Studio on Fire is the name of this amazing letterpress printing shop in Minneapolis — and man, they’re not kidding!  These STUNNING invitations were first designed by Priya Patel out of NYC (check out her awesome blog at  Love Made Visible), then printed by Studio on Fire in Minneapolis.

 Neerja, the sister of our Super-Go-To-Mac-Techno-Genius, Dheeraj Vasishta (After Five Real World Macintosh)  is getting married in July in Virginia.  She asked Priya to design her invites.  Once designed, Studio on Fire did a masterful job of creating invitations worthy of Priya’s art.

On their blog, Beast Pieces,  Studio on Fire gave Priya the opportunity to tell the background of her gorgeous design, then they explained how it all came together at their shop.   

Priya: The background for the design is that the couple are to be married in a botanical garden and the bride Neerja was really inspired by traditional Indian miniature paintings which often depict figures in natural settings. She wanted to incorporate a painting with her invitation so we printed one on vellum as a cover sheet for the invite.

Priya: We needed to design invitations for not only her wedding in Virginia, but also a reception the weekend after in Texas that is hosted by the groom Neel’s parents. We also wanted both events to be linked visually, thus the full color nature elements.

Studio on Fire:  Since the invite was sized for a large A10 envelope, that made for a very large 13 x 20 press sheet that incorporated all the wedding cards. In this wedding, there were two main invite cards – the brides invitation and the grooms invitation. Plus the other reply cards, direction cards and sangeet invitation. That’s a lot of letterpress! Producing multiple pieces on the same press sheet keeps the cost down.

Studio on Fire:  We produced the design from Priya with a combination of letterpress and digital printing. Digital printing is used for the vellum sheet and the back of the reception card. All of the navy text is letterpress printed. The paper stock is 111lb (300gsm) Canaletto Grana Grossa 20% cotton from Gruppo Cordenons. We also die cut the contrasting navy paper for the folding enclosure using French Papers Nightshift Blue and mixed our printing ink to cordinate with the navy paper. The minimal typography and ornamental detail of this design were perfectly suited for letterpress printing and produced a beautiful sculptural impression.

These delightful 14″ tapered candles are made locally in Trenton, New Jersey by Ana Candles. The extraordinarily rich stripe inlays, symmetry and finish of these beautiful candles make them truly unusual. Most of all, the array of color combinations is just flat out amazing. Their bright and classic palette is perfect for any season or special occasion, maintaining their appeal with continuous reflections of current color trends.

Made of premium quality paraffin, these beauties boast a burn time of 14 hours. Not only will they last through your most successful soiree, they keep post party cleanup to a minimum, as they are virtually smokeless and drip free. Each candle is a tribute to true craftsmanship and manufacturing ingenuity. Of course, we offer them to you at an affordably gorgeous price: $20 per striped pair and $14 per solid pair!

Come in to see them yourself at the Eclatante Boutique — or you can order them by calling us at 215.925.9911.

This is the story of Barbara & Steven’s wedding (as photographed by Maggie Wallace-Cullen Photography).    Truly one of the most romantic stories we’ve heard yet.

Barbara and Steven met at the University of Buffalo where Steven was a visiting English professor and Barbara was finishing  up her Ph.D. in Poetry/Poetics.  Her dissertation was focused on the “yes” and the “no” in the work of Gertrude Stein and James Joyce.  

Totally consistent with our world, where there really are no coincidences, it turns out that Steven’s late father had given him as a present before his death a first–edition copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses.   When Steven placed that copy of Ulysses in Barbara’s hands, it was, in her heart, his father’s blessing on the two of them.

Of course, then, the recurrent element of their truly touching and romantic wedding involved the famous last words of Ulysses, “yes I said yes I will yes.”

The couple designed the stationery themselves.  Everything being letterpressed in Buffalo by a bookmaker. The invitations were hand-sewn “books’ which arrived to their guests in small boxes.   The programs and menu cards (which doubled as place cards) were likewise letterpressed and complimented the invitations perfectly.

In keeping with the 1920s Ulyssses concept, Barbara’s GORGEOUS dress evoked an art deco aesthetic from Jenny Packham.  

Beautiful Blooms created  Barbara’s simply elegant hand-tied bouquet of mini white calla lilies accented with a brooch given to Barbara by her mother. Arrangements on some of the occasional tables included loose arrangements of white and ivory French tulips on beautifully draped pedestal tables.

The place settings were absolutely elegant with silver beaded chargers on stunning black matte satin linens, carefully folded napkins with Barbara & Steven’s carefully crafted menu cards.

As I type this blog entry, the rain is letting up (kinda) and a horse is walking by.   

Come down and see for yourselves why we are so happy to be here!

When one of our favorite weddings gets featured in a great wedding magazine, we all get really excited.   The bride & groom and their families put so much of themselves into their wedding and it’s just wonderful when they get recognized because the choices they made were really just as special as we thought!   Amy & Dustin’s romantic and beautiful wedding was just such a celebration – with a zillion little details dreamt of and created with love!    Michael Branscom did an outstanding job of capturing all that was really special about this wedding!

Amy is a former equestrian from St. Davids (who speaks Spanish like a native!) turned lawyer DC. Dustin is is a former Top Gun pilot with the U.S. Air Force who is now a consultant at a firm in Northern Virginia.

Aside from occurring in one of my favorite Philadelphia venues, the F.U.E.L. House in Philadelphia, the wedding’s color combination was stunning!   We used copper, super green, blush pink and ivory. We placed deep copper linens on the tables with handmade green dupioni silk runners. It just looked amazing. The flowers arrangements, created by the amazing team at Beautiful Blooms, were gorgeous bouquets and arrangements of perfectly blended tulips, peonies, tulips and sweet peas — and, of course, cherry blossoms! The invitations, seating cards and table numbers from the Papery were perfectly coordinated with green bands and copper ribbon. And, thanks to Lotus Cake Studio, the cake was a beautiful and delicious representation of the great invitations — proof positive that you don’t have to sacrifice a delicious cake to have a beautiful cake. (Read: you can look at your cake and eat it, too!)

Because the father and the groom (who was from Kentucky) shared an admiration of great bourbons, the guests were treated to a truly one-of-a-kind bourbon bar and handed mini-bottles of Knobs Creek bourbon at the end of the evening.

The bride and groom are also big movie buffs so they had a great time coming up with movie titles for table names while Amy’s mom went searching for the perfect movie posters to hang in the great upstairs bathroom.

We hope you get a chance to pick up the latest issue of The Knot, Pennsylvania!

So, it had better be good!

A couple weeks ago, Beautiful Blooms and Eclatante threw a party to celebrate the opening of our new homes on Liberties Walk — we had SUCH a great time!

The story of how Donna (owner of Beautiful Blooms) and I got to the point where we opened up shops across the walk from each other is a really nice one we’ll share one day.  Suffice to say for now, though, that when both our new homes were finally open for business, we truly felt like celebrating – and celebrate we did!

So, first up, a picture of Donna and myself taken just before the party really took off – after this shot that Marie got us to stand still long enough to snap, we barely saw each other because of all the friends and family that came to wish us well.

Of course, we couldn’t have a party without the typical reminders that we always have to be on the ball, right? It didn’t just rain that day – there were torrential downpours complete with thunder and lightening literally a couple of hours before people were going to be showing up! Of course, we had a Plan B ready to go, but it’s called “Plan B” for a reason, right? Our Plan A party was supposed to be the first gourmet cookout of the season! Here’s a shot just after the clouds finally gave way to sunshine (and Donna and I started breathing again!)

But the party gods were on our side (thank goodness).  Literally fifteen minutes before our last chance to invoke Plan B, a beautiful rainbow appeared and not another raindrop was felt nor clap of thunder heard!

Because my sisters and my mom couldn’t be at the party, they sent Donna and me this gorgeous arrangement — of course they had to call Donna to create it!   It meant so much to both of us that my wonderful family would think of the two of us that day!

Before I say another word about this party, I have to tell you that Donna and I both are so honored to have the friends we do   First off, Max Hansen created a feast that people are STILL raving about.   One day, someone smarter than me will figure out how to do a scratch ‘n sniff blog entry and you’d be able to tell just how amazing Max’s creations are.   I honestly do not know what that guy does to food but it is just wonderful.  Plus his team, including Rita and James, are the consummate professionals!   It is pure pleasure to work with every single one of them!

And Flour Pot Cookies provided us the yummiest and CUTEST two-bite cookies ever!

And, as always, our great friend, Marie Labbancz, never fails to provide us with the perfect memories of a great party – she took all of the photos here.   I honestly don’t know if I’d recognize Marie without a camera!

Our friends at Party Rentals Ltd, Total Table and EventQuip were so gracious to provide us with everything we needed to make this party absolutely perfect in every way.    They are incredibly good people and I am proud that they count us among their friends – -plus they do one helluva job!  Oh, and we can’t forget Claudia Seyler — she sat with us just before the party started making our hair and makeup look SOOO much better than we could have ever done ourselves!

Okay, so here are some pictures from the party.

If you don’t already know him, meet Ed Knight, the owner of EventQuip — it simply isn’t a party without him!

Here’s Leila — FINALLY letting herself enjoy the party!  (She worked so hard that day!)

Our music for the party  was by the wonderful and amazing Venissa Santi!  They were AWESOME — do yourself a favor  out their new CD! They were the perfect style for a warm evening outside among our friends and family!

www.venissasanti.com
www.myspace.com/venissasanti
www.sunnysiderecords.com
www.allaboutjazz.com/venissasanti

Here’s Maya from Beautiful Blooms — another great great friend!!!

Lots of people having a great time — that’s what made us so happy!   It was like this for hours!

Bart Blattstein, Tower Investments, was all smiles!

Okay, so, this is really cool.   Dave Williams of DVideography created this short and sweet Video of our little soiree.  ENJOY!

Video by DVideography