Modern Romantic Wedding at the Manitoba Club

It’s never easy to plan your wedding from afar, but I’ve always LOVED working with couples who are so far away (I really like to make things easier on all you planning for a destination wedding in Winnipeg!)…but Ally and Eddy definitely came from the farthest distance that I’ve worked with!

While she’s originally from Winnipeg, they currently live in Dubai, so we worked through time zones, video chats, and many emails to put this all together.

Thank goodness for Soiree Event Planning guiding the process (and on a shorter than typical timeline as well!), and it all came together absolutely beautifully.

Photos by Brittany Mahood

Let’s get it started with what the guests saw when they entered the Manitoba Club. Ally envisioned something beautiful at the entrance and traipsing up the stairs, and then Andrea from Soiree suggested we add some statement pieces to the landing window sills, something she’s been dreaming up for years and just waiting for the right wedding to come along (and btw…we all have dreamy wish lists of things we’d like to design, so never hesitate to ask to hear what we are dreaming of! It might be perfect for you!).

The colour of this sign was PERFECT — just the right pastel with some vibrance to it. The colours of the florals brought it all to life, especially thanks to that lime ninebark we used and the depth coming from those deeper berry toned carnations.

I LOVED the landing window sills floral moment. The sills are so deep and luxurious, it’s like they’re begging to be floral-ed. We could add some serious height with branching components, while tucking through the colour. It was delish.

I love the intentionality behind these design elements, pulling the entire event design through the complete space, rather than just keeping it all within the ballroom. We started at the entrance, moved up the staircase, and then into the hallway before moving into the ballroom.

A welcoming champagne tower and display was placed at the top of the stairs (with edible locally grown flowers added to the champagne for that little something extra!), drawing guests into the hallway with multiple bars and cocktail tables.

Welcome to the Manitoba Club ballroom as you’ve never seen it before! Ally and Eddy were married overseas, so this was a reception-only event, and it was set up more as a cocktail party without a formal sit-down dinner.

Soiree designed an engaging floor plan, featuring the decalled dance floor on one end of the room, and the dessert lounge on the opposite, with varied cocktail and sit-down seating and a full lounge in the middle. The room was fully draped and uplight to create a soft pink glow, and it was honestly divine.

Ally had one inspiration image that she loved, and it was of a gold vintage bar cart with light, whimsical florals in soft pinks, lavenders, and berry tones. That was her overarching vision and we wanted to pull that through all of the florals, while also bringing a sense of lushness that was befitting the venue.

With the varied floor plan and table sizes, we didn’t want to keep all the centrepieces the same. Varied floral and candle centrepieces honestly look so much more engaging in a room, regardless of the floor plan. For this reception, we included a few tall and large florals in the centre of the room, surrounded by soft mauve taper and pillar candles.

We also created a low, lush ring of florals surrounding a modern glass candle box (foam-free, baby!) on some of the low full-sized tables, and cocktail tables featured either petite bud vases and candles or a lush, sculptural arrangement in a low-profile vase. These arrangements were some of my favourites of the wedding season so far!

One of my goals is to ensure that, no matter what your aesthetic preferences are, your florals and design are polished and details are not left unfinished. It’s easy to do that when working with a planning team like Soiree! I loved the symmetry of the desserts display below (and I desperately wanted to dig my fingers into that Jenna Rae Cakes buttercream!! lol!) and the lounges were so beautifully laid out that all we needed to do was add some gorgeous spotlight florals and a clustering of candles, and they were perfect.

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It’s always a pleasure to work with an incredible team of professionals to create an elevated event. Any one of them would be an excellent hire for your wedding!

Brittany Mahood Photography ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ Manitoba Club ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective event rentals ~ Event Light ~ KArta House ~ Creating a Scene ~ Trend Decor ~ Grace Hill SAlon ~ Lauren Wycoff~ Big City All Star Band

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Getting married at the Manitoba Club? We happen to know the space REALLY well, and in our completely biased opinion, we’re the best at bringing the space to life 😎

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 for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Romantic Fairytale-Inspired Pineridge Hollow Wedding

Courtney has a really romantic style, and for her wedding to Daniel at Pineridge Hollow, she asked for a romantic, grown-up fairytale-inspired ambiance. We can make that happen!

With the setting at Pineridge Hollow amongst so many trees and lush greenery, I wanted to bring in some very natural details, include lots of candlelight, and we went for a very soft and feminine palette of dusty pinks, mauves, creams, and touches of light blue and sage green.

Photos by Mandy Wright Photography

There were a lot of really lovely moments in this day. First, we lucked out with absolutely beautiful weather. The wedding party seemed kind and supportive and all really enjoyed being together (the guys were all doing the “When you’re a jet” song from West Side Story and it was so fun to listen to them!), and everything was just really pretty!

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: quicksand and amnesia roses, dahlias, stock, freesia, touches of forget me not, antique carnations, olive, and Italian variegated pittisporum.

The ceremony took place in gardens area, and we were so happy with how the florals all came together. We did one large piece lining the top of the arch, and I love the fluffy texture that the delphinium brought. We designed this in a chicken wire sausage stapled onto a piece of 2x4, so that it could easily be taken down and placed on the head table.

We replicated the same florals in ground-based pieces at the start of the aisle, and then repurposed those into the tent entrance, which we had already greened so we had a beautiful entrance moment.

We chose soft pink pillar candles to tuck around the tent, paired with soft gold votives to create more of that romantic ambiance.

Tale styles alternated between a fuller floral arrangement and a bud vase/candle combination.

We placed that large floral piece from the arch to the centre of the head table, and then added in 2 coordinating shorter floral arrangements on either end of the head table to tie it all together.

I love a good design plan! Courtney went back and forth between a few options for focal points, mostly debating over whether or not to add vining greenery to the tent ceiling. In the end, she gave me a budget and asked me to do something fun at the tent entrance, and we did! To make the most of it, I planned to fully green out both sides of the tent entrance and add in the 2 floral pieces from the ceremony. The small bar tent that leads into the main tent isn’t the most gorgeous on its own, so adding something like this in to your design can go a really long way.

While we were designing this tent entrance, a bride-to-be getting married at the venue came in to take a look around. She asked which floral company we were from, and when I told her Stone House Creative, she kind of rolled her eyes and said “of course.” She indicated that she was obsessed with this wedding we had done a couple of years ago, told me that she wanted the greenery on the ceiling and the big tent entrance installation, and then at the same time muttered that I was too expensive. But get this — she had never even inquired with me, let alone received a quote from me! It was a really off-putting encounter that led me to write a blog post about floral installation pricing, to hopefully help guide you in figuring out a realistic floral budget if you’re hoping to have a large focal floral moment like this.

Mandy Wright Photography ~ Pineridge Hollow ~ Tricia Bachewich Events ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Lineage House ~ Bailey DelBigio ~ Chantal’s Bridal ~ DJ Sir CharlEs

LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Planning a wedding at Pineridge Hollow and want to elevate the tent? I’d love to be your floral designer.

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 for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

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A Springtime Floral Dream ~ Reverdie Workshop

Earlier this spring, before wedding season kicked off, I travelled about an hour outside of Montreal to attend Reverdie, a floral design workshop. Hosted by Trille Floral (a Canadian designer) and Winsome Floral (an American designer), the experience was quite amazing.

I’ve always believed that hands-on floral design education, and inspiration, is of utmost importance. It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to attend a workshop, and it was worth every penny and every moment. Let me tell you about it.

Photos by Grace & Ardor Co

When I started working in flowers, I was quite apprehensive about actually designing. In fact, it was quite a long time before I was “allowed” to design. Despite that, I received some really wonderful hands-on design training and solid basics and mechanics from several of my colleagues, who I still consider to be some of the best designers in Canada. When I left that retail shop, and then eventually started Stone House Creative, I made it a priority to continue investing in hands-on and online design training. It’s really cost me quite a lot of money, but I don’t regret it at all.

A strong sense of basics, design elements, colour theory, and flower care are all of high importance in floral design. Without these, you can’t figure out your own style or create pieces that both look good and hold up. So to all of you who may be interested in floral design, please don’t hesitate to receive hands-on training. Yes, it’s an investment. But just as I wouldn’t trust a dentist who hasn’t gone to dental school, I wouldn’t be comfortable with a floral designer charging for their work without investing in any actual training (and yes, obviously I understand that there’s an enormous difference between a medical professional and floral design).

Reverdie was a 4 day experience, set at a beautiful European-inspired chateau and vineyard where we all were able to stay on-site. The first afternoon, we met and got to know each other, and then sat down for a welcome dinner that was absolutely incredible.

We sat at the long table above, with a simplistic and inspiring design of simple spirea arrangements and warm toned candles and linens.

On day 2, we sat for 2 design training sessions before letting loose into the flowers: centrepiece arrangements, and bouquet design.

Above is the arrangement I created. Trille and Winsome have a slightly different process for designing arrangements than I do, so it was cool to give that a shot and see the final product. The tulips were absolutely incredible, so I wanted to make them the real focal point and let them do their thing. I love the wonky lines that tulip stems create, and this cinnamon-and-butter palette was so lovely for spring.

Love these table designs? Let's talk about what makes them amazing.

1: Repetition of Elements

The overall tablescapes here are quite straightforward: a pairing of candles, a floral moment // A pairing of candles, a floral moment // A pairing of candles, a floral moment...you get the drill. If you're unsure how to design a great tablescape, keep it simple!

2: Florals en Masse

Our first two dinners had striking floral centrepieces, and possibly what's most striking is that we have just one ingredient, en masse. This is a design tactic that always feels clean and elevated to me. If this is something you're drawn to, be sure to tell your designer as most of us don't expect that you're wanting this.

3: Curated Colour Palette

You know I love colour -- and hopefully you've also heard me say that you don't need to go super vibrant to indulge in colour. Each of these dinners features a different palette, and different accent colours, and we can take inspiration from all of them: whites with warm neutrals, vibrant pink with complimentary mint tones, and saturated yellows. Take a look and decide what draws you in most: monochromatic, highly saturated, or complimentary tones!

On day 3, we took part in 2 different group installations: one outdoors at a chapel, and one indoors to create an incredible meadow.

Obviously I cannot choose a favourite, but I will say that the high volume of yellow forsythia branches that we use has me completely inspired. Clustering in pockets of varied pinks and creating height and depth made this feature come to life.

For our final dinner, we used each of our centrepieces down the length of the table, again paired with taper candles and also with the most exquisite handmade plates by Kels in the Studio, a New Brunswick potter. It was a really full table, making it slightly less practical but I’ll tell you what, it was SO nice to be able to be a guest at our own table instead of always setting it for someone else! We also repurposed many of the forsythia pieces that we used alongside the chapel into the window sills, as well as around the base of the cake table. This is the kind of oomph that goes a long way in creating an environment, rather than just designing pretty floral centrepieces, and if there’s opportunity to repurpose florals (read: there must be enough time to make it happen), then this is definitely a way to do it!

I’m so grateful to Courtney and Cara for this beautiful experience. It was restful, inspiring, and so peaceful. Many of us students were also moms of young kids, so the group was in need of some rest. It was such a wonderful respite! If you’re a floral designer looking for a workshop to attend, definitely consider Reverdie (or their annual fall workshop, Autumn in New York). It was magical.

Workshop Hosts: trille floral & winsome floral ~ grace and ardor ~ elegant productions ~ chateau ste agnes ~ pearle by katrina tuttle ~ kels in the studio~ paper chain stationery ~ scribble and script ~ ana capbatut ~ alexis burkhardt Hair ~ victoria roggio beauty ~ just iced custom cakes ~ glow the event store ~ the studio house~ native ribbon co

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

We can design a beautiful, unique wedding environment for you. Find out more about our floral services by inquiring below!

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 for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Bright, Cheerful Lakeside Wedding Near Kenora

I LOVE a good lakefront wedding, and I love a good logistical challenge (every once in a while). So when Sam and Joel first reached out to me (from Calgary!), about their wedding taking place at her family’s property near Kenora, I knew I wanted to be involved.

3 provinces and 2 lakefront locations. Moving pieces back and forth between the ceremony and reception properties and a lot of little things that could be easily missed. With a wedding like this, you’ll want to make sure that you have an excellent team of professionals on board, and we certainly did for Sam and Joel!

Photos by Keila Marie Photography

Cheerful, colourful, romantic, clean…we had a lot of great theme words for this design.

I started my day by driving out to Kenora, with all of the florals, the arch pieces, and supplies loaded carefully into my van. There’s always a bit of stress that everything won’t fit in, but especially with an out of town wedding, it’s simply got to work! When I arrived, the first thing I did was hand off Sam’s bouquets and get a glimpse at their colourful invitation suite (how adorable, right?!).

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: all the floaty bits! And almost entirely locally grown in Manitoba! Lisianthus, ranunculus, cosmos, scabiosa, feverfew, sweet pea, and forget me nots.

We then got to work right away on designing the ceremony flowers. We set up the arch right in front of the water, and the view was obviously immaculate. It was a bit windy (just can’t seem to get away from that stinking wind!) so we had to counter-weight the arch in the front (normally we only need to weight the back, to counter-balance the weight of the florals in the front).

I didn’t want the florals to be too polka-dotty, so I started with an all-over base of greenery and peach statice, and then started clustering in pockets of colour. The pink expression roses are a personal favourite of mine, and they really showed off in this arch. We added touches of light blue delphinium and some super fun and frilly orange and peach zinnias to finish it off.

In my opinion, a polka-dotty design is a clear indication of a designer who doesn’t actually have much of a design sense…they might know a ton about flowers and care and how to arrange, but if they don’t have a design eye, then what’s the point? When you’re looking for a florist, pay attention to the overall design: are all the flowers smushed together? Is it polka-dotty? Is the texture off-putting to you? (everyone has their preferences and these are certainly mine…and I will die on all of these hills).

Aren’t their aisle shots AMAZING? If you’re ever a guest at a wedding and they give you confetti or rose petals to toss at the end of the ceremony, please GO FOR IT. That makes for such an incredible moment for the newlyweds, and in a time when it already feels like you’re walking on air, the confetti creates so much magic.

Next came time for the tent reception! The tent was actually situated on a different private property (a family friend’s home, on a different lake about 15 minutes away) and it was completely perfect. The lawn was large and flat, with the tent running lengthwise along the shoreline.

Alli designed a crisp white and blue tent, and we looked to the flowers and a few other elements to bring all the colour. The centrepieces alternated between low floral arrangements on the round tables and loose greenery on the long tables (I love an interesting floor plan!).

With repurposing a ceremony arch, there are a few things to be aware of.

First, it doesn’t always work. Please just trust your floral designer if they tell you it’s not going to work. It might not physically fit (out of where it is, or into a vehicle, or into where you want it to go), it might be too heavy, there might not be enough time to do, if we have to drag it through your entire crowd of guests to get it where it needs to go that doesn’t look good…just know that some pieces are meant to accomplish just what they are intended for.

Second, it’s never going to look as good in its second position as it did in its first. Flowers will break or wilt, things will have shifted, the scale might be off in the second position, and so on. I always keep these things in mind and usually reserve replacement flowers to freshen up the arch, and I definitely keep a focus on scale and placement when we’re designing in the first place.

In this case, the scale was perfect to place around the sweetheart table but the arch had been sitting in the full sun for several hours and then moved into the van for a bumpy drive, so we needed to replace some flowers and give it an overall freshening up. This freshening took us about 30 minutes, which took place during cocktail hour so guests didn’t notice us. Keep this in mind if you aim to repurpose pieces from the ceremony to the reception — there needs to be time to actually make it happen!

We planned for 2 focal points in the reception space: the overhanging greenery and basket installation above the dance floor, and the sweetheart table with repurposed ceremony arch.

The baskets were pre-hung (though I reinforced a few that were a little precarious), and then started adding smilax around the support wire. I ended up having lots of extra, so I added smilax to the vertical tent poles on either side of the dance floor to tie it all together and make them look a little nicer and try to hide some of the black tape used by the tent company. Side note, can we all just agree to use tape that blends in?

For our wedding on private property in Kenora, we wanted a statement floral arch that would really make our wedding stand out. We asked Lauren to move the intricate arch between our two rural venues. From the moment we met her, we knew she could deliver everything we were dreaming of and more. We had full confidence in her from day one and she really delivered!

All the floral pieces Lauren created for us were beautiful and blew us and our guests away. The arch was a showstopper. Many of our guests could not believe the detailed floral work and it was one of the most photographed pieces at our wedding. Lauren also helped to create a hanging vine and basket chandelier installation over our dance floor which beautifully framed the space. All the florals were incredibly beautiful and perfectly matched the look and feel we were going for.

We are so glad we trusted Stone House Creative with our wedding florals. We can’t recommend them enough. Lauren is amazing and we would choose her and her team all over again!

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Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?

The logistics of a lake wedding are a bit more detailed than you might expect. We happen to be really, really good at that part.

Whether you’re planning an intimate dinner on the dock, or a tented lakeside celebration the likes of which have never been seen before, Stone House Creative specializes in create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Keila Marie Photography ~ Alli Mae Events ~ Best Way Rentals ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Beyond the Lounge ~ Trend Decor ~ The Gates on Roblin ~ Sugar & Salt ~ Twofold Paper Co ~ Prep Hair ~ Something Borrowed Wedding Rentals

Summer Tent Wedding at Breezy Bend

An early summer tent wedding at a golf course, a feminine but punchy colour palette, and a totally in love pair of newlyweds — say hello to all the ingredients needed for a completely lovely wedding!

Marina first reached out to me about a year and a half before their wedding, with no set date and with a baby on the way. They were tossing around multiple locations, and the idea of a summer or a winter wedding, so obviously there was a lot to nail down. Luckily, we had a ton of time! She then brought on Soiree Event Planning, and it all came together in a relatively short time span.

Photos by Izabela Rachwal Photography

Hot dang, I loved Marina’s bridal bouquet. It was juicy, fresh, and totally feminine. We kept the bridesmaids’ bouquets in the lavender and blush tones, leaving the brighter orange just for Marina. It all tied together beautifully with the blush and champagne bridesmaid dresses.

Bridal bouquet ingredients: peonies, ranunculus (several varieties, some of which were locally grown!), sweet pea, quicksand roses, and stock with touches of Italian ruscus.

Marina and Nik decided to have an intimate ceremony the week prior, which they did at the lake with just their family (including their ADORABLE son). On wedding 2.0, we’ll call it, they re-spoke their vows in front of all their guests out at Breezy Bend. We kept the florals simple here, just adding 2 pretty arrangements in large black urns.

While most weddings at Breezy are in the ballroom, Marina actually fell in love with how they did tented weddings on the property during Covid. So, a clear top tent was brought in (and it JUST fit, between sprinkler lines under the grass!) and everything was all taken care of — it was a lot of work, mind you (as all tent weddings are), and it was absolutely beautiful.

I loved this colour palette. As a floral designer, it’s always fun determining the colour palette (in this case, created by the amazing team at Soiree!) and how exactly we’re going to use it. Obviously, the florals tend to carry a lot of the weight when it comes to the colours.

Marina wasn’t afraid of colour, but she didn’t want to go overly bright so as to keep things a little more classic. The base palette was soft lavenders, blushes, and greys, and then brought to life with small accents of peach and orange. I’ll often describe a palette by using percentages — if you’re hesitant to go too bold, like Marina, I’ll suggest that we use just a 5 or 10% pop of the brighter tone (in this case, we did about a 10% pop of bright orange) and that helps to calm people’s colour nerves.

The floor plan featured mostly rectangular tables along the outsides of the tent, with a few round tables in the middle in front of the head table. On the rectangular tables, we didn’t have a ton of space for florals so we chose bud vases with petite floral accents, but we made them a little more interesting with a mix of light pink and clear glass vessels. We added gold-rimmed candle holders with delicate mauve pillar and votive candles, to compliment the gold flatware, mauve taper candles, and a few loose roses scattered down the tables to add a little more subtle colour.

The round tables offered a fuller floral arrangement, where we were able to tuck in a little more of the orange and peach tones. My favourite floral element was the delicious locally grown peach parrot tulips! They were at the very end of their season, so my local grower cut them early and held them over for me, and it worked perfectly. I’m so grateful to have cultivated such excellent relationships with amazing local flower farmers!

Above the dance floor, we designed a hanging canopy of greenery. I loved seeing their first dance images, with them swaying under this large piece. I don’t notice a lot of scent anymore, and we didn’t use scented foliage here, but the sheer quantity we used, combined with the chill from rain in the air, meant that the tent had a really fresh foliage scent that was quite lovely!

Izabela Rachwal Photography ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ Breezy Bend Golf Course ~ Planned Perfectly ~ D’Lite Tent Rentals ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Union Table ~ Myuz Artistry ~ Club Create ~ Event Light

LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Whether your vision is all about a tent wedding or a classic ballroom, creating magic in your special place is our specialty. Reach out to inquire about your date availability!

Reach out to find out how we can create the perfect ambiance for your wedding.