wedding tablescape

July 26, 2013July 30, 2013 | circadee

I am a hoarder.

I think we all know that by now. That is pretty much how I ended up in this biz. I love old stuff. I love making stuff pretty. I love collecting.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about my wedding centerpieces.

For months leading up to the big day, I collected silver water pitchers and teapots preferably tarnished. A couple of antique champagne buckets as well. In fact, I collected more than I needed. Because I am a hoarder.

The shapes and sizes of the centerpieces alternated on each table with the floral palette being the commonality.

I already had a growing collection of vintage aqua blue mixing bowls. This is my mantel from last summer proudly displaying the collection which was growing rapidly at the time.

The color scheme was just right for our wedding so I was determined to incorporate my personal collections into our centerpieces.

We had 20 guest tables, 4 food tables and like 10 cocktail tables, I think. In my mind, they all needed to be adorned with fresh flowers. Arranged by me. Large and small.

Was I nuts? Maybe. I like to think I came to my senses though when I came up with the brilliant idea of only arranging fresh flowers in half of the containers – mostly the silver pieces plus some blue ball jars which coordinated with our wedding invitation.

My solution to remaining sane was to arrange the other half of the centerpieces the weekend prior to the wedding. I used flowering plants instead of fresh flowers since they would keep easily and that way I could divide and conquer on the centerpiece front.

Each mixing bowl was filled with pink flowering vinca, trailing vines and succulents. Topped with moss and Cape May wine corks.

Bonus, most of these plants have been flowering in my garden all summer. The wedding centerpieces were merely a layover for them!

Another collection of yellow McCoy planters in 3 sizes were displayed on the food stations.

So that left the larger vessels which were arranged just a few days before the wedding, packed up and then driven across state lines. I think I successfully pulled of the task.

Here’s a glimpse at what my kitchen turned floral shop looked like all in the name of DIY…

That makes me happy.

So I am going to tell you the secret to pulling off arranging your own wedding centerpieces without going insane.

#1 Be Flexible

I was not committed to specific flowers, only a color scheme. I arrived at the wholesale florist that particular day, 3 days before the grand event, and did what I do best.

Shopped.

Lilacs were in season so I started there and then built a springy palette around it.

Having worked in flower shops for years, I know the old requests of “no mums or carns. No babies breath.” I grew to dislike all of those common flowers during my florist tenure. But guess what, I got over it. I actually like these and as Carrie Bradshaw once noted, pink carnations are making a comeback. Yes, still. I’m fond of the hot pink minis so into the arrangements they went.

And the spin on mums? Sunflower-esque pom pom mums. Both these and the mini carnations are great filler flowers.

Moss covered pods were a nod to Ryan’s woodsy style. Pink waxflower, lisianthus, sunflowers, pink tulips, variegated pittosporum, green status and more…

I took my selections home to my kitchen turned floral studio and got to work filling antique champagne buckets, ice buckets, ball jars, silver water pitchers, tea pots and a few smaller mason jars to don the cocktail tables.

#2 Be Organized

My to-do list was mostly completed at this point in the wedding planning process. Had it not been, I don’t know that I could have pulled it off.

This tip is also two-fold. You have to be organized from the beginning as it relates to collecting your vessels. See: hoarding.

Honestly, DIYing these centerpieces was probably the most zen part of wedding planning for me. Other than the spa, of course.

If you are a DIYing bride with some floral design abilities, I have faith that you can tackle your own centerpieces too! If not, you can always ask your florist to use your own collected vessels and vases to personalize your centerpieces.

Next up…Ryan’s secret to getting the mini chalkboard table numbers to stand on their own. And if you missed it, check out details on incorporating atlases into your tablescape here.

Centerpiece photos by Love Shack Photo

directional guidance

July 24, 2013July 24, 2013 | circadee

It has been a crazy busy summer already. We’ve barely come up for air. Honestly, a small cry from how we planned to spend our summer. But someone once told me life is what happens when you make plans. So true. Less planning, more living.

So when we do get a minute to breath, we relish in reviewing our wedding photos over and over again. We notice something new every time and relive that perfect day when just about all of our friends and family were in the same place, just a few months ago. Which, by the way, doesn’t help us select photos to frame and to put in an album nor determine which should end up on the cutting room floor, as they say.

Speaking of, there are so many hysterical dance floor photos that I am considering posting an outtake reel here…although I may be disowned by a few people. (If you beg me, I will totally post it though.) Signature dance moves, silly faces and all.

N-E-way, where did we leave off in the wedding DIY deets? We talked about the cake and the must have cake table.

We talked about the DIY trailhead highlighting where all of our friends and family traveled from.

I think that transitions nicely into the map thang we had going on…

I racked my brain over what to do with the table settings. We knew right away that we would have food stations for dinner. This created a party atmosphere (which isn’t hard to do with our group) as opposed to a formal sit down dinner where people felt like they couldn’t get up and mingle as they please. There is nothing wrong with that setting but it just wasn’t what we were going for.

With all of that said, I didn’t want the tables to be bare either since the food would be served at the stations.

Enter 160 atlas pages to the scene, my friends. I found old and new ones. The blue, green and yellow colors coordinated perfectly with our springy palette. Each page served as a charger or place mat. Also, a subtle nod to the “On the Way to Cape May” theme. With a splash of burlap for good measure. Oh and here’s a secret for you if this look is up your alley: Take your atlases to FedEx/Kinko’s to have the pages cut in bulk. It will save you hours upon hours of time tearing and cutting pages.

Bonus, everyone was encouraged to scribble notes to us on their map. This ended up being totally entertaining for guests as they waited for dinner and an icebreaker at a few tables.

Plus, we jumped on the instagram trend and incorporated our own wedding hashtag (#recanize) and encouraged guests to share their candids. It is a blast to relive them every time and we plan to make a little album of candids with maps as the scrapbook pages. One of these days.

For brides-to-be out there, we placed note cards at each table communicating the hashtag info to guests…

Go ahead, take a look at the hashtag on instagram. You know you want to.

And one more map for the road….ha, get it? Road? Ok. Our guest book was a guest map which we framed. People signed all over the country and of course Cape May had a little heart on it. I found this on etsy.

I have to admit that I restrained myself from being an etsy bride. I only ordered this map, which was made locally, and Wilson’s seersucker bowtie and leash which is just priceless as far as I’m concerned.

Next up…the centerpieces. And why I might have been temporarily insane for doing them all myself just days before my wedding. What was I thinking? Come back on Friday to find out!

All professional photos shot by the talented folks at Love Shack Photo.

a DIY trailhead

July 10, 2013February 11, 2014 | circadee

Ryan and I will be celebrating a big ol’ 2 months of marriage tomorrow. In honor, I’m sharing a wedding DIY.

Remember our big tent?

We popped up a party under that thing just like we pop up a shop under our 10×10 at various markets. Except this was like 100×100 or something cray-zay big.

For someone like me, it was a dream to be able to build my reception setting from the ground up. In the beginning, I insisted on not having a narrow theme as I thought it was too kitschy. Our theme sort of evolved as we continued to plan details. So did the color scheme. I will give you one guess.

Yeah, aqua blue.

And the theme was a little more subtle with a nod to “On the way to Cape May, I fell in love with you”. How could we not, seriously?

Once there was an established theme we conjured some fun details to deck the bare corners of the tent and tables. With our guests in mind, we put together a trailhead highlighting all of the cities they had traveled from to be with us on our big day. It was essentially a destination wedding since about 3 people invited (and, ahem, not invited. I haven’t told you about our wedding crasher yet, have I?) actually live at the shore.

The trailhead was also a subtle nod to Ryan’s love of hiking.

I’ve seen a number of versions of wedding trailheads on pinterest pointing to the direction of the cake, dancing, drinks, etc. but never one quite like this. We were pretty excited about our concept. Feel free to pin it!

We started with an old coat rack since we wanted something that was freestanding and didn’t need to be staked into the ground or anything. I don’t have a true before pic but it was a wooden coat rack with 4 brass hooks. One was totally busted so it was super cheap. I saved the 3 good hooks for a future project. The base of the coat rack got a wash of milk paint in Ironstone.

Here’s a roll of fencing that I’ve been hoarding.

I bought this at a yard sale a couple of years ago. I share that because I don’t want you to think I stole it off of a sand dune that is now blowing away without the fence allowing the ocean to recede onto the road flooding everything in sight. No. Someone else probably did that and then I paid for it. Or maybe it is actually just guilt-free garden fencing.

Anyway, I pulled each picket out after making a list of how far our guests’ home towns were in miles from Cape May. With nothing more than a sharpee marker, I printed the city and miles shifting the orientation of the trail point somewhat haphazardly. No one said it had to be exact. We left the fencing color as-is since it gave some character to our trailhead and matched the Ironstone base pretty well.

Enter Ryan. The man with the power tools who assembled the project.

In the making, we had a bit of a duh moment. We were destined to have white screws so they’d sort of blend in. After searching the hardware store high and low for the right screws we turned to spray paint. Duh. I paint everything else, how did I not think of that off that bat? It took 2 seconds to pop the screws into a discarded box and lightly spray the heads. Let that be a lesson to you my friends. Spray your screws any darn color your choose because they pretty much only come in silver, black and brass.

And of course, we couldn’t forget Cape May 0 miles, known locally as Exit Zero. And known to us as Happily Ever After. I’m so cheesy…

This was a lot of words for a 1-2-3 project. But I’m chatty today. I hope you like our version of the wedding trailhead. By the way, don’t our friends and family live in some great cities?

DIYing a trailhead

All wedding photographs were shot professionally by Love Shack Photo. All DIY photographs were DIY’d by me.

Circa Dee

vintage inspiration for a modern lifestyle

wedding details

wedding tablescape

directional guidance

a DIY trailhead