Eclectic Hay Loft Wedding Inspiration

Love everything about this rustic winter wedding shoot, submitted by Erin Johnson Photography.  Inspired by books, candlesticks and a pug named Hank, this eclectic collaboration offers much eye candy and some truly unique inspiration.  Read on below for all the details...

photos © erin johnson photography

From Erin + Carly: The inspiration for this shoot came from some black and white striped candle sticks, our love of books and my pug, Hank. {Check out the canvas of Hank!} In Seven Oaks Farm's huge hay loft, we hung a 9ft love story poster between huge, velvet drapes. {The 9 foot banner is Carly's love story--it tells how she met and dated her now husband. It has some great lines...she tells how he drove on their first date and says: "What was she thinking?! He could have been an axe murderer!" He taught her to shuffle. She watched Lord of the Rings.} 

We centered the dining table on top of our black and white cheveron rug and covered it with a steely-lavendar pin-tuck tablecloth. We set the table with a neural floral arrangement dotted with succulents and dogwood, striped black and white candles in mercury glass candleholders, vintage mis-matched china and silverware.
 

The centerpiece stood atop a covered coffee table book and "The Dangerous Book For Boys." Inside the glass cloche stood a handmade "6", a bingo card with the 6 highlighted, a domino adding up to six, an old six of hearts playing card and more... The escort cards were strung up on old birdcage stands. Each escort card had a personalized button for each guest, the table number and a book title to help guest find their seat.
  

Sarah, from On Solid Ground Vintage Rental, and Ashley, from Simply Elegant Bridal Consulting, put together the darling dessert table and seating area.  Our set-up is inspired by our love of books, typeface or fonts, black and white stripes, and Carly's pug, Hank.

The invitations are based on the 9ft sign and pull in Hank, the pug. The RSVP offers guests the chance to “enthusiastically decline” or check a box that says, “think you’re just out for the gift."

The favors are handmade key chains with each guests first inital. The brown boxes are die-cut boxes from Archivers. We folded them, filled them with excelsior nests and our favor. The handmade tags say "thank you for joining us today."

The escort cards were strung up on old birdcage stands. Every escort card has a personalized button for each guest and the table number and book title to help them find their seat.  Local artists, Allison and Rachel Pegoraro made a thumbpring guest book.

We put together a type of “Smash Book” as a more organic type of guestbook. Lots of sentence starters, fill in the blank decals and loads of stickers allow guests to put their own spin on the guestbook.  Pictures of Hank, the pug, are in frames near the seating areas with piles of our favorite books. The postcard carousel on the coffee table holds cards for the bride and groom.

We collaborated with some of our favorite vendors in the Twin Cities to bring this shoot to life...

Seven Oaks Farm: Venue- opening in 2013
Erin Johnson: Photography

Girl Friday: Design/ Production

Simply Elegant Bridal Consulting: Coordination
On Solid Ground Vintage Rental: Rentals and Styling

Lime Canary Vintage Rental: Rentals

Festivities: Rentals

Chowgirls Killer Catering: Catering
Brides of France: Estate Furs and Vintage Jewelry

Something Borrowed: Headpieces

Jen Mar Creations: Designed the dress for the occasion

Rosan Konieczny: Calligrapher
Sweet Peas: Florist

Allison and Rachel Pegoraro: Custom thumprint "guestbook"

Salon Rox: Make-up

Salon Etica: Hair

Models: Maggie Klein, Hannah Jackson and Nina Jackson

Vintage Winter White Desserts

Spring is just around the corner friends, but before we say goodbye to winter I couldn't resist sharing this vintage winter white sweets table, designed for Gatherings magazine by the lovely Jessie of Shop Sweet Lulu.  We finally had a chance to hang out at the Alt Summit in January, and she truly is as sweet as the products in her shop.

photos © shop sweet lulu

From Jessie: Winter in the Midwestern United States means piles of fluffy white snow, bare tree limbs dripping with icicles, and mugs of steaming hot cocoa enjoyed in front of a fire.  These images inspired my Winter White dessert Table. The offerings included powdery white donuts, fluffy, coconut cake, enormous puffs of marshmallows dipped in dark chocolate, chocolate pirouette cookies, Oreos drenched in white fudge, white chocolate-covered pretzel rods, shimmery white chocolate candies, and of course hot cocoa with marshmallows.  My approach to styling a dessert table is to keep it simple.  I love to use easy to make (or easy to buy) desserts and accessorize tables with items that can be found around the house (easy for me to say, since I have a massive vintage collection and have an entire party supply shop at my disposal)!  I stayed with the white theme, using various white cake stands and glass candy jars.  I like to alternate heights, often stacking one cake stand on top of another for variation and visual interest.  Lace doilies remind me of snowflakes in their beauty and simplicity, and I covered the table in doilies of every shape and size.  I used bits of lace as ribbon ties for the marshmallow puffs, as well as lengths of various cocoa colored ribbons.  While most of the table is white, I needed those little pops of dark chocolate for contrast.

A Vintage Winter One-derland

Another stunning event submitted by Little Miss Party... this first birthday in soft pinks, white, gold and natural burlap is too pretty for words.  Read on below for all the sweet vintage details...

photos © raquel bianca 

From Little Miss Party: Colette’s mom wanted the party to feel soft, vintage and feminine and since the party was in the beginning of January (when it usually is cold and snowy), we loved the idea of using muted pink, soft gold, ivory and burlap brown for the color story.  Above the food station our source of decor was a really pretty bunting made out of many strips of fabric. We spent an afternoon at Mood in the garment district picking out fabrics that were unique in texture, pattern and color making this banner different and interesting against the large wrought iron windows that fit in so perfectly with the vibe of this party.  We also thought it would be fun to spruce up the winter crudite by serving in glass cubes that I covered with burlap fabric and decorated with pretty ribbon.  Above the bar we set a string of photos of the birthday gal.  Traci loves Coke so I thought it would be really cute to get some of the old school bottles to set out on a wood tray and they were a hit. We also set out vintage looking milk bottles for the kids with C’s and 1′s tied with ribbon around each. We had some fun with the coffee station as well spicing up the design on our cups and serving hot cocoa for what we thought would be a cold winter’s day.  Last but certainly not least – dessert. This table was my favorite. So clean and pretty looking.  We also took fabric and draped it over the stairs that we used for gifts. This was a perfect way to keep the kids from climbing up to the deck and trying to escape from the 13th floor of this loft…not to mention looked very pretty!  The party was timed nicely, the music flowed throughout and the guests truly seemed to enjoy themselves. Most importantly, our guest of honor Colette was happy and looked to have a smashing time at her first birthday party.

Venue: Ramscale 

Music: Appleseeds 

Caterer: Cobblestone Catering

Cake Pops: Kreated by Kristan 

Cake + Cupcakes: Sugar Sweet Sunshine 

Favors: Vintage Confections

For more from Little Miss Party, click here. 

Sophia's First Birthday

I've been behind the mark on some of my most beloved blogs.  So what before my eyes should appear, but this bit of first birthday loveliness from Sunday Suppers... 

photography © karen mordechai

The Obliteration Room

Hello again + hurray for 2012!  I found this art installation completely brilliant and metaphoric for the start of a new year.  It begins with a clean slate... a pure white room.  Over the course of two weeks, the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane handed out thousands of colored dot stickers to children, who were invited to collaborate in the transformation of the space, turning a contrived living area into a vibrant explosion of color.

My hope is that by year's end we all find our opportunity to grow and shine just this brightly.

via colossal