Bold, Playful Wedding at St Charles Country Club

I’m totally embarrassed at how long it’s taken me to get this wedding on my blog. Literally a year. BUT here we are!

I knew I was in for a treat when Soiree Event Planning sent me the design plan for Jacqueline and Jarett’s wedding: bold, playful, SUPER colourful, and garden-inspired. UMM YES PLEASE.

This wedding had so many of my very favourite elements: a really fun colour palette, a backyard (and very intimate) ceremony, a killer arch, really fun centrepieces along with other floral moments, and a client that completely trusted my ideas. I can’t wait to get into this with you!

Photos by Carm Photo

Oh my GOSH did I love this bridal bouquet! We decided to dig into the pinks, oranges, and a touch of blue for Jacqueline’s bouquet, rather than diving into the full palette. I felt like this allowed the bouquet to stand out more from the rest of the florals (especially the arch during the ceremony), and felt a bit bolder. I knew she wanted to use the blue in her bouquet, and I chose the orange as it’s a complimentary tone. The pink is just easy to round everything out! I finished it all up with marbled, hand-dyed silk ribbon from Stella Wolfe. Those finishing touches can be everything and I love being the one to make that happen!

Bridal bouquet ingredients: gloriosa lily (the star of the freaking show!!), ranunculus, dahlias, spray roses, delphinium, mokara orchids, and anthurium.

Additional note: Cathy Wiebe hand-embroidered Jacqueline’s amazing veil. I love the subtle touches of colour while still feeling super romantic. I told Cathy what flowers I was using in her bouquet, and she incorporated some of those into her beading! Again…those finishing touches that make such a difference.

While they planned to have their entire guest list partying with them all evening, Jacqueline and Jarett chose to have the ceremony on the intimate side. The ceremony took place in her family’s backyard, with about 30 close friends and immediate family members. They celebrated right after with cocktails, before meeting all their guests at St Charles.

Now OBVIOUSLY if you know me at all, you’ll know that this colour-blocked floral arch was one of the highlights of my career. It was lush, deep, vibrant, textural…aka everything that I love.

We traipsed colour-blocked florals down the aisle, leading to the arch. The locally grown dahlias were my favourite elements in the arch, as they bring amazing texture. Selecting the floral ingredients for this wedding was so much fun!

One thing we knew we wanted to do was have some serious colour play throughout the reception design, working with alternating centrepiece styles according to the table shape. We design a colour-blocked runner of modern stem vases and petite floral arrangements in clear ribbed and clean white vessels on the long tables, and a playful combination of it all on the round tables.

Coloured candles played a large role as well, which I really wanted to do to blend the overall palette from floral section to section. Taper candles were mixed in with votives, incorporating some brighter candles along with easier-on-the-eyes pastels.

We tucked in a few black trays and black candle holders for depth.

Talk about one of my favourite repurposes of the year! It was a beast to move this fully-designed arch through the backyard, shift it into the back of the uhaul (it took up almost the entire vehicle!), and then load it into the reception space. To be honest, I have kind of blacked out and don’t remember how we managed to get it up the stairs at St Charles and through the doors 😂 BUT dang, I love how perfectly the couple’s monogrammed sign fit right into it. If you go for something like this at your wedding, just make sure you tell your friends to use it as a photo backdrop!

And how gorgeous are those table numbers? I love the way they pull so many colours in to the design.

Now, I need to take a minute to educate (and brag…semi-humbly, of course). If you’re interested in any kind of bolder colour-blocking or rainbow action for your wedding, there are some things that your floral designer and your planner need to focus on and be really cognizant of when they’re planning. And I have to also say, if you want to dig into the rainbow idea, this is really not something that can be tackled by a rookie designer.

The rainbow and/or colour-blocked palette is exciting, but it’s also hard to get right. It can come off as goofy really easily, you need a lot of variety to pull it all together, and that includes incorporating different shades of each colour. You can’t just do bright and bold…you need some pastels in there, too. Otherwise, it just looks like a box of Crayons in a kindergarten classroom.

And for the floral designers out there, know that you will spend a LOT longer writing your recipes and figuring everything out on the backend. You’ll be spending a lot more time than you would normally, because you’ll be working in that much broader colour palette and needing to select and count up a lot more types and shades of flowers. Make sure you account for that extra time in your math!

Dance party time! This was a fun, almost last-minute addition to the floral order. A disco ball and floral ceiling are not always a budget priority but ALWAYS a welcome addition. Man, I love disco balls.

So Event Light first hung the disco balls, and then we added swooping chains of brightly coloured carnations over the dance floor, along with a few hanging floral “clumps.” There’s got to be a better way of wording that…floral clusters? However we say it, it looked really good. The dance floor was busy all night long.

We had an absolutely STELLAR vendor team on this wedding. When you’re planning a wedding that’s this design-focused, you really need a team of wedding professionals who are going to pull their weight and have the right products or design sense to make it all happen. Check out the pros below for your wedding!

Carm Photo ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ St Charles Country Club ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Event Light ~ Union Table ~ Cathy Wiebe Clothes ~ Beyond the Lounge ~ Petite Paperie ~ Prep Hair ~ Bailey DelBigio ~ Jenna Rae Cakes ~ La Petite Paperie ~ Trend DEcor

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Planning a wedding at St Charles Country Club and want to bring some life to the space? 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 (like a greenery canopy hung above your dinner tables!), 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! 

Relaxed, Colourful Wedding at Pizzeria Gusto

I LOVE restaurant weddings. Especially at places like Pizzeria Gusto, where the food is always 100% and the atmosphere is already set. The decor is usually awesome and we just need to add cohesive touches through the floral and candles to bring your style to the space.

Anna and Scott pictured a relaxed, comfortable wedding day with the opportunity to have great food and just enjoy time with their loved ones. Anna also wanted a lot of colour and I was more than happy to bring that to the table :)

Photos by Kassandra Donaldson

Now how AMAZING are these bridesmaid dresses? They’re so rich and vibrant, each with great texture and I love that some pattern was tucked in as well. This is like a masterclass in how to pull off a vibrant palette — a few of the boldest, rich tones, some of the softer pink pulled through as a type of neutral base, and a few textures and a few patterns mixed throughout.

Even better, I love that two of my past brides are in this wedding party :) Including the sister of the bride!

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: Nina roses, freesia, peonies, feverfew, butterfly ranunculus, carnations, and phalaenopsis orchids.

The ceremony took place at Scott’s parents’ absolutely gorgeous home along the river. The backyard was completely perfect. We simply needed to add some colour with the florals, creating a sweet altar spot for them to exchange their vows in front of.

We designed an organic floral piece that seemed as though it was growing there. We used a few softer shades, like butter yellow stock and soft pink peonies, to ensure the design wasn’t just purely florescent. The orange ornithogalum and red nina roses really popped.

How sweet are these little flower girls!

Pizzeria Gusto on Academy Road is one of my favourite wedding venues. It might be a bit unexpected as it’s not a typical spot, but you’re guaranteed that everything is going to be amazing. If I were getting married again now, Gusto would be at the top of my list.

The tables are not overly wide, so we didn’t want to go too full on the tablescapes. We did a few medium sized floral arrangements to add to the family tables, and mixed modern style stem vases, paired with several bold colours of taper candles. On the smaller tables, we tucked just a simple stem vases with a duo of taper candles and that was the perfect size of centrepeice.

One of the perks of working at Pizzeria Gusto is that it’s the best spot for a mid-work day lunch ;)

Gusto also has a great patio that they can add a tent to if the weather requires it. This day called for rain (though I don’t think we got any!) and the tables are a little larger so we’ve got a little more space to work out there. We repeated the same elements from the indoor tables, with taper candles, bud vases, and medium size arrangements.

I chose a mix of clean white cylinder vases, ribbed clear glass stem vases, small white floral frog vessels. The combination created a modern, clean look that worked really well with Gusto’s interior.

Kassandra Donaldson Photography ~ Kayla Lagos Weddings & Events ~ Pizzeria Gusto ~ Lineage House ~ Bailey Delbigio ~ Winnipeg Trolley Company

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Looking for a Wedding Floral Designer in Winnipeg?

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! 

Vibrant Autumn Wedding at The Pavilion

One of my all-time favourite fall weddings: an amazing colour palette, one of my favourite venues, an incredible vendor team, and perfect autumn weather. Everything about Nicole and Rourke’s vibrant autumn wedding was beautiful.

Photos by Brittany Mahood

This palette — MAN. I know I say that a lot, but I just love colour. Nicole gave me a couple of inspiration photos, and then as with most of my designs, I started working on her proposal by creating their colour palette. Colour is such an important part of a design and I wanted to layer in warm tones with different varieties and shapes.

We definitely wanted to include corals and oranges, to which I added a rich berry tone, plum, and some softer caramel. It really sung “autumn but not trying too hard to be fall,” if that makes sense!

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: Caramel antique garden roses, pink dahlias, barista roses, mango mini calla lilies, chocolate cosmos, sahara sensation spray roses, golden ilex berries, olive foliage, and agonis foliage.

We’re going to need to talk briefly about how stunning Nicole’s dress and veil were. Handmade by Cathy Wiebe, I LOVE the soft colour that was worked in with hand-embroidery and beading. Cathy and I even collaborated a bit (like a TINY bit) as she incorporated some of the actual flowers I was using into her designs.

I love a good ground-based floral nest for your ceremony! Knowing that the wedding was in October and there wasn’t likely to be much colour still around (though I was astonished at how good the gardens at the Pavilion still looked!!), I was excited to be able to create a garden for Nicole and Rourke to say their vows in.

One of the benefits of pieces like this is that they can be relatively easily repurposed into your reception. This means you’re getting a stunning design for your ceremony, and then during your cocktail hour, your florist or planner will pick those pieces up and sneak them into your reception. We used them all at the seating chart for a major statement (scroll down to see more of that, which I LOVED) but we could also separate the pieces and use them at your bar, on your dessert table, as part of your tent entrance, or as table end-caps for banquet tables. Just be sure to discuss this with your floral designer, so that we can make sure to design them intentionally to fit both spaces where they’ll be used!

The design brief: minimalist tables allow for a maximalist ceiling installation.

Minimalist tabletops does not mean there was a lack of detail — rather, what we chose to incorporate was intentionally selected to create the character and ambiance desired, while allowing the ceiling installation to take centre stage.

Mixed centrepiece styles in a rich floral palette, all placed on a warm toffee toned linen created a really beautiful, elevated base for the entire space.

Three different centrepiece styles were featured. The round tables around the outside of the room featured a fuller, low floral arrangement in a modern compote vase, with a collection of low glass votives surrounding it. The smaller round tables in the “nook” (the window alcove area, which is a bit smaller so we usually use smaller tables in there) focused on bud vases (5 per table) with taper candles, and the long tables saw a simple collection of taper and votive candles lining the narrow length of the tables.

Lately I’ve been loving using lots of clear glass vessels — the candlelight sparkles off them so beautifully. You’ll see that here with all the stem vases and varied candleholders themselves. And the colours and textures of the flowers in these stem vases? GOOD. REALLY GOOD.

This is where having a designer on your vendor team comes into play. When Nicole explained that they would need to remove tables for their dance, I immediately knew what I wanted to do: focus on hanging greenery above the tables, and keep the tabletops minimal with just candles. This way, the ambiance would be amazing both for dinner and the dance (especially the dance, actually!!). Dancing beneath the canopy of vines in the dimmed light, without spending a lot of money on centrepieces on the table that would only be used for a portion of the evening.

I then worked really closely with Cam from Event Light (one of my top 15 Winnipeg wedding vendors you need to know!) to figure out how we were going to suspend this greenery canopy. We settled on his crew creating a system for us to attach our smilax vines to, without damaging the ceiling or hanging from something we weren’t allowed to! It worked amazingly and looked fantastic!

Brittany Mahood Photography ~ ASsiniboine Park Pavilion ~ Soiree Event Planning ~ Planned Perfectly ~ Collective Event Rentals ~ Rhyme and Rhthym ~ Event Light ~ MADE Beauty Co ~ Cathy Wiebe Clothes

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Planning a wedding at Assibinoine Park Pavilion and want to elevate the space? 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 (like a greenery canopy hung above your dinner tables!), 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 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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