Classic Garden Wedding at Alloway Hall
Say you want your wedding ceremony to look like a garden, over top of your swimming pool? SAY LESS.
Chelsea and Adam’s classic garden wedding was a dream in every way. Their joy at finally wedding after years of long distance, a stunning designer gown with details that made it look like she was surrounded by fluttery butterflies, exchanging their vows on a platform suspended over top of his family’s pool, and the complete transformation of a museum into a classic, flower-filled reception featuring 20 foot long beams dripping in fresh blooms over top the dance floor are just a few highlights.
Say you want your wedding ceremony to look like a garden, over top of your swimming pool? SAY LESS.
Chelsea and Adam’s classic garden wedding was a dream in every way. Their joy at finally wedding after years of long distance, a stunning designer gown with details that made it look like she was surrounded by fluttery butterflies, exchanging their vows on a platform suspended over top of his family’s pool, and the complete transformation of a museum into a classic, flower-filled reception featuring 20 foot long beams dripping in fresh blooms over top the dance floor are just a few highlights.
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
It’s taken me many, many months to be prepared to write this blog post. This week is Chelsea and Adam’s 1st wedding anniversary, so I decided it was finally time to dive in. Why? Because I was daunted at the idea of trying to choose favourite photos or moments from this wedding, because every single moment and every single detail was so beautifully orchestrated, intentionally designed, and required so much work. It’s hard to find a way to capture the magic that was their wedding day!
So, I’m just going to walk you through the entire day, section by section, and tell you what I absolutely loved the most and some behind the scenes at what it took to get us there.
The Bouquets
As soon as I saw a photo of Chelsea’s Elie Saab bridal gown, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for her bouquet. This dress was incredible — very classic and elegant, with added feminine detailing in 3D floral applique on the off-the-shoulder sleeves, and scattered throughout the veil. The veil in particular looked like she was surrounded by fluttering butterflies. The best way to complement this, in my mind, was sweet pea. And a TON of sweet pea. I wanted her bouquet to be a bit smaller, simpler, and just fluttery. Chelsea asked for peonies (which is a tall order in August, but my wholesaler pulled through and they were GORGEOUS!), and they enhanced the sweet pea perfectly.
The bridesmaid bouquets were simple sweet pea nosegays, which looked divine against their mixed green dresses (LITERALLY the most beautiful combination of bridesmaid dresses I’ve ever seen, which they curated from Selkie and V. Chapman).
The Ceremony
So you want your ceremony in your parents’ backyard, over top the pool? And you want it to feel like you’re exchanging vows in the middle of a garden? Yes, please!
I was so excited when Soiree Event Planning told me the plan. It wasn’t for the feint of heart (and thank goodness they were leading the charge and taking care of all logistics!) but I was up for the challenge of figuring out how to get the most amount of flowers I possibly could on that suspended altar.
My goals were to make sure it was lush, natural, and full, but also have good height. I wanted the floral to be around waist-height, which meant that a lot of math and a focus on the scale was a priority. You can see more of that process here!
The REception
There’s truly no way that I can show the reality of how stunning this reception was. Alloway Hall is the event space at the Manitoba Museum, and it’s quite a blank space with a slight industrial edge. Chelsea’s style is romantic, feminine, and with a little granny chic (floral patterns, ruffles, so cute!). Soiree Event Planning really worked SO hard to create a unique space, and soften the hard edges of the room with endless perfect details. Let’s just go one by one.
The Floor Plan
Alloway Hall is quite large, so there was ample space to have the large guest list seated for dinner on one end, a huge dance floor and band stage on the opposite end, and a large central lounge joining the two spaces. The room was functional, and gorgeous.
The Lounge, Dance Floor, and Hanging Florals
The lounge and hanging floral installation were my personal favourite design elements. I loved the dual lounges flanking the stunning wedding cake (a Jenna Rae Cakes masterpiece that mimicked the detailing on Chelsea’s dress), the furniture selection, and the perfect shades of green. We layered in some delicious floral arrangements to the lounge, and then really went for it on the ceiling installation.
We designed 2, 20 foot long, double sided floral installations (entirely in fresh flowers!), making a total of 80 linear feet of impression florals that hung low enough to make an impressive statement but not get in the way of the dance floor, set in between those 2 long floral beams.
The Guest Tables
We had a mix of long banuqet tables and round tables. With soaring ceilings, we chose to go tall and full on the round tables, and Chelsea envisioned long, lush florals on the banquet tables. One of the things I always aim to include in my tabletop designs is a lot of undulating movement — think waves, rising and falling smoothly, keeping your eye moving along the length of the table. This means high points, low points, candlelight and florals, and sweet details to create pockets of visual interest.
The green flatware was definitely a personal favourite detail, as well as the stationery! Alloway Hall doesn’t allow real flame, so we used my LED candles — they cost me a fortune, but they’re SO nice and look really realistic!
The Head Table
And now to the head table! Sometimes it feels like there’s only so much that can be done to make a head table design interesting, but it is naturally a display piece in the room and everyone’s attention is on it multiple times throughout the night. Chelsea loves hydrangea, so I wanted to use as much as I could here, with extra roses and lush floral arrangements tucked throughout.
The main statement was the arched backdrop behind the head table, which really helped to frame the wedding party in the very large room. We added an absolute ton of smilax to the backdrop, to create a lot of depth against the white walls.
The Bar
The bar was so special! With such a large guest list, they needed a large bar to accommodate everyone, so this was a substantial beast that was custom built for the wedding. Soiree custom-designed the wallpaper for the bar back, we added some floral touches, and mostly tried to keep it as functional as possible while still looking phenomenal.
I can’t believe it’s already been a year! All of your weddings are incredible celebrations, but some have a lot more moving parts and details to sort out, so this one was really rewarding for me. I love the logistical aspect of my job, figuring out how all of the pieces are going to come together and how to do the best job of some of these more spectacular pieces. I’ll forever be grateful to Chelsea and Adam for choosing me to design their wedding, to Soiree and the entire vendor team who made this such a streamlined and successful event, and to my amazing team of designers and setup staff who worked tirelessly to pull everything off. These types of events are not done by just 1 or 2 people — it was a team effort for sure!
Brittany Mahood Photography ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ The Manitoba Museum ~ Brett Anderson ~ Paper & Palm ~ Event Light ~ Beyond the Lounge ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Trend Decor ~ Simply Beautiful Decor ~ Creating a Scene ~ Big City All Star Band ~ Wow Hospitality ~ Jones & Company Wine Merchants ~ MYUZ Artistry ~ Jenna Rae Cakes ~ Luminous String Quartet
Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?
If you’re dreaming of anything but a generic wedding, I hope you’ll shoot me an email. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to find out how we can create the perfect ambiance for your wedding.
Garden Meets Classic: A Destination Wedding at Clear Lake
There’s a few things that you can do to immediately get me on board with your wedding: plan for a great location (hello to the natural beauty of Clear Lake!), ask for some stellar florals (an over the top ceremony design? yes, please!), and throw in the challenge of logistics to get me excited (more on that below!).
Alex and Travis’s destination wedding at Elkhorn Manor (Clear Lake) was the perfect combination of all of the above.
Let’s get into it!
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
There’s a few things that you can do to immediately get me on board with your wedding: plan for a great location (hello to the natural beauty of Clear Lake!), ask for some stellar florals (an over the top ceremony design? yes, please!), and throw in the challenge of logistics to get me excited (more on that below!).
Alex and Travis’s destination wedding at Elkhorn Manor (Clear Lake) was the perfect combination of all of the above.
Let’s get into it!
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
Logistics aren’t sexy. They just aren’t. But when you’re planning a destination or semi-destination wedding, at a venue that is a few hours away from any major city and requires your vendors to travel in, logistics are the name of the game. You absolutely cannot hire someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Not to toot my own horn, but this is where I absolutely thrive.
Over the last few years, Stone House Creative has become known for the work we do on larger-scale weddings, and I’m incredibly proud of that. Alex and Travis’ wedding was both large, and logistically challenging due to being in Clear Lake. I don’t feel like I can possibly shout this from the rooftop enough: if you’re envisioning a larger, floral-focused design, or your venue necessitates a lot of logistical difficulty, you must absolutely hire a floral design team that understands what truly needs to happen to make your wedding come together without issue.
From the start of my earliest conversation with their planner, Tricia Bachewich Events, I laid out some of the special considerations that their chosen florist would need to be able to have solutions ready for:
-Staffing, and the size of team that we would need to have.
-Delivery logistics. Travel time to Clear Lake is ~ 3 hours, not including all the time needed to load the vehicles; with the amount of installations needed on-site and the set up time we would need, it was clear we would not be able to drive up the same morning as the wedding and still be able to accomplish everything.
-This naturally progressed into needing hotel rooms, which aren’t typically able to booked at Elkhorn until January of that calendar year, along with increased staffing costs due to additional time and per diems.
-Arriving the day before also would mean that we would need a cool holding space at the resort. The ceremony/reception location does not have any air conditioning, so the hotel would need to have an option for us.
-With the size of floral order and guest count, I knew that a single Uhaul would not be sufficient, nor would I be comfortable with the flowers driving for 3 hours in an un-air-conditioned Uhaul. We were heading up to a remote location with not even a regular flower shop nearby; if any of our flowers crapped out while we were driving, there wouldn’t be anything nearby for us to replace it with.
-The requested ceremony arch would require a custom structure build in order to create the scale they desired.
-Additionally, while the couple are originally from the Clear Lake/Brandon areas, they currently live in the USA as the groom is a hockey player in the NHL. They didn’t have the time to dedicate to planning their wedding, and needed a vendor team that could progress without needing their input.
While I normally go for a lot of colour, I have to say that this white and green palette (with touches of taupey blush) looks really good at Elkhorn Manor! The bridesmaid dresses were the perfect colour, especially through Brittany’s lense.
Alex’s Galia Lahav dress is stunning — the floral appliqued details almost feels like tiny floral confetti floating throughout the gown. I chose to design her bouquet in a classic-meets-garden way, making sure that there was some movement and nothing too stiff.
Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: playa blanca roses, quicksand roses, white ruffled lisianthus, sweet pea, dahlias, ranunculus, and jasmine vine.
Oh baby, I loved this ceremony design! Mid-way through the planning, they chose to add the clear top tent as insurance against the rain. While we didn’t end up needing it on August 3 because the weather was perfect, it actually did POUR that night. You can never be too careful with an outdoor wedding!
To create more of a natural feeling, we softened the tent ceiling with strands of vining smilax. It took a fair bit of time to maneuver our scaffold around on the grass to get me up high enough to do this, but it turned out beautifully.
Then, the piece de resistance: the arch. As many pro athletes are, Travis is pretty tall. And once I saw Alex’s inspiration image for the ceremony arch, I knew that the scale of the arch (height, width, and fullness of the floral!) was going to be really important to nail in order to create the look she wanted. I collaborated with Creating a Scene to custom-manufacture the wood boxes that we then attached the arch structure to — and the devil is in the detail! The box trim on the boxes matched that on their bar, and of course, I made sure to appropriately counter-weight the metal arch structure that I had custom-made to fit on the boxes so that no disasters were possible.
The aisle was fully lined with floral to create a garden effect, and we repurposed most of these pieces throughout the reception design, as well.
Along with the logistical mindset needed to accomplish this destination wedding at Clear Lake, any wedding at an out-of-town venue requires serious flexibility. For months, I was mentally preparing myself for anything that could possibly go wrong.
Here’s a quick run-down of things we had to address the week and day of the wedding: the reefer truck we reserved had an issue and they cancelled our reservation so we needed to figure something else out; the ceremony tent size changed at the last minute so we had to adjust how we hung the ceiling greenery; a chandelier was hung in the ceremony tent literally right where the arch was supposed to go, so we had to take that down; the grids for the hanging installation over the head table were installed incorrectly so we needed to adjust how we designed the florals (and note, we did indeed solve all of these problems. They all took a lot of time, though, so the team came in clutch to make it all happen on time!).
The cocktail hour details were so cute — one of these living wall features to serve specialty cocktails (guests had to ring a bell under whichever cocktail they chose, and a gloved hand would appear with drink ready!). The seating chart was added to the wall, and I added some floral and greenery touches to tie it all together.
They also rented a cute phone booth / photo booth, to which we added more smilax, coordinating floral pieces, and a tall delphinium arrangement to the attached guest book table.
The reception tent featured a central king table for the wedding party, set under a hanging floral piece, and round guest tables interspersed with faux olive trees elevated on white pedestals with box trim. A primarily white palette was warmed up with natural cane-back chairs, taupe candles, and slight touches of blush in the florals.
For the head table, I opted for 20x mixed size clear glass vases that each featured a single variety arrangement, allowing for a delightful garden-inspired smattering of florals and textures down the length of the table.
I’m not always huge on the marquee letters, but this was pretty epic! Set up on the hill, above the tent, it looked so good and was such a fun backdrop to their dance party.
It’s not every wedding when the couple flies in a multi CCMA and Juno award winning country music star to play their first dance — but Alex and Travis brought in Brett Kissel to play a set for their reception! This must have been SUCH a fun party. I would have loved to have been a guest!
I have to give an enormous thank you to the crew that was part of making this wedding happening! Emily and Deanna who helped to design everything leading up to the wedding, Jason and Chad who came along to help us set up, clean up, and drive, and Kayla, Andrea, and Amanda who each drove up to Clear Lake for the day to help us design and install everything. A solid team is crucial, and this crew was AMAZING.
Brittany Mahood Photography ~ Tricia Bachewich Events ~ Elkhorn Manor, Clear Lake ~ Paper & Palm ~ Union Table ~ Special Event Rentals ~ Dream Day Decor ~ Creating a Scene ~ House of Silk ~ 4 Square Foto ~ Trident Films ~ Ginger Snips Salon ~ Oak & Ivy Salon
Looking for a Floral Designer for your large scale wedding in Winnipeg?
Large scale weddings come with a lot of logistics, and require both creativity and a detailed mindset to pull it off. Stone House Creative specializes in this!
Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to find out how we can create the perfect ambiance for your wedding.
Modern Garden Wedding at The White Poplar
I absolutely LOVE working at The White Poplar and I will shout it from the rooftops! So when Tori and Ian inquired about their wedding (more than a year and a half in advance!) I was already pumped. Then they brought on the best vendor team, and a gorgeous design plan, and I was in wedding design heaven.
Tori has a really classic style, and we wanted to meet it with modern sensibility — so a crisp palette of black and white was chosen, with warm taupes and mixed greens added.
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
I absolutely LOVE working at The White Poplar and I will shout it from the rooftops! So when Tori and Ian inquired about their wedding (more than a year and a half in advance!) I was already pumped. Then they brought on the best vendor team, and a gorgeous design plan, and I was in wedding design heaven.
Tori has a really classic style, and we wanted to meet it with modern sensibility — so a crisp palette of black and white was chosen, with warm taupes and mixed greens added.
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
“Lauren, I cannot thank you enough for your beautiful work. It was truly better than I could have imagined! I spent so much time on the dance floor just staring at the arch, it was insane!! Thank you thank you thank you 💕”
— Tori and Ian
There’s something about the shape of Tori’s beautiful gown that reminds me of Maria from The Sound of Music. It is so refined! Her pearl-dotted hair and veil were the perfect finishing touches. And isn’t the green tone they bridesmaids chose gorgeous? This was a September wedding, so we definitely didn’t have “fall” leaves yet but the richness of the green was very seasonally appropriate.
Tori requested a classic cascading bouquet, and I initially made it WAY too big because the flowers were just so lush and divine. Late summer is the perfect time for locally grown flowers, and we had them in abundance for Tori.
If you’ve been around here a while, you know that I’m a lover of lots of colour. That’s just my personal preference, but part of that is also because a lot of white weddings look the same. Designers tend to gravitate toward their few favourite ingredients, so it’s tricky to see how to pull through the client’s individual style along with the designer’s style.
I actually designed quite a lot of white weddings this year, and I made it a mission to make them each unique. My secret weapon: locally grown flowers. Tori’s wedding had SO many.
Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: white lisianthus, roses, dahlias, anemones, sweet pea, and snowberry combined with olive and stephanotis vines.
One of many reasons why The Poplar is an incredible place to get married: the photo ops! The natural setting is really stunning.
This ceremony because such a beautiful focal point for the day! Their service was personal and relaxed, and of course, I loved the florals. When your backdrop is a wall of trees, we need to be careful with a green and white palette, so that the arch you’re investing money into doesn’t get blend right into the scenery.
The couple loved the idea of an asymmetrical 2 piece arch, with full white and green coverage. Gorgeous — but also, very easy to end up looking like every other white and green wedding. It’s always a priority for me to make each wedding look unique, so I decided to focus on selecting ingredients that would feel fresh.
For any white wedding, I almost always use playa blanca roses. They open up HUGE and have such a gorgeous shape. But again, even though they’re the perfect rose, I needed to add something that would be unique. So, I cut and dried locally grown green hydrangea — they dry exactly like they look fresh, so I didn’t have to worry about a water source. We clustered these in different groupings along the arch structure, and then focused on lots of white lisianthus (locally grown, whenever I can get them!), the roses, white delphinium for a few fluttery touches, and some clustered white ball dahlias.
We added 2 large arrangements at the back of the aisle to tie the entire space together.
Reception time! The building at The White Poplar is so great — those large front doors, the patio leading to the ceremony site, and all those clear walls make for a great blank space.
The first thing guests saw when they entered was this beautiful seating chart, where we repurposed the aisle flowers. The tables flowed from there, with long tables lining the centre of the room and round tables along the outsides. A sweetheart table was positioned in front of the fireplace.
Soiree Event Planning chose the perfect matte black flatware to accent the industrial black chairs, and a gorgeous dark olive napkin. For the long tables, we clustered petite arrangements in black and grey smoke glass vases (all white, mostly locally grown florals!), and added in ribbed grey smoke glass votives along with soft green taper candles.
The round tables featured a fuller floral arrangement in a matte black vase, complimented by assorted sizes and styles of candles for a more collected but still modern look.
Tip for weddings at The White Poplar: affix your place cards to your menus, and tuck them into your napkins. It can be very windy out there!
Tori and Ian literally told me that flowers weren’t a huge priority for them, but what was a priority was the overall design, and making sure that everything was the appropriate scale and just “felt right.” We went through a few revisions of the floral plan to make sure that we had it right, and I think it came together pretty perfectly between the simpler but still interesting floral centrepieces and the way we repurposed the ceremony florals.
Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?
Planning a wedding at The White Poplar? I’ve got a list of design dreams I cannot wait to make a reality. I’d love to be your designer!
Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding!
Behind the Scenes of a Real Winnipeg Wedding
If you’re like most engaged couples, you haven’t thought about the behind the scenes of making your wedding happen. You’ve thought about your budget and your meal selections, you’ve thought about your music selections and choosing attire, and you’ve probably thought about the hair and makeup timeline on the morning of the wedding.
But most of you, unless you’re DIYing every single element of the wedding, haven’t thought about HOW the actual wedding comes together.
So today, I’m sharing a behind the scenes look at how a real Winnipeg wedding comes together (from a floral designer’s perspective!).
If you’re like most engaged couples, you haven’t thought about the behind the scenes of making your wedding happen. You’ve thought about your budget and your meal selections, you’ve thought about your music selections and choosing attire, and you’ve probably thought about the hair and makeup timeline on the morning of the wedding.
But most of you, unless you’re DIYing every single element of the wedding, haven’t thought about HOW the actual wedding comes together.
So today, I’m sharing a behind the scenes look at how a real Winnipeg wedding comes together (from a floral designer’s perspective!).
Professional photos by Brittany Mahood Photography, all the obviously crappy footage is from me lol
By the day of your wedding, we’ve already put in more than a full week’s worth of work that we’re not really going to touch on here, aside from to list off the things that have already taken place: obviously I’ve met with you / we’ve planned everything out / we’ve confirmed everything 5 weeks before the wedding etc. I’ve then written and submitted your floral order (depending on your wedding, this can take just a couple of hours or up to 20 ish hours for a large wedding with lots of different design elements and a lot of colour variation). I’ve hired staff, rented a uhaul if needed, washed vases, ordered candles, washed buckets, etc. We’re ready for your flowers.
I usually pick up your flowers on Tuesday morning, and some of my locally grown product is delivered on Tuesday as well. We’re hydrating and processing them (fresh water, fresh cuts on all the stems, removing thorns and unnecessary foliage, dealing with garbage, compost, and recycling). We then prep all your vases which chicken wire and tape (we try to work as foam-free as possible, to minimize our impact on the environment and take better care of our health, too), along with prepping candles, supplies, etc. There’s lots to be done!
Throughout the week, we’re then designing all your flowers. We always start with things that stay in water (centrepieces, bouquets), then work through large pieces (aisle pieces, large arrangements for the bar, etc) and finish up with boutonnieres and corsages (if there are any on the order — many couples are opting to remove these from their order).
Then comes your wedding day!
It takes us a surprisingly long time to pack up all the vases and load them into the vehicles. It’s a big game of tetris, basically. We drive so carefully — I can’t tell you how many visions I’ve had of getting into a car accident on the highway and dying on the road with flowers falling all around me 😂
THEN we get to your venue. Cue load-in.
Many venues have a pretty decent load-in situation. Some don’t have vehicle access so we have to hoof everything over, some have tiny terrifying elevators that we need to take so many more trips with, some don’t actually let you open the overhead door because the genius architects put a restaurant kitchen right beside the overhead door…etc etc. Basically, I’m saying that all venues have different load-in details and it’s part of our job to know the details.
I like to first bring in our personal items and get a feel for what other vendors have done so far and what the current set up stage is.
For this wedding at the Pavilion, we lucked out with pretty nice weather. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and you never know what you’re going to get. We were just happy we didn’t have to bag all our flowers to keep cold air from getting at them.
There were a few other vehicles at the loading zone already, so we had to unload and carry everything to the loading zone (not far) and I’m sure the loading zone has never looked so pretty. There’s no ramp here, so it’s just a bit awkward with carefully carrying flowers up steps and then we put them in the wagons and pull them into the venue’s backdoor.
Here’s what it looked like shortly after we arrived! The dance floor was just being completed when we got there, and the linens and chairs had already been delivered. Event Light was up on ladders, creating our airline cable structure for the greenery that we were going to be hanging.
This is where the behind the scenes gets messy and a little convoluted. If you’re a DIYer, chances are that you’re not hanging anything from your ceiling like this, but it’s important to know that there’s still a lot that needs to get done and a specific order in which it needs to happen.
For example, we can’t place centrepieces until the table linens are set. Chairs can’t be placed until the tables are in the right spot. We can’t hang greenery until the structure is place. And tables can’t go into place until the ladders for the greenery are out of the way.
This can often look like a lot of waiting around and then hurry to get your job done.
As vendors, this means that we need to be really aware of how what we do impacts the other vendors on the team.
We can’t be hogging the loading zone or the elevators. We can’t be late, because that impacts what someone else is doing. We need to keep to the setup schedule as closely as possible so we don’t push other vendors behind.
In the video above, you can see that Event Light had finished their work, and so it was time for us to begin. While we were waiting for them, though, we had set the tables around the outside of the room so we were doing things bit by bit. This happens at many weddings! We’re always toggling back and forth.
During this wait time, we also used the atrium/bar area as a staging area. We had the ceremony arrangements mostly complete before the wedding day, but we wanted to add in the more delicate flowers on site. So we got those pieces all set up so we could finish that, took a picture of them set in front of the seating chart (which is where they’d be flipped to after the ceremony), and then carried them outside to get the ceremony ready.
And now here you can see that we finished up the greenery canopy over the dining tables (which were then removed for the dance floor, so the canopy was over the dance floor. Dreamy!) and the Soiree team busted out the table settings at the same time as we placed all the candles. Since these tables were going to be moved for the dance floor, and we wanted to feature the greenery canopy, we decided to just do candles for the centrepieces and keep it a little simpler on these tables.
After we finished cleaning up all our mess and setting all the tables, we came back out to the atrium and helped the planner shimmy all the lounge furniture into place, because it was all going in the space we had commandeered earlier as our staging area. And then it was time for photos and load-out. I had my 1 am tear-down crew coming that night, so I stashed away all of our boxes and containers they would need for clean up.
And here’s a little look at the end result! I’ll be sharing a full blog post with the entire wedding eventually, but for now, enjoy this peek :)
The focal point of the room was the greenery canopy, with the couple sitting right underneath it. We used long banquet tables that were removed for the dance floor, and complimented them with round tables around the room.
I loved the brighter take on a fall palette, with the toffee linen, rich pinks, and additions of coral, plum, caramel, and orange. Delish!
Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?
We can design a beautiful wedding for you, no matter the logistics of your venue!
Whether it’s an intimate wedding for 30 or a celebration the likes of which have never been seen before, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding!
Modern Meets Whimsical Wedding at the WAG
Jess and Nick’s wedding took place on the literal hottest day of 2023. 🫠 But we loved it anyway!
The overall design vision called for a modern, intimate feeling wedding (yet with a full guest list) that incorporated garden-inspired whimsy.
Jess and Nick’s wedding took place on the literal hottest day of 2023. 🫠 But we loved it anyway!
The overall design vision called for a modern, intimate feeling wedding (yet with a full guest list) that incorporated garden-inspired whimsy.
With the venue being at the Art Gallery, we didn't have a clue what the exhibit was going to be in the gallery where the reception would be, so we just had to roll with the designing and hope that it worked out in the end — the clean, feminine design style ended up working really well with the bold and colourful exhibit, and the last minute addition of hints of lime added a lot of fun that played off the artwork really well.
Photos by Brittany Mahood Photography
With all the florals, I wanted to warm up whites with taupe and added in accents of lime. The bouquets ended up looking so fantastic with the selection of bridesmaid dresses!
Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: white dahlias, sahara roses, white lisianthus, brown lisianthus, white iris, green amaranthus, white sweet pea, and phalaenopsis orchids.
Jessica's gown is an Alex Perry gown, which she selected from LOHO Bride in LA. It was the perfect combination of classic A-line meets super chic, with a sleek bust line.
Each of the bridesmaids wore a unique dress from different designers, in a kind of mushroom palette (cream, taupe, mocha). They were all floor length, but different silhouettes. The girls looked so great that you'd have no clue it was the hottest day of the entire summer!
We fully sought to blend modern, classic, and garden-inspired design at Jess and Nick's wedding, and the florals and decor were a major component of this.
I love a groom who sheds a few tears. My husband bawled our entire wedding day so seeing Nick tear up is so sweet to me!
The ceremony took place on the WAG rooftop, focusing on a classic black garden arch with whimsical, locally grown florals growing up and around. We included plenty of lime amaranthus, green and white hydrangea, white and brown lisianthus, and Queen Anne's Lace. Several arrangements were also clustered together at the front of the aisle, both had their fair share of work contending with the wind to stay where we wanted them.
And hello to that cute petal toss bar! Prior to guests walking onto the WAG rooftop statue garden, they stopped at a Petal Toss bar, filling up paper cones with cream and blush petals. Luckily one of the photographer assistants reminded a few guests to actually go ahead and toss them, and it made for such a sweet ambiance while the newlyweds walked down the aisle.
And now to downstairs! The reception took place in the former Eckhardt Hall on the main floor of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, featuring a clever floor plan utilizing banquet tables and round tables, and a combination of grey smoke acrylic chairs, gold chivari chairs, and grey banquette seating.
Have I mentioned frequently enough how much I LOVE an interesting floor plan? It creates so much interest in a room, allowing the eye to move or pause, prompting conversation or comfort or dancing depending on where you are in the room.
Notable design elements include: a double-sided seating display (I LOVED the placement of the seating chart at the front of the room!), statement bar florals, fruit incorporated into the tablescape to satisfy Jess's last minute request for some lime green accents, ribbed glass elements, and primarily white florals.
We repurposed the ceremony arch to the cake display (see below!) and the aisle arrangements to the base of the seating chart.
One of the things we need to consider when repurposing an arch is accounting for additional stems to allow us to replace flowers that are spent — especially when the ceremony was outdoors on a hot day. We spent about half an hour moving the ceremony florals from the rooftop down to the main floor, and then refreshing the arch with new blooms.
This might be something that needs to be budgeted for extra, or it might just be something your florist will include in the cost of the arch. Just know that it’s something you definitely want!
The cake and desserts display was set up in the entrance to the Hall, cleverly planned to repurpose the ceremony florals behind while taking up as little space in the floor plan as possible. Trays of mini cheesecakes, cookie sandwiches, cupcakes, and chocolate-dipped pretzels were styled on black and glass shelving and on cream and black ribbed pedestals.
A small vintage-inspired cutting cake (funfetti flavour!) was set on a pedestal, under their repurposed ceremony arch, which made for a super cute photo opp.
Looking for a Wedding Floral & Event Designer in Winnipeg?
Dates at the Winnipeg Art Gallery book quickly, and we’re one of their top designers! Reach out to inquire about your date availability.
Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to find out how we can create the perfect ambiance for your wedding.
