book. My daughter has learned to read and she has become voracious. It is a beautiful thing to behold. She started reading last year at 4 years old.
wow. unbelievable and gorgeous. stunning and elegant.
Dear Susan,
Thank you, I'm so glad you liked the decorations. Believe me, it was not just me. Lee was the one who arranged almost every single flower while I was running around handling logistics. Then there were legions of family members who did most of the heavy lifting during set-up and clean-up. The local tulips were not as expensive as the Dutch tulips would have been, plus they are also a little greener since they did not have to fly as far.
Dear maggie,
This is the biggest event I've ever done (~275 guests) and it was a little frightening to order so many flowers and then to ship them off to Texas took a leap of faith. The process was enjoyable for the most part, but there were a time during set-up where I was more than a little concerned. We had an e-mail that said the tables would be set up by 2:30 but they only got set up around 4. Loosing ninety minutes during set-up is huge. It wouldn't have been so bad if there weren't so many helpers waiting around when they could have been enjoying the beautiful weather. Thanks for your lovely comment.
Dear Marilyn,
Thank you. The reception was truly a festive event. The guests were most amazing; so many loving, beautiful, well-dressed people in one place.
Dear Postcards and Coasters,
Yes, it felt great to pull it off but it was physically challenging to get all those containers fanned out across the venue. I was so fortunate to have a huge team of family members helping with set-up.
Thank you Dutchbaby for logging this most beautiful event here on your site. What a magical event it was. The weather behaved itself for you too! So much attention to detail! Adore the color scheme and all the personal touches. So nice when after much work ~ M A G I C ~ happens. Something special and sacred takes place. It is beautiful to witness this night through your words and luscious photographs.
Such gorgeous happiness!
xox
Constance
Dear Mumsy,
Yes, the setting was incredible. We were very fortunate to have perfect weather.
Dear Ruth,
You would have had a great time at this wedding and they would have loved to have met you! Thank you for your kind words.
Dear Yoli,
Why does it not surprise me that you have a precocious daughter? Reading at 4, impressive!
Dear Constance,
There were thunderstorms predicted for the wedding day all week long. The bride kept telling everyone that the storm would pass before the wedding start time and she was so right. In fact, the entire day was picture perfect. Thanks for helping with the process early on!
Great job!
Thank you for supporting FSS.
We have shared this story with all our fans on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Floral-Supply-Syndicate/60346884209
hello there, my friend.
what a glorious event. so very beautiful!
i adore tulips.
congrats to the bride and groom.
x
Dear Sahand,
Thank you for the wonderful service you provided. You got a shout-out in my previous post too:
http://godutchbaby.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-of-long-distance-wedding.html
Dear Christina,
Thank you so much for your kind sentiments. I love tulips too; in case you didn't notice...
You, my darling friend, are a genius. WOW!!! Oh, man! This really is wonderful!
Dear Relyn,
Far from it, but thanks! I was only one component of this event. I am very pleased that it all came out well and that everyone worked so well together.
Post a Comment