This fall has been amazing for us, but we have been starting to feel bad about not blogging more of our weddings.  We got these photos a while back from Ben Tapper, Endless Wave Photography of Ashley and Larry’s wedding.  Ashley met with numerous other florists, including celebrity wedding florist David Tutera (!), and ultimately decided to book their wedding with us because of our “ability to listen and understand the vision” of their special day. Ashley came to us with all of these awesome grasses and bleached peacock feathers and wanted to know what we could do (she was originally thinking DIY but felt too overwhelmed).  We came up with a centerpiece design that was just gorgeous…and only used a few flowers, check it out below.

Ashley and Larry were wed at the Clark’s Landing Yacht Club at the Jersey shore and wanted to embrace the beautiful natural elements of the location. The vintage chandelier, a rental item, was hung above the ceremony space and dressed with springeri fern, white peonies and hanging crystals. What a great way to personalize the ceremony space and create some added romance!

Larry’s bout was made of freesia and bark twine. To honor Larry’s father,  Ashley had a charm made on Etsy which we attached to the bout. A fabulous way to keep a love one close to your heart on such a special day.

Ashley’s hand-tied bouquet was a beautiful mass of white peonies, white ranunculus, quicksand roses, lisianthus and white freesia accented with bleached peacock feathers.

Look at all these gorgeous girls….Ashley was just stunning.

I love looking back on weddings we have done.  How perfect was this day…look at the sky!

High centerpieces were designed to bring grandeur to the reception. Grasses and feathers combine with springeri fern, maidenhair fern, jasmine vine, and roses to create a romantic nature-inspired design. The silver vase adds sparkle and a modern touch to the centerpiece.  We loved these vases so much that we went out and bought our own and now offer them as a rental item.

Working with Ashley was so much fun.  We love the bonds we get to form with our brides and she was one of those that truly felt like a friend to us.  Congrats you two…hope you are enjoying married life!  xoxo

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

As you may know, planning a wedding is all about the details. Sure, the centerpieces, bouquets and cake are the big items that people will notice, but it is the little things that will make your wedding memorable and will pull together your vision. Check out these great extras available at A Garden Party.

Table Runners

Your venue probably offers basic linens, but A Garden Party has fun table runners to place on top of your linens. Check out these gorgeous blue table runners we used at a recent aquarium wedding (more pictures coming later, we promise).

We also love these burlap table runners; they are perfect for rustic weddings. (To see more adorable ideas from Rachael and Connery’s wedding, click here.)

 Lanterns

A Garden Party’s lanterns are a great way to decorate your ceremony or reception space, and they add a beautiful romantic glow. Here are just two ideas for using the lanterns. (They also look amazing with a floral ring as your centerpiece.)

 This is a beautiful way to dress up a dance floor or highlight a sweet heart table.

 This is perfect for a fall wedding. In addition to lanterns, we can incorporate seasonal items such as pumpkins or fresh produce.

Votives

Votives are  a great way to add extra light to your ceremony or reception. A Garden Party has several styles to choose from, and we can use them to decorate a variety of areas such as your cocktail tables, bar, head-table, ceremony area, etc. Here are just two styles available at A Garden Party. For more ideas, please check out our other blog posts as well as our Facebook page.

These pink mercury votives are so pretty. We also have other glassware that matches these votives.

If you want a slightly bigger candle, we  have a variety of glassware that holds floating candles. We can even add ribbon and accents to the containers to coordinate with your colors and theme.

A few other “extras” you should ask A Garden Party about include:

• chair sashes
• cake stands
• napkin treatments
• and anything else your little heart desires.

We’d love to know, what extra details do you plan on adding to your wedding?

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

If you have ever met Dawn and Mary, you know they are all about the details. Before your wedding, they ask for pictures of your dress, the bridesmaid colors and any other fun information you’ll share with them. All of this information allows Dawn and Mary to create flowers that perfectly coordinate with the rest of your wedding. When it comes to wedding planning, details matter.

Click the photo to see Dawn’s Fall Wedding Inspiration Board

Dawn and Mary recently discovered their newest passion: Pinterest. This awesome website lets you create inspiration boards for everything from weddings to home decorating to vacation planning. It is so much easier than clipping and printing pictures and stashing them in a folder. Once you are registered, you will have a new tool on your browser screen that allows you to “pin” ideas from any website.

Click to see Dawn’s Fab Bouquets Board.

What does this mean for A Garden Party?

Before, or even after, you meet with Dawn and Mary, you can create a wedding board to showcase all of your ideas and/or plans. This will help Dawn and Mary create designs that complement your style and vision. You can also ask Dawn and Mary to create a board of ideas for you. (They would love an excuse to spend more time on this website.)

One last board: Click through to see this board of amazing baby’s breath ideas!

On Pinterest, you can also follow friends and businesses. This allows you to get inspiration from other brides and professionals in the wedding industry.

To sign up, visit http://pinterest.com

After a very hot summer, fall is almost here. To kick off the season, I’d like to share five great aisle decor designs by A Garden Party. Feel free to be inspired!

These buckets are perfect for aisle arrangements.

This is my all time favorite fall aisle. The burlap, mums, and sunflowers are the perfect combination.

Sunflowers are a classic fall flower. Plus, I love mason jars.

This design is simple and beautiful.

I love how simple and elegant a single Gerber daisy looks. Plus, the brown and orange are perfect for fall.

We’d love to know, how do you plan on decorating your aisle this fall? What is your favorite fall flower?

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

We are so excited about our new birch canopy! We purchased this beautiful, one of a kind canopy from a former bride of ours. She searched all over for the perfect wedding chuppah for her wedding at Pine Hill Trump National and was unable to find what she wanted. Determined to have the perfect wedding, she had her father and fiance build her dream chuppah. When we showed up on her wedding day to decorate it, we offered to buy it on the spot!! I have never seen a wedding canopy of such quality and presence, I just knew it had to be ours!

Isn’t the canopy absolutely beautiful?! For this particular wedding, we dressed the canopy indoors with a variety of nature inspired elements along with white lilies and amaranthus. Note the fern lined aisle, looooved it! The hanging crystal balls add a touch of glamor.

The generous size of this canopy allows for the bride and  groom to stand underneath of it (rather than in front) along with the officiant, while the wedding party are positioned on either side. This creates a fabulous frame around the couple.

We can picture this canopy being used in a variety of settings and seasons. For this inside ceremony it worked to create a beautiful focal point and then was later moved over their sweetheart table for an enchanting setting. It would be equally stunning used during an outside ceremony. The birch canopy would shine adorned with twinkle lights and hanging ornaments for the winter season and would be perfect for a summer ceremony including hydrangea and roses. If you are interested in renting the canopy please contact us. We look forward to sharing our ideas with you!

I got married about six months ago. After the wedding, I loved  hearing the guests’ thoughts and memories from the wedding. I was shocked by how many compliments we’ve received on the cocktail hour. I always considered the reception the highlight of weddings, but my guests made me re-evaluate my opinions. I now realize that the cocktail hour sets the tone for the rest of the evening. It is the first impression of the reception. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up from my guests and other brides to make your cocktail hour memorable.

•         Consider hosting your cocktail hour in a separate room.
•         Choose a room or area with high tables and bar stools. This allows guests to mingle rather than sitting for an hour.
•         Serve delicious food. Most likely, your guests are hungry and craving something yummy.
•         Consider foods that match your theme.
•         Serve fun drinks that coordinate with your theme. For instance, a beach theme might serve a signature drink such sex on the beach or Malibu bay breeze.
•         Decorate! The cocktail area is just as important as the reception, so utilize candles and flower arrangements to bring life to the cocktail area.

Below are a few designs by A Garden Party that would be perfect as cocktail hour décor.  

This is perfect for a place card table!

Mary and Dawn designed this cocktail table centerpiece for a bridal show at Running Deer. I love the martini glass vase!

Floating candles and orchids are simple but beautiful.

I love the different heights of these candles.

Rose petals and votives are an easy way to dress up the cocktail area.

These cube vases are the perfect size for cocktail tables! Plus, I love the bright colors.

I am obsessed with these spider mums.

This is perfect for a fall wedding.

 So I’d love to know, where do you plan on hosting your cocktail hour? How do you plan on decorating the area?

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact Mary by filling out the form below:

Your wedding cake is one of the central points of the reception and is highly anticipated by your guests. It should be as beautiful as your décor and should match the feel and tone of your wedding. An easy way to do this is to add fresh flowers that coordinate with your centerpieces and bouquets. A Garden Party can add fresh flowers to your cake, starting at $30. Since you might not order your cake before your flowers, this is a common add-on for brides. Please meet with your bakery first to design your cake and then send A Garden Party the cake sketch along with the cake delivery time line.

You can use flowers in a variety of ways on your cake, here are some examples of varying styles that the sisters have done. 

You can place flowers on top and down the layers of your cake like Alison and Fred.

You can place flowers, gerbers in this case, sporadically around the cake like Brynn and Drew.

You can do a pretty diagonal line across the entire cake like Tina and Jeremy.

You can put flowers in between the layers.

You can scatter petals around the bottom of the cake, as you can see here around Dominique and Glenn’s cake.

For more cake ideas, check out our “Wedding Cake” album on Facebook.

Cake Decorating Tips:

·         Design your cake with flowers in mind. You don’t want the flowers to look like an afterthought. Send a cake sketch to your florist to keep them in the loop! A nice inspirational photo never hurt anyone

·         White or cream-colored icing looks great any color flowers, but don’t be afraid to experiment with other colors. Let your baker do their thing; dare to be different!

·         Choose flowers that coordinate with the flowers used in your centerpieces and bouquets. You want everything to work together seamlessly.

·         Prepping and storing flowers can be challenging. You may want to let your florist handle this task. We have had experiences where the bakery is in charge of getting coordinating flowers, and that NEVER goes well. If the baker wants to decorate the cake, just let us know what time to have the loose flowers at the venue. 

So we want to know, do you plan on using fresh flowers to decorate your cake?

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact Mary by filling out the form below:
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Wow – last week was INSANE.  Hurricane Irene really tried to throw us for a loop….but Mary and I hung in there and got both of our weddings delivered and set up.  We even delivered our Cape May wedding a day early because of the mandatory evacuation!!!  The whole thing was crazy, but at the same time, amazing.  We love making our brides happy, and seeing both of our brides so happy on their wedding days, even with a hurricane looming, made our job extremely rewarding.  We have been super busy, and I have weddings stockpiled just waiting to be blogged about and I am so excited to share this wedding with you.  Anya and Matt were married this past May at the Aldie Mansion in Doylestown, PA.  The Aldie Mansion is gorgeous, both inside and out, as you will see in these pictures from Loveshack Photo. 

Anya was GORGEOUS.  I loved the softness of her bouquet.  We used white peonies, white sweetpea, yellow freesia, craspedia, succulants, buplureum, and geranium leaves.

Seriously…is this girl flawless or what!!!

I love a bouquet that has some movement to it.  I also really love that this looks very bridal because of the white, but is made more modern with the pops of yellow and green.

One last shot…just because the picture is so perfect.

For the bridesmaid we used the same flowers but in a more delicate size. We wrapped the stems with pale yellow ribbon and accented with rope.

I am all about craspedia for bouts.  How cute is this!  We accented the craspedia with a skeleton leaf, a tiny succulant, and accented the stems with a knot of rope.

Daisies made the perfect halo for this adorable flower girl.  Look at the adorable banner she is carrying!

This picture shows just how truly beautiful the Aldie Mansion really is.  Even on a day filled with thunderstorms, the outside was just pristine.

This has nothing to do with flowers, but I had to include it.  What a sweet idea!

For the centerpieces we used antique glassware that we collected (thanks mommom!).  Each table had either milk glass, green glass, or clear glass vases clustered in the center filled with monobotanical arrangments.

I thought this was an amazing idea…friends of the Anya and Matt called and ordered an arrangment to be sent and set up at their wedding.  I made this the morning of the wedding….and seeing it again reminds me of how much fun I had putting it together.

An owl cake topper = totally adorable!

 Thank you Anya and Matt for sharing this pictures with us, and for letting us be a part of your wedding day.  We loved working with you!!!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact Mary by filling out the form below:
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Flowers are a beautiful way to glam up your hairstyle on your wedding day. (It is also perfect for bridesmaids and flower girls.) The tradition of decorating your hair with flowers dates back to the 1800s. In the 60s, girls wore flowers in their hair to portray their connection to nature and symbolize love, innocence, and divine beauty. (Mary always says that she would definitely wear fresh flowers in her hair if she could do her wedding over again! There are only a few occasions that it fits!)

According to Hairfinder.com, certain flowers symbolize different emotions and characteristics. The site suggests that the flowers below have the following meanings.

Daisy – innocence and purity
Gardenia – secret love
Camellia – gratitude
Ginger – strength
Tuberose – forbidden pleasures
Hibiscus – delicate beauty, sensitivity
Red rose – passion, love
Pink rose – friendship, admiration, happiness
Apricot rose – desire, admiration, modesty
White rose – purity, secrecy, spiritual love
Jasmine – Sensuality
Yellow carnation – disappointment, rejection
Spider Flower – “run away with me”
Violet – modesty, faithfulness

You can add flowers to a variety of hairstyles, including hair that is down, up or half down. Flowers can also used to create a headband, which is adorable on flower girls. Check out these picture of A Garden Party brides (and flower girls) who wore flowers in their hair.

Lindsey and Rich’s Wedding 

Rachael and Connery’s Wedding 

Shannon and David’s Wedding 

Julie and Glenn’s Wedding

So we want to know, what do you plan to wear in your hair?

Anyone who has any experience planning a wedding, or special event, knows that flowers can be expensive. By the time you order centerpieces and bouquets and toss petals and any other flowers your heart desires (after all, it is your special day), you have probably spent a good chunk of your budget. Recently we have had a few requests from family members and friends of the couple, about possibly paying for certain aspects of a couple’s dream wedding, specifically their flowers.

It is becoming common for couples to request unusual shower gifts, such as money towards the honeymoon or a donation to charity. Enter A Garden Party Florist’s idea —A Garden Party Florist Gift Cards. You can purchase a gift card for any amount and give it to the bride as a gift. Best of all, Dawn and Mary can attach it to a flower and make sure it is as adorable as all of their other work. (Translation: No boring gift card in a plan white envelope.)

The gift card can be used towards any Garden Party Florist purchase, including those expensive orchids you fell in love with even though they were a little more expensive than your original plan.  All you bridesmaids out there that aren’t sure what to give the bride at her bridal shower…how about a gift card towards her wedding flowers!

These gift cards are also a great idea for anyone who needs or wants flowers.  After all, brides aren’t the only people who love flowers!

If you’re a bride, feel free to pass this exciting news on to anyone who might need a good gift idea. (Not everyone wants to buy you towels and spatulas.) If you know a bride who would love this idea, contact Dawn or Mary at 609-364-2529 or mary@gardenpartysisters.com to purchase a gift card.