First of all, let me share with you this sweet, sweet picture of Marie and Greg. I fell in love with this picture so much so that it leaves me speechless everytime I look at it. A great work by Mariano Delgado Photography!
Marie and Greg are from New York City, but they fell in love with Philadelphia and often came to visit, so that's how they ended up holding their wedding and reception here! ^_^
Marie's vision was to have a lot of candlelights at the reception. She definitely kicked it up a notch by coming up with lanterns idea. She was contemplating to do the most common Asian paper lanterns at first, but that did not fit her budget. So she quickly adjusted after she found these awesome, unique glass lanterns from CB2 (which happened to be at very good sale price at that time). We called them the "Squirlies and Whirlies". It's too bad they no longer have "Squirlies" >_< for purchase, but you can certainly rent them from us! ^_^ Simply email Papertini's rental division and submit your request. I fully credited Marie for the decor design at the reception. I am simply grateful for the opportunity she gave me to be her extended hands. ^_^ Thanks so much, Marie! ^_^
Because of her very tight budget, Marie fully understood that she would need to keep everything simple and that there were a lot of things that she would need to get herself. She purchased her vases mostly from Jamali Garden (One of my favorite stores! if you live in NYC like her, this would be an easy trip and no shipping charges obviously...) and from an online store, Wholesale Flowers & Supplies. She picked hydrangeas for the reception flowers and ordered them from Sam's Club (if you don't have Sam's Club in your area, I believe Costco sells these in bulk, too).
When we went for the site visit at the Bistro St. Tropez, I was very much excited! The space was just awesomely cool! It is located on the 4th Floor of the Market Place Design Center building and the reception was held in the area outside the restaurant, so it had the backdrop of the showrooms. The cocktail hours and dancing were held inside the restaurant. It was just a totally unique and awesome experience!
I love the showroom windows as the backdrop! ^_^
There were 2 designs for the centerpieces. The tables that got hanging lanterns, got short hydrangeas clusters with no tall vases. The ones that did not get hanging lanterns, got tall flute vases with floating candles and hydrangea clusters in between.
Due to the placement of the bars on the ceiling, we had one row of tables that got the hanging lanterns and the rest got tall flute vases filled with water and floating candles. The challenge was in the setup because we had to hang the lanterns individually and lined them up. The lantern hanging "project" turned into a piece of cake because Marie and Greg brought their crew of groomsmen who were super helpful! Together, we managed to get all these lanterns hung within 1 hour! I'm telling you, the power of friendship is mighty and wonderful! ^_^
Here's what the final reception setup looked like:
Marie and Greg rented the "tangerine wash" uplights
from Synergetic Sounds and Lighting
"Squirlies and Whirlies"
** All the tealights used in the hanging lanterns were LED tealights **
(using real tealights may risk fire hazzard)
The Floating Candles Set
Their gorgeous wedding cake
with fleur de lis pattern to match their invitation
Love her idea of using vintage postcards
for the guests to write on in lieu of guest book.
I had a great pleasure working with Mark Hoyt, the event coordinator at the Bistro.He's accomodating, helpful and simply nice to us. ^_^ I even got to meet the chef/owner, Patrice Rames, himself! I definitely recommend this lovely bistro if you are looking for a unique, urban style wedding site!
As for her personal flowers, Marie's bouquet consisted of white peonies, white football mums, and mustard yellow ranunculus. The bridesmaids' bouquets were straight up white dendrobium orchids, her maid of honor had few yellow ranunculus for accents. Greg's boutonniere was a yellow ranunculus and rosemary. The groomsmen had dendrobium orchid boutonnieres to match the ladies.
I really did have a lot of fun doing this wedding and definitely learned a lot from Marie's creativity! ^_^
For more pictures from this wedding, please visit Papertini's online album.
Congratulations, Marie and Greg! ^_^
Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity!
It's definitely an honor to be a part of your special day!
Many happy wishes for you two, always! ^_^