fabric...glorious fabric!

I have to say this "Practice Wedding" idea is a dream come true. I highly recommend it to anyone - even if they aren't having their real wedding in Israel! That is two opportunities to decorate to your hearts content!

So, lately I've been consumed by fabric. There are just so many yummy designs I can hardly contain myself. I kind of want to cover everything I own right now. I have a sneaky suspicion this could get out of hand in a very scary way!

Luckily Toronto-based on-line fabric store Tonic Living is there to feed my addiction. And at such amazingly affordable prices too! I could sit here all day and just look...as a matter of fact...I think I just did!

les chaises ... mismatched!

So all three of us Bloomers stumbled upon the same to-die-for wedding pics the other day, proving that as designers, we definitely have consistent taste! On the Martha Stewart Weddings (of course!) site, we found pictures of a most spectacular barn wedding (above). We loovve barn weddings, and can't wait for the day when we have our very own barn venue!
The most special part of these pictures in my opinion? The mismatched chairs! What a great idea - it really adds to the sweet, simplistic and vintage appeal.

Does it seem familiar? Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi did the same thing at their gorgeous wedding! See a pic from Ellen's website below. Mismatched chairs...smells like a new trend to me!!

wee wedding wonderful

I am no longer considered a "newlywed" as of today - it is my one-year anniversary! But I wanted to show some of my wedding photos here to reflect on the amazing day. The wedding was both planned and designed by inBloom Events + Design - and although it was a small backyard affair, and a little rainy to boot, it certainly didn't lack on beauty and charm.

After the wedding, to our surprise, we received a thank you note from one of our guests! The note captured the essence of the wedding we were trying to portray, and it said "I have never enjoyed a wedding as much as yours. I came home on a 'high'. Were you trying to be unique yet simple? You succeeded! From my point of view, your setting, background, environment, food, music, guests, were perfect!! It was filled with love, joy, and acceptance. It was whimsical, like a fairy-tale come true." We were so happy that our guests "got" what we were trying to do! Weddings don't have to be elaborate, expensive free-for-alls, but they can be simple and charming and warm and fun. Sneak a peek at my 'wee wedding' and see what I mean...

holy wedding planning!

Must not forget about my very own beachy wedding in the Holy Land. With the summer coming to an end I realize the countdown is on…we are going to Israel in November to make all arrangements for next August. This deserves a big scary OY as it will probably be the last time we go before the wedding! OOOYYYY!

But fear not, look at all the lovelies I’ve been collecting! Now if it were only as easy to collect Israeli photographers, DJs, florists, hair and make-up artists…


The perfect colour combination for my aqua and orange beach wedding. Thanks to one of my fave wedding blog sites Weddingbee I'm even more excited about the yumminess of my chosen colours!




Oh Martha Stewart, what would I do without you?


Cheapy cheap but beautiful bougainvillea! Oh the cleverness...

Oh Martha Stewart, what would I do without you?

a little wedding somethin' somethin'

It's come to my attention that there's a great little wedding somethin' somethin' out there. A close friend of mine just tipped me off that Fawn Ceramics sells awesome hand-sculpted ring dishes, for when you need to take off your precious wedding & engagement rings, and put them aside for a moment or two. When you're doing dishes?! When you're Mr. Cleaning the apartment?! When you hop into the shower?! A great little piece of eye candy, if I do say so myself, and a cure to the panic that arises when OCD kicks in, and you suddenly forget where you placed your rings for safe-keeping! I myself took a quick jaunt to the Distillery District and picked 3 of them up (one for Joelle, one for Shayna, and one for a recently engaged friend) at Fawn Ceramics' studio just yesterday!

i heart scandinavian design

You know it will be a great day when you receive the new IKEA catalogue in the mail...yippeee! It is filled with so many decorating possibilities and combinations. I really am a sucker for the simple and functional style of Scandinavian design.


Which is why on a recent shopping trip to the charming town of Port Perry (just north-east of Toronto), Melanie and I were thrilled to find a cute little store tucked away off the main shopping drag. Stockholm Inside housed a wealth of well-designed, and fine-quality housewares. Although very much unlike IKEA in the quality and pocketbook departments (read: great quality, not cheap), that characteristic Scandinavian design sense was all there. And I found myself the proud owner of this beautiful table runner - yippee again! I love the modern 'doiliness' of it. Man, those Swedes are clever...

Mission Vintage Popcorn Maker!

Not entirely out of character, we three strange birds decided that we could not live without owning our very own, circus-style, red, vintage popcorn maker. Searching high and low and everywhere in between we finally scored when we found out that Le Gourmet Chef in Buffalo, NY had one more lonely popcorn maker that had been sitting unloved for over a year. Oh the surprise when they heard we were coming!

However, being from Toronto, Canada, this turned into quite an odd little journey that will forever be remembered as “that trip where that extremely enthusiastic customs officer almost jumped into our backseat to take a closer look at our popcorn maker and made long, chatty conversation about the potential uses of it...”

Here she is in all her glory…ain't she purdy? For rental inquiries you can contact us at http://www.inbloomproductions.com/. Any takers?

good fortunes for your favors

What a pretty little favour from Hanson Ellis - great for an asian-inspired wedding theme! Apparently it was even featured on NBC's Today Show. Too bad you can't eat them up!

i hear Wedding Bells...

It's always pretty exciting to see one of your creations featured in a publication. And so we were really happy that our 'blossom' invitation design was featured in the latest edition of Wedding Bells magazine! Flip to page 26, and the article is about chic, unique lunchtime weddings {sounds like a wee wedding to me}...and our invitations just happen to be the perfect accompaniment! Thanks for the shout-out, Wedding Bells...

role reversal - planning my own wedding!

So, I’m getting married in Israel next year. What a strange place the Holy Land is for planning a wedding. The guests apparently wear jeans, they laugh at the idea of seating plans, they don’t give guest favors, they roll their eyes at spending too much money on flowers and décor but they very willingly pay over $10,000 just to rent the venue alone! And I'm not even going to mention the guest list....OY! Not exactly an easy task for a wedding planner who doesn't speak hebrew and has spent the last few years collecting wild, whimsical and wacky ideas for her own future wedding! But prevail I shall...I'll keep you posted on my continuing saga!

Luckily we (ok…so maybe me!) have decided to hold a “Wee Practice Wedding” a month before our real one for all our friends & fam who aren’t keen on the whole Holy Land thing. My mission is to have the event of my wildest, warped and wacky dreams on the most ridiculously teensy tiny budget imaginable. I don’t think future Mr. Husband quite knows what he is in for (hee hee!) but here is a sneak peak of just a few of the things that have been inspiring me.


Oh how I love the big hair and veil!


Yummy old-fashioned (teal!) armchair found online at www.dkimages.com/.../Furniture-623.html


Oh so cute table for two!

Who doesn't want a vintage popcorn maker?! You can rent a similar one from Hart Entertainment or Woodbridge Party Centre . But I think I might just buy my own!

For the Love of Mailboxes

I've been thinking, lately, about the beauty of old vintage mailboxes. What a great way to present your "gift table"! How much fun would it be for your guests (who are already worried about how to sneakily slip a cheque to you without it getting lost) to be able to mail it to you in your own personal wedding mailbox! Sounds like 1 minute of great fun to me. For 100 guests, that is 100 minutes of fun! And how adorable would it look perched on a table, or even on a post, at your wedding all evening? Determined to do this for an upcoming wedding in October, I have been all eyes for any old steel mailboxes with a vintage red post on it. The verdict? Not easy to find indeed, and not cheap either! Finally found some good candidates, courtesy of blogger Poppytalk.

Clockwise from top, the Chinese Letter Boxes, from pedlars.co.uk, old fashioned rural mailboxes via apartment therapy, Ecco Traditional Mailbox (yummy!) from stacksandstacks.com.

Loving the Ecco Mailbox, I found a cheaper alternative, but perhaps not as vintage looking, at http://www.waysidefence.com/ and their online store.

welcome!

Welcome to the inaugural blog of inBloom Studio and inBloom Productions! We are 'sister' companies (literally...we are actually three sisters!) who have an eye for detail and design. We offer the full package, from graphic and web design services to event planning and event design! We will be posting design and event-related eye candy and ideas up here so be sure to check back.

I'll start this blog with an entertaining idea I love, snipped from a BHG Quick and Easy Decorating mag. Simple but graphically striking - a placecard that is simply a polaroid photo of the sky, with the guest's name scrolled on the bottom. Even if you are lucky enough to have a vintage polaroid camera, sadly the film is being discontinued (help save polaroid!) but this look can be easily re-created by cropping a photo of the sky (or whatever) into a square using your computer's photo editing software, printing it on your home printer, and then cutting it into the shape of a polaroid pic (leave a white border on all sides - just make sure to leave a longer border at the bottom). Scribble your guest's name on the bottom and voila! You are crafty and graphic designy and host extraordinaire...

See you back here soon!