When we think of February, our next thought is, naturally, Valentine’s Day.  And our favorite February parties are the bridal showers and girls’ soirees we get to throw for our brides with upcoming weddings.   So, this month, for our fantasy party, we decided that our color story would be hot and cold running PINK! 

Color Palette

Inspiration Board 

The team totally outdid themselves this time!  And, once again, our praise and thanks go out to Marie Labbancz, our wonderful friend and photographer.   It is truly rewarding to see one’s work so perfectly captured.   

We shot this gorgeous color story at the enchanting Please Touch Museum in Fairmount Park. 

(The Septa bus Oksana is exiting from is actually part of the

“Roadside Attractions” exhibit!)

Now, let me tell you how our February story begins – paper flowers. I’ve wanted to have a party with paper flowers forever.   So, Beautiful Blooms indulged me and created these really pretty flowers out of white iridescent and soft pink paper that we strung from strands of peach and white pearls over the table.    Vic and the boys from VU-Events masterfully hung all the paper flowers and lit our pretty pink table perfectly!

For the centerpiece, Beautiful Blooms filled apothecary jars with layers of rose petals, hydrangea petals, light pink cut glass, white sand, dried ivory roses and  pearls.  They also filed glass vases with swirled pearls and floating candles.    Light pink tapers in footed candleholders completed the centerpieces perfectly.

The gorgeous linens came from our friends at The Total Table.  The darling favor boxes were created by our favorite geniuses at Two Paper Dolls.  We filled them with a mix of Good & Plenty, Hershey’s Kisses and a variety of pink and ivory candies from The Lil’ Candy Shoppe in Northern Liberties. And the stunning place settings (notice the great glassware), table and chairs came from Party Rentals, Ltd. 

Max and Me Catering did a fantastic job of of coming up with food and drink that was coordinated perfectly with the décor.   Just look at those irresistible cosmos and glasses of pink champagne and wonderful white wine.   They also created a beautiful entrée of Diver Scallops with a Celery Root Puree and Citrus Beurre Blanc.   Our kudos to David Robison, Max and Me’s Executive Chef and Theresa Linskey, the Sous Chef.   The Girls Only Party was not only gorgeous, it was also incredibly yummy!   

Mary Helen Raneiri, the owner of Suky Occasions came by and styled Oksana in a scrumptious pink party dress. Claudia Seyler of Claudia Seyler Beauty did a fantastic job on Osaka’s hair and makeup.   Beautiful Blooms created the perfect nosegay of peach spray roses with pearl accents for our guest of honor. 

Stay tuned for our next Color Story.  March: the end of a long winter’s night’s dream.

Aimee at CreativeMontage.com creates really fun invitations, monograms, and other paper stuff that we just adore.  

She also, somehow, keeps a truly fun wedding blog called Creative Odds n’ Ends.

Here’s another great Aimee-concept.   She’s running a contest to find the most romantic proposal.  

I totally love this idea.  And I get to be a judge!   Tell anyone whose recently become engaged to submit their proposal story.  I can’t wait to see them!

One of our favorite things to do is to design and execute photo shoots.   You may have seen the results of many of them – sometimes we do them by request from specific magazines, like when the Knot asked us to create a table for a blue, green & yellow wedding:   

Or when we created tablescapes for the Bride & Bloom Magazine: 

If you’ve been following our blog, you know that we’ve been doing something new.  Every three months, we put together a team of the best professionals in Philadelphia to help us execute our designs of three fantasy celebrations we call “Monthly Color Stories” that Marie Labbancz captures in a day-long (or night-long as the case may be) photo shoot.  If you haven’t seen them already, you should check out November’s, December’s, and January’s Color Stories.

On Tuesday,  January 13th, we shot three of these color stories at the Please Touch Museum.  I thought you might like to see a little bit of what goes into setting up a photo shoot.   And, as an added bonus, here are some of the people you’ve heard about in our blog.  We thought you might want to see them at work (and play).   

Here’s our gorgeous friend Claudia Seyler (of Claudia Seyler Beauty) preparing our perfect model, Oksana, for the next several hours.    Just wait ’til you see the amazing dresses and gowns Mary Helen Ranieri of Suky Occasions provided for this shoot (and styled).   STUNNING!!!

Meet Vic and his guys (Bill and Eric) from VU Events.  There’s Bill on the ladder (as usual).   Donna (from Beautiful Blooms) and I are sitting at the table folding napkins or something.  Maybe fixing the super-skinny candles that would simply NOT cooperate!  

We couldn’t resist playing around with the toys all over Please Touch Museum.  The beauty of this place is that there’s nothing there you can’t play with!   All the fairy tales and fantasies of youth are right there.  

That’s me and Scott Swiger of Max & Me Catering on the left, and Donna O’Brien and Bill Schaeffer of Beautiful Blooms on the right.  

Eric (who took all these pictures) of VU Events had the most fun of all, I think!  

And Vic, in a rather typical posture.   

The Max & Me chefs were AMAZING…David Robison, Max & Me’s Executive Chef and Theresa Linskey, Max & Me’s Sous Chef were total perfectionists and took every detail to heart.   I was blown away by these guys!

And here is Vic again (and yes, that’s a bus in the middle of the museum).   You really should visit the Please Touch Museum — it’s a magical experience (at any age)!

And now for my favorite picture — here’s Marie Labbancz (of Marie Labbancz Photography).   You can see she was not thrilled with being on the other end of the camera!  In fact, this picture was actually the inspiration for the title of this blog entry (which I thought was a little better than “I’m going to kill Kendall,”  which very well may have been the perfect caption for this picture). 

Stay tuned for the real results.   Marie’s photos of the February Color Story are coming soon!    Rumor has it they are absolutely amazing.    Personally, I can hardly wait to see them!  

Since posting Roseann & Paal, Part I, we’ve had lots of things happening around here that we wanted to share with you.   We can finally get back to telling you all about our amazing fall weddings, beginning, of course, with the next episode of Roseann & Paul.  

Let me see … when we left Roseann and Paal in Episode 1, Roseann & her beautiful mom, Rosemary, were leaving the Rittenhouse Hotel in a white Bentley when the skies were just beginning to open up and pour (which it did all day).  

We’ll pick up our story with the tender and beautiful ceremony at St. Augustine’s Church in Old City.

The gorgeous bouquets and floral adornments at this historic landmark were created by, of course, Beautiful Blooms.   And this amazing photography is the work of our great friend, Marie Labbancz.

Roseann searched far and wide for the perfect locket to be attached to her bouquet that would contain photos of herself and her late father, so that, in this small way, he would truly be with her as she walked down the aisle.

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Stay tuned for the next episodes.   There are just so many cool and beautiful things about this wedding and Marie did such a phenomenal job of capturing all the amazing details that we really think we need to share this wedding with you in stages.   Next up in Part III:  Roseann and Paal at Eastern Penitentiary.   Marie’s drop dead gorgeous photos will blow you away.

When Carrie Denny told us that Philadelphia Weddings Magazine LOVED Emelia & Jay’s wedding, we were flattered — but not surprised.   It truly was an exceptional wedding that we were very proud to show off.  There’s so much to see and learn about this wedding — the couple was just delightful, the details were very carefully and lovingly chosen and the overall result was spectacular.  As you can see, the amazing photography by Marie Labbancz captured this beautiful story perfectly.    

We suggest you pick up a copy of the latest issue of Philadelphia Weddings for a better look.   Or take a look all the pretty pictures from our blog entry about this wedding.

PS: See the gorgeous flowers (created by, of course, Beautiful Blooms)?   They were donated after the weddings was over, as part of Eclatante’s Kindness Blooms project.