Friday, December 31, 2010

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights....

A Goddess Love in Paris - September Wedding at La Panetiere in Rye, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs
Day of Coordination by NY Engagements, LLC

The bride and her bridesmaids had a very early morning getting ready at 5am at The Tarrytown House with their hair stylist Massimo. Their photographer, Ivaylo Markov from The Pros Entertainment Services arrived at 8am to capture the getting ready shots and photos of the bouquets when they arrived from Engaging Floral Designs.



















The ceremony was held at Blessed Sacrament Church in New Rochelle, New York. It's a very strict church as we've worked there numerous times so our best advice is for couples to get prior approval on everything so that the rehearsal doesn't come as a surprise when you find out they only allow one way to walk down the aisle...girls solo with the guys already all up front. Fortunately, the coordinating team from NY Engagements, LLC was able to work with the Monsr. to compromise and allow the couple to have their bridal party walk down the aisle in pairs. Woohoo! The bride was thrilled and saved her night.

The harpist for the ceremony was none other than Margaret Sanzo Sneddon - she's fabulous to work with and has an amplifier to ensure guests can hear her beautiful songs!

Onward at the reception: The centerpieces were small glass containers filled with a similar assortment of pink and orangey toned roses/spray roses which were placed on the guest tables at the restaurant. At each table, the bride had a greek goddess table name in beautiful frames.
On each napkin, every guest received a single rose since the bride loved the flower so much. It was a romantic, intimate setting at the restaurant.

The dj, Gabriela Jeffrey, did well in keeping the flow of events moving even though the dance floor was in a completely separate room from the dinner area.

More pictures will hopefully follow to provide more images of the beautiful setup at the wedding.

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights....

A Red Hot August Wedding at the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich, CT
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs

This couple loved some of the contemporary work Engaging Floral Designs did for Project Show, a couture fashion trade show held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. We featured a trio of floating white flower balls in large glass cylinder vases for a sleek, modern and sophisticated style.











For the wedding, we did an all red fabric aisle runner leading up to a red fabric covered platform. The string duet warming up in the corner before the guests arrived are Randy and Topu I believe from NY Ceremony Music.

Here are some pictures of the bridal bouquets:
The bouquets contained roses, cymbidium orchids, calla lilies, and dahlias.
















The centerpieces were very sleek and simple trios of vases each with some of their favorite flowers in them in fall color tones. Engaging Floral Designs provided the rental gold linens for the tables. The place card arrangement was also designed off a piece we did for an exhibitor at Project Show in Las Vegas.

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights.....

A colorful August wedding at The Garrison, in Garrison, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs
Photography on this blog courtesy of Scott Ross Photography

The color scheme was purples, fuscias and oranges for this bold summer wedding. The Jewish wedding was held beneath the tent on the grounds of The Garrison since the threat of rain was upon the day. Engaging Floral Designs has a stunning back up plan in the event of rain - an all birch chuppah that can be used both indoors and outdoors due to it's sturdy construction and can be adorned however the client wishes. For this clients' wedding, we draped the grand chuppah structure with white fabric and accented the front with a large floral cascade of snap dragons, stock, lilies, orange and purple roses, spider mums, cremone mums, and greenery. The structure is so bit it can comfortably fit the parents, bride, groom, and Rabbi inside it. The couple gave us their Tallis to hang on the roof of the chuppah.

The bride's bouquet was a dark eggplant calla lily and fuscia/purple rose bouquet and her bridesmaid bouquets were same eggplant calla but with orange roses and spray roses to complement their dresses.




Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights.....

Get ready for Fall in August Wedding at Kol Ami in White Plains, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs

Here's our take on contemporary fall with interesting textures:


The bride had a European style hand tied bouquet of yellow calla lilies, tulips, dahlias, freesia, roses, lotus pods, craspedia balls, and hypericum berries. Each bouquet comes labeled with a tag so it's easy to know which bouquet goes to which bridal party member.

The centerpieces were low glass cylinders filled with an arrangement of pincushion protea, dahlias, tulips, spray roses, hypericum berries, mums, lotus pods, and accented with angel vine.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights.....

A Vintage Chic Bicycle Themed Wedding at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn, NY in August

It was a last minute decision to book a day of coordinator but with a lot of diy projects to tend to onsite, the couple knew they needed to turn to NY Engagements, LLC to help them execute their visions for their wedding day.

The bride was an Audrey Hepburn look alike with her vintage style ballerina wedding dress with royal blue shoes and blue sash. Photo by Brad Ross Photography










The groom's father was the officiant and it made for a very personal ceremony! NY Engagements helped to set up the decor for the ceremony.










The wedding decor included many little accents of the theme - bicycling! Every table name was named after a different unique bicycle manufacturer...who knew there were so many different luxury designers in the bike industry! Photo by Brad Ross Photography



















The dj Dan Kingman of Expressway Music kept the crowd up and dancing at every opportunity!






The cupcake tower looked and tasted amazing! The cupcakes were made by Butterlane. They are the best tasting cupcakes I've ever had... and you can't just have one!

Personal Flowers provided by The Park Florist

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights..

A Pretty in Pink July wedding at Harvest on Hudson in Hastings on Hudson, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs










This bride loved the pink and green color combination so her wedding was all about that!
Her photographer, Nick Carter provided a couple of photos of the bride's bouquet above. The boutonnieres were green cymbidium orchids since guys aren't too keen on wearing pink. It was another rain prone/tornado warning kind of day and unfortunately, the sky opened and the rain came falling down hard. From the smiles in their photos, they didn't seem to let the rain fall down on their parade and looked as happy as ever. The groom and his family were all from Ireland so a little rain is definitely good luck!

Here are a couple of photos we took of the centerpieces. They were full of pink dahlias, matsumoto aster, fuscia roses, pink hydrangeas from holland, bells of ireland, green tick dianthus and green cymbidium orchids with greenery in low cylinder bowls.





































Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights..

Purple Powered July Wedding at Falkirk Estate and Country Club in Central Valley, NY
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs

The mother of the bride worked with us directly on the floral scheme for her daughter's wedding since she lived out of the area. The bride wanted an all purple wedding with varied centerpieces on the tables.

The first of the three centerpiece styles was a trio of cylinder vases with submerged purple dendrobium orchid sprays in each and a floating candle that would be illuminated prior to guests entering the room for dinner and dancing.

The second of the three centerpieces was a low mounded arrangement of purple and fuscia toned flowers such as purple hydrangea, fuscia and purple stock, purple mums, lavender roses, and greenery. These photos we took to the left.



Below are professional photos taken by Allan Levine Photography:
The picture to the left is the third centerpiece style which is designed as a small elevated arrangement atop a contemporary tower vase. It's a slightly varied version of the low piece with the addition of dendrobium orchids spraying from the base.

The ceremony took place in a room downstairs. The weather was threatening with on and off rain overcast the whole time we were setting up. The bride really wanted it outside but with the rain falling, we quickly relocated the decor to the inside plan b room and it turned out just as lovely.

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights..

A Grand June Wedding at Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs

The aisle markers that were used at the ceremony which took place at St. Theresa's Church in Trumbull, CT were repurposed to decorate the mantle and cocktail tables at Trump National Golf Club. It was a good way to get additional use out of the pieces site. Onsite we had replenished these pieces with beautiful hydrangeas, dahlias, roses, bells of ireland, lisianthus and other delicate flowers in the blue/creamy white/green color scheme.


The sweetheart table was adorned with a lush draping arrangement of the same flowers including white stock and ruscus.





There were 20 centerpieces in total so it was plenty to do half as low arrangements and the other half as tall candelabra centerpieces. It saved the bride some money to do some low instead of all high. The containers/candelabras were rental pieces that the florist provided and setup.








In the foyer, a large escort card table arrangement greeted guests as they found their table cards. The curly willow branches held hanging votives from their limbs adding additional candle ambiance to the room.







There were so many additional features of this wedding that we would have loved to capture with our camera but we ran out of shots. Stay tuned as we await professional photos to supplement our gallery.

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights...

A beautiful June Jewish Wedding at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Bedford Corners, New York
Flowers by Engaging Floral Designs

Our clients wanted a bright summery wedding look using blue, yellow, green and orange tones. We will post the professional photographers photos as soon as we get a hold of some. The photo on the left is of the chuppah we decorated using the color scheme. The flowers included orange lilies, blue hydrangeas, yellow football mums, hanging amaranthus, yellow snapdragons, and orange roses that open up beautifully!

The temple was just breathtaking! You have to see this place to believe it. And with a very lovely reception hall right across the way on the grounds, it makes for the perfect wedding reception site!


Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Looking Back - 2010's Weddings and Event Highlights....

A Backyard Tented Wedding at a Country Inn - June 2010

Ceremony and Reception: The Bykenhulle House, Hopewell Junction, NY
All Photography in this post by Christopher Duggan of Threshold Visions









Engaging Floral Designs designed an elegant, vintage soft pink and white pallet of flowers for this backyard wedding. It was elegant yet not overly pompous - just the right mix for this country setting. Photos provided below courtesy of Christopher Duggan of Threshold Visions























Wedding Planner Sarah Lusardi and team at NY Engagements, LLC. provided day of coordination services for this happy couple's wedding in June 2010.

The NY Engagements team displayed her escort cards by pinning them with clothespins onto decorative ribbon hung between two wrought iron stands. It was a whimsical and sweet idea.

Customized matchbooks were placed at the bars.






At the ceremony, fans were placed on each chair for guests to cool themselves in the heat. The bride decided on a hanging arrangement over the ceremony which framed out their ceremony space nicely. Little tossing baskets with petals were hung from the sides of the aisle chairs for guests to toss petals...














In picture above - Rev. Jeanne Stark of Hudson Valley Ceremonies officiating the ceremony

The Botticelli Chamber Players performed beautifully as the bride walked down the aisle.









Dancing was of utmost importance to this couple so baskets of flip flops were placed near the dance floor in the tent for any guests who didn't want aching feet to ruin their dance groove.

The band, Live Radio, rocked the house all evening. The leader was Julie Foster and she was a pleasure to work with.








The bride's family had a special urn they wanted incorporated into the wedding displays so it was used to hold special notes the guests wrote to the bride and groom to read on their 1 year anniversary. The card box was a vintage bird cage.







In addition to setting up personal decor items such as the ones above, the day of coordinators are also there to buffer any issues that arise at the rehearsal and wedding day...

You never know what last minute things might pop up and having a day of coordinator helped this bride relax after discovering the caterer had the cook tent placed in a location she did not like as it obstructed the grassy lounge area. So as not to disrupt their rehearsal dinner plans, Sarah and the NY Engagements team worked behind the scenes with the caterer and tent company to have their team come back that night to re-position the cook tent to an area in a more discreet area. After Sarah worked out some logistical issues/concerns with the caterer, we all made it happen! Sarah met up with the tent company late that evening to assist the move and, by the time the bride returned to the Inn, the tent was already taken care of and she knew she was in good hands!

The caterer Bridge Creek Catering was amazing to work with. They had an amazing team and they really had a lot to compete with working the event... we had threatening tornado warnings and heavy thunder storms and rain approaching and with the tent being moved, their staff would have to run in the rain to get food served but they made it work. I've never seen the chefs plate food so quickly and wait staff serve food to the tables in record time! We had a very tight schedule and they made it happen. Thankfully the rain held out just long enough to clear tables and start the dancing portion of the evening. The food was also wonderful...and we taste a lot of wedding food in our business!

Another issue that came up during the evening that the NY Engagements team helped take care of was when the bartenders were running out of alcohol. It was a very hot day and with all the dancing under the tent, the alcohol was going fast. The NY Engagements team contacted their alcohol vendor and he was able to get a couple bottles sent over and picked up some extra cases of beer along the way for us. The bride and groom didn't know that there was ever a problem. They were having such a great time and didn't need to know of issues happening behind the scenes - when they eventually did found out later, they were so impressed that it was just all taken care of behind the scenes and they were left to enjoy their own wedding party!