STUDIOHEART EVENT DESIGN & MEDIA BLOG

We posted Part 1 – Preparation and Ceremony of Julie & Greg’s Wedding story. It is time to share all the emotions and details of their reception starting with their cocktail hour.

Julie loved the idea of incorporating local touches to the wedding, so she selected to share our local Tupelo honey as favors, and also as a feature item in the cocktail hour as part of a cheese and fruit display and also with a featured drink.

After trying a couple of cocktails recipies, Julie and Greg settle on featuring Nut & Honey Shooters for guests to enjoy this local treat.

It was very important to Julie and Greg for their family and friends to feel, not as wedding guests but as much of an intregal part of the event as they are to their lives in general. Coming from an art background and taking into account Julie’s vintage theme, we came up with the idea of an art exhibit which both Julie and Greg feel in love with. The concept also allowed both families around the country to participate in the event from the early planning stages as they digged through their albums to search for the treasures we needed. The search turnout memories of both families from the early 1900 to the present and created a sense of history and unity at the event as both families came together to share and relive pieces of their history.

There were a lot of interesting photos at the exhibit, here are a few of the oldest photos that we loved.

Julie wanted to incorporated a Cookie Table, a tradition of her hometown of Pittsburgh, to the wedding so the guest got to enjoy a lot of homemade tasty goodies that friends and family created specially for this occasion.

One of the aspects that defines our approach to wedding styling and design, in addition to the custom décor and planning of entertainment and activities, is floor plan and event flow design. That was one of the most challenging aspects of Julie & Greg’s design process. In order to create a successful floor plan that was conducive to a natural and easy flow during the cocktail hour and reception, we had quite a few things that needed to be addressed from the unusually large rectangular layout of the areas we needed to use to the featuring of activities such as the art exhibit and the wishing launch that needed remain active throughout both the cocktail hour and the reception. The complete process of the custom and innovative floor plan we designed for them is something we plan to share in more detail in a later post. Here is just a little piece of that process that was key to the wishing lounge. We ended up creating a plan designed to use the photos of the art exhibit, hanging in a floating gallery style, to create a little intimate nook that hosted the wishing tree lounge and that little nook acted as a connector between the reception room and the bar at the far end of the cocktail room that kept the guest easly flowing between the rooms and coming back time and time again through the night to see the exhibit and share their though and good wishes in the wishing tree lounge.

The reception room we designed as a combination of round tables and rectangular tables to keep a feeling of intimate family style dining, yet allowed enough room to feature one of the main attraction of the reception design: the 15 custom made light installation art pieces hanged in a floating gallery style above each table. Both Julie and Greg love to travel, and their adventures have taken them everywhere from Grand Canyon to London. Throughout the years they have collected a great number of scenic photos, so we came up with the idea of incorporating all those memories by creating 15 light installation art pieces, one per table, each featuring a selection of images from one of the places they have visited. That would act a part of the décor during dinner and then turn into a light show when the light came down as the night fell.

Knowing how much being echo friendly meant to Julie and Greg, we wanted to do something special from them. So we ended up recycling the RSVP cards, to turn them into a design pattern that we used to accentuate some of the light installation pieces. We cut the RSVP card into 0.5×0.5 inches squares and after mixing all the little pieces reassemble them by hand gluing one by one to create a mosaic patter that cover the frames in our five vertical light installations that match the five circular tables we used in our floor plan. Julie and Greg planned to keep all the art pieces for their house after the wedding, so we knew that was a touch they would enjoy not only at the wedding.

We designed the tables names with the same style as the rest of their stationery and each featured the name of the location that match the images in the art installation piece at the table.

Rather than used traditional table runners, we wanted to bring an organic touch to the tables, so we came up with the idea of using travertine stone with onyx incrustations in a mosaic pattern as runner. Rather than used traditional table runners, we wanted to bring an organic touch to the tables, so we came up with the idea of using travertine stone with onyx incrustations in a mosaic pattern as runner. We also custom created napkin rings with their logo and wrapped with the same brown canvas twine we used to customize the votive candles and to attach to the wishing tree card for hanging.

Once Julie had they local tupelo honey containers ready we customized them with the same elements we used in the invitation, by using eco twist to wrapper around the container and hold the labels and then stamp the top with copper wax and their “D” seal.

We wanted to bring a touch of the dogwwod to the cake tables, so we used them to create a custom floating candle design.

Time to start the party!!!

If you look closely at this next shot, you can see two little friends making an apperance in the back of Julie’s dress and in Greg’s pocket.

Lovely first dance.

After dinner we headed out for a sunset session. We got such great lighting while we were shooting this and we had the entire golf camp almost to ourselves and even a lovely breeze. Ahhh heaven!

The sky had such amazingg texture!!!

A little sweet kiss.

A little naughty bite! We think Greg liked it

Gorgeos bridals. We have to say Julie’s selection of buzzle turn the dress into a whole new dress with a very sexy couture look to it. Love it!

Our lovely bride! Got a say the smiles were never missing.

Got a love that sunset.

Julie loved her bouquet so much, that we decided to return to a classic shot just for her By the way thank to her for all the lovely comments. We loved making it for her, and she took such good care of it all through the wedding and even after it

A fav of the day with a dogwood sky!

We love this shot. Statuesque!

We had a couple of spys in the session!!!!!!!!

Anothe top fav. At the end of the sunset session, the moon made an appearance too. How lucky are this two.

After we came back inside the club we did some editorial shots with some dramatic lighting.

Reverse Walk like an Egyptian anyone?

How low can you go!!!!!

Lead the way with the train.

As the lights went down it was candlelight all the way. The little custom details with the skelton leaves and brown canvas twine we added to all the votive canldes was a great organic touch.

Talk about flexible. No bones in sight

As the night came down the guest got to enjoy a great fireworks show as a surprise. We have to say Greg did a great job setting this up. The fireworks show was amazing. Can’t wait to share the entire show in the video.

End of the night with a sweet dance!

Stay tune for their art cinema video edit to come later in the month!

Wedding Planning, Design and Styling, Stationery, Flowers, Ceremony Rentals, Photography, and Videography: Studio Heart
Reception Banquet Hall & Catering: Capital City Country Club
DJ: North Florida Express DJ

Julie and Greg are a creative couple of busy professionals with an intricate idea for their wedding, focused on family and tradition with an eco-friendly approach. We have being working with them for months to plan, design, and execute their dream wedding from the smallest details to the ceremony and reception setting and then spend the day with them, capturing their experience in photo and video. We wanted to share an extended preview of some of our favorite shots of the day.

We wanted all the photos and tones to have an earthy feel to them in texture and color reminicent of vintage old photographs. We also wanted a tone that had elegance and drama, so we also did a lot of lighting work and created a B&W that allowed us to emphasize the emotions and feelings we capture through the wedding.

We love Julie’s dress, simple and elegant with a great satin fabric and a nice punch of style with a champagne sash with a stone encrusted vintage design and brooch. And did we forget to mention, the dress was perfectly cut on a bias to hug Julie’s figure and create a perfect sexy mermaid shape.

Julie wanted something unique for her bouquet, so after she selected her choice of flowers we went to work on creating something that felt both vintage and organic and complemented her look.

Julie wore a ring from her grandmother as her something old and a pair of earrings, a present from Greg as her something new.

We love this shot of her mom, which we shot on low lighting for B&W.

We love her simple and elegant choice of hairdo with a nice flower organic touch complement the dress.

We love this next shot, it was such a natural yet dramatic gesture that we had to shoot it for an intense B&W

Julie had such great fun with her nieces. All three little girls were perfect attendants waiting to help anyway they could. After all they are big girls too, that is why they also got special mini edition bouquets to carry like the big girls did

The girls all looked beautiful. Julie’s selection of a Shantung Off-the-Shoulder chocolate brown dress was flirty and flattering with a vintage vibe.

We love Greg’s unique cufflinks. Who doesn’t love martinis

Julie surprised Greg with a special groom’s cake while he spend time with the guys before the ceremony.

Greg and Tim lead the way for this next shot by showing all our groomsmen their imitation of Edvard Munch’s famous 1893 “Scream” painting from an old family photo. after some practice, we can honestly say they all got the silent sream down

Julie wanted to incorporate dogwoods into the boutonnieres, so Greg would carry a little piece of home their home close, which along with some dry elements to give it an earthy touch allowed to us to create a very unique design.

We introduced a while back the invitation and logo that we designed for Julie and Greg’s, so when it was time to design the rest of the stationery for the wedding we customized everything from the programs to the labels at the food table to match their stationery design.

Julie’s request for the ceremony was something intimate and natural that would make use of the great natural scenery they enjoy in their backyard. So they decided to use our one-of-a-kind custom set of artisan handcrafted wood benches and huppa in a family style sitting to give their guests a feel of intimacy and appreciation of nature and traditions.

While we were working with Julie to plan and design the layout for the intimate backyard ceremony Julie and Greg had in mind, we worked not only to seemless blend the handcrafted wood benches and gazebo into the backyad’s natural layout for an organic feel, but also on utilizing the gazebo to act as a soft light defuser of the intense natural light that hits the spot where they would stand at the time of the ceremony to create a soft natural glow around them. So while were photographing the wedding we got the perfect light from different angles to create great natural light effects that made every special moment we capture a perfect shot.

Julie and Greg wanted to do something special for their moms, so they decided to set aside a few minutes in the ceremony to surprise them with a white rose.

With the formalities over it was time to have some fun, and this group had some great moves

We love the natural lighting we got with this set!

Since we could not settle on just a few favorites, the post grew a little big. So stay tune for Part 2 – The Reception tomorrow. And yes you can expect a large post for this second part as well