Reader question: What materials to drape with?

So it seems there has been a lot of reader traffic on this blog while I’ve been busy! In the past week that I’ve been busy with other commitments related to work and a non-profit organization I’m involved with, I got my first reader question. How exciting!

Here is Becky’s question:

WOW! Your designs are wonderful! I was hoping you could give me a suggestion of a website, book, or whatever to learn to drape for decorating. My son is getting married in June on the historic Halley’s Bluff over looking the Osage River. (Missouri). His bride to be’s family owns the property. (Actually has a little cave under the bluff where Jesse James had a hide out!). I purchased a beautiful wrought iron gazebo from Sam’s club for the event. (I will have item in my yard after the wedding.). What kind of fabric do you suggest for draping? I have heard tulle, but than also read tulle “was tacky”. Voile is another fabric I have heard, but very expensive. Does tulle work for you? Any suggestions? I will definitely mark your site as a favorite! By the way, inour area we do not have anybody who does this for hire. Thanks. Becky

This is a good question. There are a lot of fabrics out there, but they all drape, or lie, differently on different surfaces. There are some better for laying against a table, others that look better hanging freely, others that…well, you get the picture. Let me give you a few examples.

Continue reading →

Drape your wedding in garlands

I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend Jinah’s wedding. One thing about decorating for a friend is that you don’t want to disappoint — but at the same time, you don’t want your friend to be a drill sergeant, barking orders about how to do this, or do that that way. Luckily for me, Jinah has given Caroline and I pretty free reign on what to do, mostly just telling us she wants the colors to be silver and gold. Hey, that works for me!

Problem with that approach is now there’s too many possibilities! But when I think about the house where Jinah is going to get married, all I can think of are all the horizontal and vertical lines there are — all the balconies on the second floor, the height of the portico, the top of the portico, not to mention the pool’s fountain. There are so many surfaces to decorate! So I naturally began to think of garlands.

Continue reading →

Decorating with fabric: tulle vs. English netting

When I was decorating weddings, my weapon of choice was always fabric. A variety of fabrics, actually — English netting, organza, sequined fabrics, whatever I could get my hands on. But it seems there is a lot of confusion when it comes to whether you’re looking at tulle or English netting.To me, the distinction is easy. Above, I used English netting on this cake table for my friend Cathy (for whom I was a bridesmaid). English netting is soft to the touch, it floats, flows and hangs easily. English netting, in my experience, has been best used for accents to more high-impact fabrics like organza. English netting is what you might actually wear, its so soft and nice to feel against the skin.

Photo by Flickr’s Kyrielle

I believe there are many different types of tulle, and above is an example of what I call a crunchy variety. Tulle for many brides can be preferable — its cheaper and its easier to mold. Its often used for giveaways and favors like this one.

Photo by Flickr’s Details of the Day

[ad#top-of-post-adify-bridal-click]
Fabric is probably most often used for draping along the aisle for the ceremony. Even in a case like this, I like using English netting more than tulle, even though tulle might behave better. However, when decorating with fabric outside, just beware the wind — fabric is still fabric and it can act like a sail in windy conditions.

Photo by Flickr’s Wedding or Party Decorations

I have generally used English netting sparingly, but it can be very pretty when used in excess, like the gazebo above. A set up like this is not difficult, even for you DIY brides — buy a couple dozen yards of English netting (seriously), attach one end to the top, let it fall to the ground, and loop it back up. Repeat as many times as the fabric will allow and feel free to vary the lengths. But I gotta say, recreating a set up like this one will require several yards of English netting, and it can get expensive. Maybe try different fabrics.

Photo by Flickr’s mcwaneevents

Check out this ceremony set up. Spectacular, no? Ceiling and wall decorations, however, take a lot of time, so remember that when you’re booking your site, if this is the type of decor you want. The fabric hanging from the walls and ceilings of this tent have to be English netting because I don’t believe tulle can hang like that. Or maybe it can, but you probably have to shell out for the more expensive varieties. Don’t forget to check out that pretty little backdrop. I believe those are stargazers and gerber daisies hanging along the backdrop.

Now, I need your help. I have tons of pictures but am unsure of what y’all want. Do you want to see more pictures of tulle, English netting, organza, etc? Do you want to see more about individual flowers? Or do you like the weird wedding asides? Let me know, because if not, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.
[ad#chitika]

Color indecision at the Ramada Suites in Covina

Look. Do us all a favor. If you’re having a big party, choose one color. If you like pink, go with pink. Or, if you like baby blue – go with the baby blue. Both are great colors. But the two should never be paired together outside of a nursery, but maybe not a personal nursery, since that baby may not know if s/he is supposed to be aligning him/herself with the pink or the blue. Anyway, just choose one, especially since the hotel may not have napkins that are your exact color of pink or blue.

This was an 18th birthday party/debut, but I could’ve sworn it was a baby shower for boy and girl twins.
[ad#chitika]

So much to like at the Friendly Hills Country Club

Ah, the Friendly Hills Country Club in Whittier. I literally grew up down the street from this place. When I was told I was going here, I knew I’d been here before, but I had no memory of the place.

There was a lot to work with here. Check out the huge fireplace…

…and the amazing scenery…

With all our stuff, can you imagine what we could do with this place? Well, I suppose you don’t have to imagine.

I couldn’t seem to stop taking pictures of this place. I mean, not only was it a beautiful day, and not only was the place gorgeous, the colors of the wedding were perfect – a light, yet high-impact champagne color that was more an elegant complement to the scenery, as well as the room where the reception was held. Plus there were those huge, bay windows – absolutely beautiful. The Friendly Hills Country Club really turned out to be a hidden gem.

Oh, but you know I’m not all about work, right? I absolutely loved that there were all these ducks waddling around. I absolutely love ducks.

Ducks, unfortunately, don’t love me. I kept trying to get closer to take their pictures, but they kept waddling away from me.

Oh, but of course that’s not it. I saw this sign as I was on my way out to my car. A unicorn crossing sign. I love it. I love it! A place that has a sense of humor gets high grades.

[ad#chitika]

25 years at the Glendale Hilton

I can’t remember the last time I worked with yellow, but I sure do remember the Glendale Hilton well. It used to be a Red Lion, but in spite of the name change, it has always been the site of the annual GPOA Police Officers’ Luncheon – an event I covered twice. It was a tad weird to be back in a totally different capacity.

I had about an hour and a half to decorate a sweetheart table, a backdrop and a cake table, but I was able to finish in time to make a stop at Porto’s for potato balls and a steak torta sandwich. Hey, I don’t live near Glendale anymore, OK?
[ad#top-of-post-adify-bridal-click]

It’s not hard to dress up a room that’s already pretty nice. The seat covers belong to the hotel, not us.

I love this new technique my mom has been incorporating, also – using a trumpet vase, putting flowers (orchids mostly) in and filling it with water. It’s a classy, simple technique.

The colors were yellow and silver – a 25th wedding anniversary. Man – a 25-year marriage warrants a medal, or something, but I suppose a big party works too.

And the yellow and silver doesn’t look half bad together, either.

I know my last post was in June, but I swear I’ve decorated other weddings – like one at the Marriott Long Beach and others I can’t recall anymore. This is just the one I happened to have both before and after pictures of.

And, as I was leaving the hotel, I noticed a bunch of guys were walking through in biker’s chaps – not a sight you’d normally see at the Glendale Hilton unless it was the weekend of the Love Ride. And it was. I would’ve taken a picture of the guys, but that would have been rude. So I took a picture of their hogs in the hotel garage.

All pictures were taken by Darleene Powells.
[ad#chitika]

The bridesmaid edition

This past weekend – actually, these past six months – I’ve been sort of the bridesmaid of all trades. (Yes, I made that up all by myself.) Besides putting together my old friend Cathy’s wedding website (with all the custom design done by my husband Trinity), I’ve decorated her bridal shower, her wedding and was her bridesmaid. That was one busy weekend, let me tell you.

This time, the wedding was at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena. Decorating a wedding you have to be in is always an interesting experience. Last time I did it, I was maid of honor in my friends’ Iliki & Mel’s wedding, but their wedding wasn’t as, um, huge as Cathy’s.

Because it was a morning wedding and because I had to, you know, get made up and have my hair done between 5 or 6 in the morning the day of the wedding, there wasn’t going to be any time to do all this the morning before the ceremony. So I had to start decorating the sweetheart table, cake table and backdrop the night before. Luckily, the Ritz Carlton banquet and catering department was very accomodating and had everything ready even at 3 p.m. Friday, when I was there for the wedding rehearsal. We went to a rehearsal dinner in nearby Alhambra at 5 p.m., and I returned to the Ritz Carlton by about 7 p.m. I finished decorating and got home by 9:30 p.m., but probably didn’t go to bed till midnight – and even then I couldn’t sleep. I probably got an hour’s sleep that night.

One of the cool things about this wedding was that Cathy wanted alternating tall and short arrangements. And the tall ones were spectacular – a trumpet vase full of water, with one stem of Hawaiian orchids in it, topped with white and pink Thai orchids. Nice.

And I know it seems like all the weddings I’ve done lately – including this one – have been garden weddings, but that’s not the only type we do. I promise we do a lot of church weddings too – just not lately. I didn’t write about it, but I did go to the Almansor Court again this year. I just didn’t write about it again, since, well, I just did.

I was just really happy that everything had turned out as nice as it did. Cathy is an old friend, one I’ve known since I was a sophomore in high school (more than 10 years ago!), so it was nice to be able to use my talents for someone I know and love.

Here is the master of the wedding flowers herself, Aida Barrientos. I love taking pictures of my mom as she works. Only thing is, I only seem to be able to catch her working on the cake tables. Go figure.

It’s also always good to get candid photos of each other. Here’s my brother, lost in the garland, after cleaning up the hotel’s Horseshoe Garden. This garland was made of live, cut greens and had several humongous Colombian roses gathered where it met the row.

Here is the cake table. Now, please remember – even though I write sort of nonchalantly about doing this, I was a wreck approaching the wedding day, trying to figure out how the logistics would work. There’s never any guarantees that the florist (that would be us) can get all the time needed to work on site. And even though I lucked out and got the time I needed, knowing that I was decorating a wedding that I was also part of threw me off a little. I even had to redo the backdrop twice! It’s always hardest decorating the weddings you’re also attending, which is maybe why I rarely attend weddings. Well, historically, anyway.
[ad#chitika]