Lea and Ian's Garden Wedding at Hawthorne Estates

It's pretty rare for me to come across a bride on her wedding day, setting up her own lovely and well-planned decor items. It's even rarer to find that bride calm, peaceful, and kind to everyone around her while she works! Lea is just one of those beautiful spirits, and it was lovely to be a part of her wedding day to Ian early this fall.

Hawthorne Estates is one of my favourite venues in Manitoba. It's not overly large, but it is such a beautiful building with all the details well-planned. And of course, these images from the always amazing Brittany Mahood Photography are to die for!

2016 Wedding Flower Trends

As I’ve been busy meeting with and booking many brides with 2016 weddings, a number of trends have emerged. I have to say that I LOVE the direction that wedding flowers are moving. Winnipeg brides, you’re so awesome! These are some of the wedding flower trends for 2016 and 2017 weddings we’re seeing, and some of the things that I want to work with more, too! 

Table Garlands:
 Whether it’s all foliage, has neutral blooms tucked in here and there, or is a loosely placed strand of flowers, I am loving seeing so many brides incorporate garlands into their tables. A garland makes an EXCELLENT statement for a head table, by the way!

Brittany Mahood Photography

Local Flowers:
 Luckily for me, I have access to a lovely local flower farm during the summer months (especially July and August) and this means that I get to play with the freshest blooms possible. It means a lot to me to be able to support a local farmer, who’s out living her dream under the sun, at the same time as I’m living mine. And, YAY for not having to kill our planet with crazy shipping of flowers from central America!

Holly Gilson Photography

More Colour! 
I LOVE working with a wider colour palette, tucking in touches of pale sky blue, caramel, or raisin. If you are open to my help expanding on your hues, let me know and I will be ALL over that. In particular, I think we're going to start seeing a lot of different yellow tones.

Jeremy Hiebert Photography

Neutral Palettes:
On the other hand, a completely neutral palette of white and green is also very popular, especially among brides who are looking for a very organic, forest-y look. At these weddings, we’re doing a lot of mixed foliages and darker-toned greenery.

Victoria Anne Photography

Lush, Looser Bouquet Shapes:
Many of my brides are asking for a more interesting bouquet shape, which I am totally on board with. I love being able to place a flower so you can see the crazy way its stem grew, and allow the flowers to look a little more like how they grew naturally. I’m also seeing a lot of brides asking for a BIG bouquet, which I will never say no to!

Kat Willson Photography

Creative Flower Installations:
Several brides have requested a unique spotlight of hanging flowers in some way, to create a focal point over their head table or the dance floor. There are so many possibilities here—the only thing that limits us is exactly how we can attach those flowers to the ceiling of your venue.

Simply Rosie Photography

Personal Style:
Over and above all other trends, one major component to wedding flower planning that I have seen from each of my brides is their desire to have their style really show through in their floral designs (and wedding as a whole!). Gone are the days of everyone having the same bouquet but in different colours. My brides are looking for something unique, something that feels more like them. And I know from wedding planning experience that actually figuring out how to make that happen is tricky, so my best advice for you here is: log off of pinterest, and consider the things that you love in your every day life. Do have a subscription to a certain fashion magazine, or have an obsession with home decor? Pick through what it is that you love, and consider how that can be brought into your wedding.

Gwen and Shane's Summer Wedding at Pineridge Hollow

Let's start off 2016 with a look at one of my favourite weddings of 2015!

Gwen and Shane's September wedding at Pineridge Hollow was one I was looking forward to for an entire year! What made it so special to me was that I worked with Gwen on both her floral design AND their event design. This allowed me to get involved much more closely with them, working on all aspects of the visual side of their wedding. Some of my favourite details I helped them pull together were the pretty colour palette (and it looks like Pantone agrees!), mixing in stone details (rocks from their cabin at Lake of the Woods as table numbers, handmade concrete candles), and the lovely custom stationery details from Robin Egg Blue Design.

Photos: Kat Willson Photography // Venue: Pineridge Hollow // Bridesmaid Dresses: Mad About Style // Stationery: Robin Egg Blue Design // Florals, Styling and Event Design: Stone House Creative

Thank You! ~ A Year in Review of Winnipeg Weddings

Wow. First of all, I can't believe that 2015 is already at its end. And secondly, what a year it has been! 

Photo by Holly Gillson Photography

2015 marked the first full year of Stone House Creative's existence. Since I launched SHC in June 2014, I've had such amazing opportunities. In 2015, I've had the pleasure of: 
Completing 32 weddings
Designing 166 bridal and bridesmaid bouquets
Using 1300 stems of roses (I always thought I didn't like roses...I was very wrong!)
Connecting with really amazing Winnipeg wedding vendors
Coordinating a tent wedding in a rainstorm
Playing the role of florist and bridesmaid, all in one day
Visiting a flower farm and building friendships with other local florists

I'm so thankful to all of my couples. Thank you for trusting me with your wedding flowers, thank you for letting me go wild with ideas, and thank you for your kind words and referrals. I have had so much fun. 

And 2016? I'm ready for you. I have some of THE most amazing weddings and couples lined up and I am so excited for them. I was just looking through all of my weddings for next year the other day - 35+ weddings, each beautiful and fun and unique. I'm a little overwhelmed thinking about the wonderful people that I get to work with: I was just telling a flower mentor of mine how I seem to have the kindest, most excited brides. And that, dear friends, gets me very excited.

This spring, I'll be heading to Texas to learn from some of my favourite flower idols, and over the winter I'll be taking a course on designing unique and detailed ceremony spaces. I'm looking forward to bringing those experiences into my designs next year. I'm designing for a handful of weddings at the Lake of the Woods, a wedding in a historic mansion in Winnipeg, creating unique hanging pieces for both ceremonies and receptions, and am also really excited about two brides who I'm working on their florals as well as their complete event design. It's going to be a great year!

Host Winnipeg Launch - Brand New Winnipeg Wedding Blog!

I'm so excited because this week is the launch of Host Winnipeg! Host is a brand new, local wedding and lifestyle website, created by a former wedding planner! Winnipeg has absolutely been in need of something like this - a platform for brides and wedding vendors to interact in a stylish, well-designed way. I'm so excited to see how the full launch of Host impacts the local wedding industry and how brides plan.

I was so thrilled to be asked to take part in the branding shoot, and my small part was to provide florals. I had a lot of fun with this palette and these pretty blooms. Photos by the lovely Brittany Mahood Photography.