Maximalist Chic Museum Wedding at Alloway Hall

From the first email from Ashley to me, I was excited. I couldn’t wait to take her maximalist chic meets art gallery vibes at the Manitoba Museum (Alloway Hall) and make it all come to life through the flowers!

This wedding had literally everything I could ever ask for: phenomenal colour, delicious floral ingredients (soooo many sweet pea and oncidium orchids!), an interesting venue and challenging design elements, and a chic, caring client who was just thrilling to work with. A total dream day ✨

Photo and Video by Picture & Poet

BRIDAL BOUQUET OF MY DREAMS. Fluffy, lightweight yet still with some fullness to compliment her full skirt, soft pastels with a pop of brightness, and alllll of the sweet pea (my personal favourite flower). For the bridesmaids, we went with a simpler, chic, petite posey style bouquet, with similar florals to the bridal bouquet — stock, ranunculus, and sweet pea.

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: Sweet pea, Icelandic poppies, ranunculus, oncidium orchids, stock, and phalaenopsis orchids.

I always love a room reveal. I rarely get to be part of it, so the excitement on your face when you see your vision completely come to life is always so much fun for me. I’ll probably tear up along with you, give you a hug, and possibly fix your sweaty hair if you need it ❤️

This was the indoor ceremony of my dreams! Sunlight flooding in, beautiful draping and a crisp white setting, and tons of colourful florals. Lush pieces moving down the aisle, with lots of height and texture, and a delicious chuppah with slightly colour-blocked florals. I love that the overall design achieves the maximalist meets art gallery vibe.

We did a lot of work behind the scenes, prior to the wedding, to make sure that everything we envisioned was possible. Alli carefully crafted a floor plan that would allow functional flow both for guests, and for the crew working behind the scenes.

In the photo below, you see that the back wall of the ceremony space was draped, with a curtain opening. What you don’t see from this angle is the wall of drapery completely cordoning off the reception space, so that guests didn’t wander into the reception instead of the ceremony and lose the impact. Instead, they entered through a romantic partially draped tunnel, with the guest book and kippah table at the start, that exited into this stunning ceremony scene. Guests entered their rows around the sides so the white aisle runner stayed crisp for Ashley’s entrance, which came through the draped curtain opening.

While the ceremony was going on, Deanna and I were cutting up all the fruit that would be placed on the guest tables. We wanted to keep them as fresh looking as possible and it worked great.

Post-ceremony, there was a LOT of work happening quietly while the guests enjoyed cocktail hour with signature cocktails and a whiskey bar. After guests left the ceremony space, allllll of that drapery came down. We then shifted all of the tables (which were pre-set behind the drape) into position to ready them for the dinner. While this isn’t usually our job, some venues are less hands-on than others, and so my floral team kicked into high gear to assist Alli’s team in making this reception space look amazing. Chairs and tables were moved, and we also flipped all of those gorgeous aisle meadows to the front of the stage so the band had a little extra colour, too.

Working with a client who loves colour this much is incredibly fun. The creative team met several times in the months leading up to the wedding, for venue walk-throughs, as well as a tablescape mockup. I don’t often do mockups (but certainly can if requested!) and I loved it in this case, because it gave us the opportunity to make sure we had the right shades of each colour, and the right amount of each colour, too. Knowing that we’d have the orange patterned table runner added to the long tables, and the lavender patterned circular mat on the round tables, helped us figure out what we wanted to do.

This is a venue that doesn’t allow real candles, so Ashley purchased the lamps and we added some battery operated tealights!

There were so many fun details in this event design. Ashley envisioned it all and Alli exquisitely brought it to fruition. Like this patterned dance floor — isn’t this great? I love the angled check design, and the soft sage and lavender palette. Gorgeous! Obviously we had a lot of fun with the hanging floral piece above the dance floor, as well. I really love the dripping amaranthus and all the joyful colour included.

Hanging pieces like this require a lot of collaborative work — we worked closely with Event Light, who configured the truss rigging and even hung my grid panels so we could go up and safely install the florals without worrying that anything was going to come crashing down (there’s a reason Event Light is on my list of my top 15 wedding vendors in Winnipeg!).

Everything about this day was amazing and I’m incredibly grateful that I was able to be part of it. And, of course, my team did a wonderful job (as always). It made me so happy to see all of us pitching in to help other vendors whose schedules were getting tight (like helping to lay the aisle runner!). Truly, everything about this wedding was just chef’s kiss.* And here’s a bit of wisdom for you: hire vendors who get your style, and let them help you along the way. It’ll work out so much better for you!

Picture & Poet ~ AlLi Mae Events ~ Manitoba Museum ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Spark REntals ~ Creating a Scene ~ Myuz Artistry ~ Event Light ~ Beyond the Lounge ~ Big City All Star Band

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looking for a wedding floral designer who can take your over-the-top floral dreams and make it reality?

Look no further 😘 We love working in unique venues like the Manitoba Museum, creating magic in any and every special place. 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.

Chic White and Green Tent Wedding near Winnipeg

I designed for more all-white-and-green weddings in 2023 than I have in years. I’m always a little surprised because I’m very vocal about my love for colour, but when I started talking with Kyra, I totally fell in love with her chic vision for their tent wedding at a family property just outside of Winnipeg.

Tent weddings, my friends. There are a lot of potential issues that can come up and I had to roll with a few punches during setup for Kyra and Luke’s wedding (helllloooooo wind — it knocked over quite a few vases, broke just one candle holder, and also knocked out the power in the entire neighbourhood for a few hours). But, it all came together beautifully in the end!

Photos: Charmaine Mallari

When Kyra reached out to me, she requested “clean, elegant, white, and bright.” Then she shared a few inspiration images, and a photo of her dress. I immediately fell in LOVE with her dress! It’s SO chic! But, the inspiration photos didn’t live up to her dress and to her vision.

This is one of the things that I always feel a bit awkward with, because I would hate to accidentally communicate something hurtful or that seems judgemental to a client. But at the same time, I think that Pinterest can be a curse because the images that you’re seeing are mostly 5+ years old and have been around the block. And you don’t come to me because you want the same wedding that 14,000 other couples have had. Right? Right.

So, I asked Kyra if it was okay if I took inspiration from her dress to come up with some other ideas for her. Obviously we still wanted to go with the clean, bright, white and green, but modernize the overall design with some interested pieces and textures.

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: White dahlias, Playa Blanca roses, ranunculus, and locally grown lisianthus with a few touches of Italian Ruscus.

This family property was STUNNING, and huge. The ceremony was in front of the garden, with the reception tent over on the other side of the house.

For the ceremony, we went with a clean set of white pedestals topped with modern, fluffy white floral arrangements in low white bowls. I clustered the florals for a fresher look, and I love how the low-profile containers elevates the aesthetic and feels a bit more chic than the common urn would.

I love that they did their first look in the ceremony site, and that Charmaine got such a great shot of Kyra’s first glance at the floral arrangements!

Cocktail hour was on the lawn between the ceremony and reception spaces. That was another spot where I had to get creative due to the wind. We were supposed to have some petite floral arrangements on the cocktail tables, but there wasn’t a chance they were going to stay put. I pivoted, placing those inside the tent, and instead taking some extra greenery and wrapping them around the cocktail table linens. We still got a little something at cocktail hour, but didn’t have to worry about glass toppling over and breaking.

The reception was in a clear tent, and we also dealt with some fun (not fun) wind situations inside the tent. Wind really does suck. I can deal with rain, I can deal with bugs, but wind…we just have to shift a lot of plans when the wind picks up. But, if it weren’t windy that day, it would have been like 40 degrees celcius so it actually kept us a lot more comfortable. You win some, you lose some!

Inside the tent, I was originally intending to do a good amount of fresh vine on the chandeliers. But due to wind, and to the shape and size of the chandeliers, I ended up with a lot left over. Rather than waste the remaining vine, I added it to the tent straps at the entrance.

The guest tables alternated centrepiece styles: half with a fuller floral arrangement in a modern vase and fluttery textures, and the rest with a clustering of chic ribbed glass stem vases and mixed pillar and votive candles in great containers. The vases and candleholders we use make a huge difference in elevating your style, friends! I take great pride in sourcing modern and stylish vessels so we can make your designs as beautiful as possible.

“I will never get over the flowers 🥹🤍 Thank you for exceeding my flower dreams!” - Kyra

Charmaine Mallari Photography ~ Kayla Lagos Weddings & Events ~ DEnis Et Jean Louis Catering ~ EPH Weddings ~ Bliss BRidal Boutique ~ Azazie ~ Alana Veert Beauty ~ Collective Event rentals ~ Bark Wedding Date ~ mobile bartender Winnipeg

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Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?

Tent weddings have a few more logistics to deal with, and we know how to roll with the punches!

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, chic ceremony backdrops, and elevated floral centrepieces and decor to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

How to Have Sustainable Wedding Flowers in Manitoba

How to Have Sustainable Wedding Flowers

It should come as no surprise to you that weddings as a whole can be rather wasteful events. After all, most weddings are very large parties with large guest lists, so even if there’s just a bit of waste per guest, anything times 150 guests adds up pretty quickly.

It might, however, come as a surprise to you that the floral industry can be very wasteful. From huge amounts of plastic packaging, to all of the environmental harm caused by chemicals in large scale farming, to the ramifications of shipping flowers from all over the world, and more…there’s a lot of room for improvement.

I know that many of us are actively looking for ways to reduce our footprint and waste. Our weddings don’t have to sacrifice that!

So, here are some of my top ideas for having sustainable wedding flowers in Manitoba!

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-Hire a florist who prioritizes locally grown flowers. This means probably getting married in July, August or September if you’re getting married in Manitoba so you’ll have the best selection of blooms.

Now friends. Just like there’s greenwashing in other industries, there are florists and/or online floral suppliers that want to make it seem like they’re more of an earth-friendly option than they are. “Seasonal flowers” means almost NOTHING if they can’t tell you which farm from Manitoba grew their flowers. Basically everything is in season when you buy it in Ecuador and ship it across the ocean. This becomes a particular issue with websites that market themselves as cost-effective (like Costco or a particular online “floral shop” starting with C and ending with allia…) because there is literally nothing remotely locally grown through them. Promise you.

-Back to locally grown flowers. If you are open to it, give your floral designer free reign over the flower selections. This gives them the confidence to choose the best options for you and using entirely locally grown flowers.

-Rent, don’t buy. You do not need to purchase your own vases. I repeat, you do NOT need to purchase your own vases (or linens…the number of people who buy their own linens and then attempt to resell them…what on earth is the reason when you can rent them?!). Just rent them from your floral designer. No extra shipping, no extra packaging, and a lot less work on your end, too. If you do have some really cool vessels in mind, I’d love to suggest that you have them made by a local, small batch artisan like Meg Does Pottery.

-Ask your florist not to use floral foam. You’ve likely noticed this dark green stuff in arrangements before — but I’ve got some bad news for you: floral foam is basically the devil. It is a plastic, it’s non-biodegradable, it’s made with toxic chemicals. It’s killing aquatic life. It’s baaaad. But, it’s also not necessary! Be clear with your floral designer that you do NOT want them to use any floral foam for your wedding, and then listen to them when they say what types/styles of designs they can do for you without foam. Foam has made floral design annoyingly easy (and honestly, lacking in skill), and a lot of the design styles that have been trending in wedding design rely on foam. Allow your designer to lead the conversation towards what will be best for you.

-Ask your florist what their compost protocols are. Locally grown flowers aren’t grown with intense chemicals, so they’re able to composted in home composters. However, imported flowers ARE grown with a ton of chemicals that aren’t compostable by all facilities. I’ve always been told that Winnipeg’s facilities can’t handle the chemicals (though my neighbourhood has never been on a compost route anyways) so I started working with Compost Winnipeg a few years ago, as they can properly handle it. It’s been AWESOME. I went from producing 2-3 large garbage bags of trash every single week to maybe 2 bags a month.

-Avoid dyed or preserved flowers. We’re finally on the other side of the “dried” flowers trend, which was sadly filled with flowers that weren’t actually dried, but cranked full of chemicals to bleach, artificially dye, and then preserve them. You don’t just get neon pink bunny tails, my friends. In the end, things that are dyed and preserved generally can’t be composted, which means you’re taking natural, compostable materials and turning them into literal trash.

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

In case you couldn’t tell, sustainability is important to us at Stone House Creative.

Call me biased, but flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative — and we’ll make it as environmentally friendly as we possibly can!

Modern Country Tent Wedding near Winnipeg

Okay, my friends. Get ready. This wedding is the brainchild of one half of the very popular Rae + Dot Studios, which means that everything was designed to perfection, no detail was left unattended, and the party looked like it was killer.

The wedding was held on Lexi’s family farm, which is IDYLLIC. Granted as I’m writing this, it’s wintertime and I would love to feel that warm sun (it was actually so hot this day) and smell warm wheat fields right now, but just take one look at all of those trees and the huge lawn! It was the perfect setting for their tent wedding just outside of Winnipeg.

Photos by Kassandra Donaldson

I love the way Lexi blended a modern design style with the country atmosphere. We used a warm palette with lots of rich neutrals (toffees, browns, taupes), and punched it up with accents of black. And that burnt orange tone in the bridesmaids! Hot dang. We did each bridesmaid bouquet a bit differently so nothing was totally perfect.

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: Toffee roses, apricot lisianthus, cosmos, zinnias, yarrow, hypericum berries, ninebark and olive foliages.

This tree! Could there be a more perfect spot for a wedding ceremony? The only thing was, that Lexi’s sister was married in the exact same spot a year earlier, so we wanted to make sure we weren’t designing the same focal flowers.

We went with a ground-based installation, incorporating dried hydrangea, rust amarnathus, lots of olive and nineback, lisianthus, and stock. Lexi sourced hunks to tyndall stone, that we incorporated into the installation. Adding in a styling element like this can take a floral installation from good to great.

Lexi gave me full creative reign over the centrepieces (and all florals, actually). They had a large guest list, and a lot of tables, so we didn’t want to have everything look the same throughout the tent.

I started by taking a look through some of my wedding rentals and sketched out a few options for centrepiece styles. I wanted some with fuller florals, some more focused on candles, some modern stem vases…we ended up with 4 centrepiece styles and I loved each of them equally.

Lexi tucked in more of the tyndall stone as table numbers and it all pulled together so beautifully!

These design elements! This is what happens when the couple is creative AND good with their hands. Look at that bar — they custom made and branded that bar! It was enormous, by the way, which is totally what you need when you have a large guest list so you can station several bartenders there. We added one large focal floral piece — my current favourite floral features.

Lexi hung three grid panels and a neon sign behind the head table, that we added some fresh floral pieces to. A few of the ceremony floral pieces were added to the chair gap in front of the couple (my favourite layout for a head table is double-sided seating with a space for the couple to be able to look out and see everyone!).

I love a wedding party who knows how to party :) And a wedding party who knows how to support the couple, and help create the ambiance the couple is hoping for. I’ve seen a lot of wedding parties interacting…my friends, don’t ignore this part of the role that you play when you sign up to be in a wedding party!

Anyone else totally on board with the removable sleeves trend? You get two looks without needing to run away from the party and get changed. Sweet!

Deanna and Jason set up this wedding, which I was so grateful for because I was at a wedding in Kenora. But I was also SO SAD to not be able to see how this wedding came together in person because it was just so gorgeous.

Everything that Lexi planned and designed elevated the work the rest of us did. It was a dream tent wedding ✨

Kassandra Donaldson Photography ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ Rae + Dot Studios ~ D’Lite Tents ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Baked Expectations ~ Trident Films ~ King Cole ~ Bliss Bridal Boutique ~ George Foreman and the Grills

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

We love working on private properties, creating magic in your special place. 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.

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!).

Professional photos by Brittany Mahood Photography, all the obviously crappy footage is from me lol

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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.

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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!

Brittany Mahood Photography ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ Stone House Creative ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Trend Decor ~ Cathy Wiebe Clothes ~ Assiniboine Park Pavilion ~ Event Light

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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!