FABULOUS things happen when you get to design to your heart’s content.  You would think that happens more often, but usually as a designer, our creation is designed for the client, with their passions, ideas and wishes in mind – we are after all, commissioned to create something for them – even though it always a bit of “us” in it.  So to get one parameter “Use a cultural wedding as an inspiration” and get to design whatever I wanted?  SIGN ME UP!  Of course, I’ve always LOVED Grace Ormonde’s Wedding Style Magazine.  It’s glossy, oversized pages feature glamorous, over the top inspiring decor… yes, its part fantasy, part reality, part inspiration – just like the catwalks of Paris fashion week!  Will most brides have every table at their reception look like the tabletops seen in Wedding Style?  Most likely not – but here at Bella, we find that brides are inspired by these pages, and often have a headtable in similar lush style, if not the whole wedding in a slightly simpler version.  After all, its your wedding, and if you can, go for it!

We were lucky enough to be invited by Grace herself to do a table for her recent Book Tour up in Vancouver – nothing like designing a table for one of Grace’s events!  The most exciting part was that I got to do whatever I wanted – so I feel like this is truly a reflection of my style, my passion…more proof that when you stick to what you believe in, what you love, you create something you can be proud of. From  the color palette, the use of very modern pieces yet ornate linens, and the use of sexy, lush blooms…this tabletop is very “ME.” What do you think?”

Thank you both to the amazing Reine Mithla (whose photo ended up published) who I adore and wrote about in Bella’s ravings about Reine, and the talented Melissa Gidney, who also recently blogged about us on her blog!  Love all around!

A while back the lovely Sally of Seattle Bride Magazine called me and asked me to design a 2 page spread for the magazine’s Unveiled section.  ooo, what fun!  I created about 5 color palettes and sent those, along with various concepts, off to Sally to review.  The winner was the Pear Green and Cement color palette – modern & edgy – right up my alley!

As the article notes, I found  this amazing fabric and fell in love with the colors and patterns – and as  gathered vendors to help produce the designs, I sent them pictures of the fabric so they too, could use the same inspiration!  Since I didn’t find any napkins that inspired me as much as the fabric itself, I decided to make my own, and balance it between two square plates, and my favortie chargers in the world, slate tiles from home depot.  (LOVE this loo, but beware, they are HEAVY! – I once used 200 of these for a wedding – wow, did  get a workout!)

The necklace was a GREAT find at Bainbridge Island’s boutique Ginger.  I literally could buy EVERYTHING in this store – from the amazing hand-made jewelry to the stunning plates and sculpture – I adore their style.  I of course, fell so in love with the necklace in this article, that I went back and bought it – it IS my signature color after all!

Sonal from Chocolaz Cakes blew me away!  She took my piece of fabric and created this insanely amazing cake!  I had such fun making the floral cake stand, but seriously, this cake was even more amazing up-close, with it’s 3 dimensional blooms.  WOW.

When I first told Tara Bliven of Ephemera Press that I wanted to put a piece of steel under a letterpressed invitation, I think she thought I was a wee bit kooky.  I love how her beautiful art came together with this piece of steel, which was actually quite light and could easily be delivered in a box.  She ended up loving it too!

the LIGHT:  I think this was my favorite piece of this entire design.  I had found this yummy gray duppioni, and just really wanted to pair it with flowers and light – so I draped the fixture in the duppioni, and attached green cymbidium orchids and gray bersilia berries in a pattern form the fabric.  Wouldn’t this be fun over a headtable or dessert display?

Thanks, Sally, and the Seattle Bride team, for having faith in me and letting me play!

Once we found our venue, all the design ideas for Laura and Billy clicked into place.  I was in love with the venue, and quite inspired by it!  I saw hundreds of chandeliers, windows swathed in silk..but of course, like most weddings, there is a budget to keep to, and so there was a limit to the chandeliers and the fabric draping and fabulous lighting I saw in my head.  Ah, but how to help the bride SEE what is inside my head?  That’s where our wonderful Nadia comes in – since I can’t draw, she reaches right inside my head and manages to sketch out my ideas for the client to see.

Laura loves color, and has a fabulous sense of style, yet had some difficulty articulating what she wanted.  Over a few session and lots of color swatches (and a bit of help from the internet, who watched us plan this whole wedding live!) later, we picked a yummy color palette of brown sugar (a coppery brown), cobalt blue, metallic gold and cream.   I loved how the brown sugar color worked well with the brick in the building!  Stay tuned for pictures from the actual wedding, shot by Jasmine Star – how close will our sketch be??

Thank you again to Christy from Junebug for the FABULOUS photos!

I had the pleasure of going Gown Shopping with Laura – only a few of the brides I work with end up having me accompany them on all their vendor visits, as there is only one of me to go around!  I do end up personally working with about 10 special brides a year who start with Bella Signature Design from start to finish and collaborate with us on the entire wedding from gown, invitations, venue, decor, etc.  I love this process, and of course it’s much more fun than hearing it secondhand from one of my assistants!  Laura was so fun during this process – listening to advice from her friends, but also being honest with herself about what she wanted.  We went to several different boutiques that I recommend: La Belle Elaines, Marcella’s and La Votre (formerly the Bridal Garden).  Christy from Junebug Weddings came along to capture photos of Laura trying on gowns at La Belle Elaine’s.  You can even watch our visit to La Belle Elaines here, as the film crew was on hand to capture it!

Which gown do you like the best?  And don’t we all want to know which gown she will end up with?  (Psst – I just found out which one!)

You can watch our  broadcasts and planning sessions with myself, Jasmine Star, Christy from Junebug Weddings and of course the bride, Laura here.

I am so excited to be working with Laura and Billy!  Laura and Billy were chosen as the lucky recipients of the “Jasmine Star/CreativeLive/Bella Signature Design Wedding” Phew – a mouthful – but what an experience!  In just four weeks, we are planning and designing a fabulous, stylish, fun wedding for Laura and Billy, who not only get our planning and design services for free, but free photography from the amazing Jasmine Star and coverage from CreativeLive.  See more information about the CreativeLive Wedding here.

Laura has been a blast to work with.  She’s is absolutely sweet, hilarious, open-minded.  She has some definite ideas on what she likes, which is actually very helpful to the process of planning and designing.  It is hard for her to make the actual decisions, but with guidance from myself and her bridesmaids (and the urgency of our timeline) she has been crossing things off of our list!

Billy also seems very easy going and fun – they are obviously in love, and always full of joy and laughter when I am with them.

Christy of the uberfantastic Junebug Weddings Blog has been on hand to not only capture these amazing images but to blog her point of view on this experience on the Junebug blog.  Follow our adventures on the Bella blog, Junebug blog, and of course, every Monday at Noon PST at Creativelive.com/live – where you can even ask questions as we broadcast live and discuss where we are planning process so far.

I love how beautiful and creative engagement photos have become – they are unique, sexy, playful…One of our September Brides, Emily loved her Engagement shoot with Seattle’s Clane Gessel, so of course  I had to have him send me over some images from their shoot, and some of his other favorites!

Enjoy!

My couple, Emily and Travis (and her Amazing dog, who has been at all our consultations!)

Sweet!

Thanks, Clane, for sharing your talent with us!

Yes, indeed, we have been given the challenge to plan a fabulous wedding in four weeks!  In the month of August, of course, THE busiest wedding season here in Seattle!  But our creative team at Bella is not only up for the task, we are super excited!  (I love a challenge ).  I’ll be blogging about my daily adventures with our bride Laura on our Bella blog – for more information see our previous post about the Jasmine Star and Junebug wedding adventure!

Christy from Junebug weddings will be featuring some of our fun as well, on her outstanding, national wedding blog, What Juneblog Loves, and capturing photos along the way! (We had so much fun dress shopping with Laura the other day!)

And while you may not have to plan YOUR wedding in Four weeks, just imagine how great your planning will go with even more time!  This is your chance to glimpse into the world of a wedding planner and designer – see everything, from start to finish, in a four week period

Our live broadcast session will be live every Monday, so come tune in! You can even chat via our chatline to ask questions during the show, or simply follow along on twitter with hashtags #starwedding and #4weekwedding.  We’ll answer as many questions live while we are broadcasting during the Monday live session as we can! (and some afterwards as well)

The link to the live video is:
http://creativelive.com/live

The chatroom to ask questions during that live event is:
http://creativelive.com/chat

Come join us!

And thanks Tania, for the great picture!