Kelsey and Zach

Give me more fairytale enchanted forest weddings!

Kelsey and Zach held their small ceremony for 28 at a private residence in Graham, WA. Given that this particular groom is my little brother, I may have pulled out all the stops to make this woodsy celebration a dream.

Their color palette inspiration was rusts, oranges, creamy yellow, beige, and blue. I had so much fun shopping the market for this one; I love mixing a neutral in with accents- toffee roses, doria peach button poms, sahara spray roses and a gorgeous creamy apricot lisianthus with dark throat.

I also learned that outside of dahlias and greens, I am no flower farmer! I will stick to my dahlias, hydrangeas, and greens going forward becuase I had no luck with seedstarting and cultivating on a larger than “normal for me” scale- haha. Please send any tips for growing scabiosa, amaranthus, nicottania, or cosmos my way! (The cosmos actually ended up doing pretty well, but it was late…)

However, I did grow more than half of the dahlias we used for the event! It is so satisfying and special to provide those for my events, used here are the cornell bronze, cornell red, viking, lights out, and N-force.

Vendors

Photographer: Ashley Riley Artistry *Some photos on this blog provided by The Copper Dahlia

Venue: Private Residence

Florals: The Copper Dahlia , set-up assisted by Art In Bloom. Sourced from Northwest Wholesale , Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, Flower World, and The Copper Dahlia

Decor Rental: The Copper Dahlia, Little Blue Bird Events

Horse Handling: Art In Bloom

Hair and Makeup: Rendering Beauty

Bridal Gown: Poshmark

Alterations: Sharron’s Alterations, Puyallup

Bride’s Riding Shoes: Justin Boots

Catering: Marlene’s

Kegs: Great Notion

Cake: Kristen Smith, family of the Bride

As guests entered the property they were greeted by a skull with floral cluster on the gate and lead to the ceremony space through the pasture by lanterns. The lanterns continued into the woods to the ceremony space and were adorned with brown sugar dahlias and creme brulee cushion mums, with trailing greenery and ribbons.

Entering the clearing under the trees there was one central tree that I wanted to use as a backdrop and accent piece. Instead of doing a fulling installation, I first made a greenery garland, and built the pieces in three focal points. I brought in the drapey look with lots of agonis and green and bronze amaranthus. An assortment of dahlias (including the variegated stunner N-force) accented large copper disbud mums, doria peach button mums, creme brulee cushion mums, ebony leucadendron, and ferns.

The ceremony took place down a path from the clearing under vine maples and facing a little knoll - let’s call it a hobbit knoll, cause why not? Kelsey’s bouquet was resting on a stump at the beginning of the path along with their welcome sign draped in grapevine from the property.

All of the benches (and the tables!) were cut, assembled, and stained by Zach in the months leading up to the wedding. Lining the back rows were installations of floral clusters mixed with artist’s bracket mushrooms/conks on knotty cherry wood. Each cluster had toffee roses, doria peach mums, onion blooms, ferns, brown curly dock, and musa butterfly ranunculus. I used moss to blend the pieces into the surrounding landscape.

The altar meadow was a combination of potted plants and floral accents; I used potted purple fountain grass, smokebush shrubs, and coneflower (centers only) for some fun texture and height. The tall ninebark was foraged from the next door neighbors, the dark brown curly dock from the pasture, the onion blooms from my neighbor, copious amounts of moss from grandma’s property, and the ferns from the property of the parents of the groom. Filling in the floral accents, I used ebony leucadendron, large copper disbud mums, sahara roses, bronze amaranthus, doria peach button mums, cafe del mar rose, and assorted dahlias.

Kelsey arrived to the ceremony with a special escort named Zena, her mom’s horse that Kelsey also rides until her own horse Lu is of age. Zena wore a garland of greens with clusters of ferns, roses, and cushion mums on either side. After coming through the sunlight in the trees, she met her mom waiting at the edge of the clearing with her bouquet and made her way up the aisle where the ceremony was officiated by Kelsey’s step-dad.

Kelsey’s bouquet was a cascade style with trailing agonis, amaranthus, grapevine, and ninebark. The star blooms of this bouquet were definitely the toffee roses and deep, deep, black red dahlias, and the sahara spray roses, chocolate cosmos, and apricot lisianthus were beautiful. I also ensured that the cornell bronze dahlias were stems I specifically grew, and I used the cafe del mar roses for the pop of red. Stems were then ribbon wrapped with a base of cream and an overlay of light blue vintage extra wide lace ribbon. There were also a few sahara standard roses, which was used in both mine and my sister’s cascade bridal bouquets for our weddings- making it a tradition!

I managed to get on the list for a photo op with Kelsey and Zena, months of prep and planning for this moment.

For Zach, I designed a lapel boutonniere with another cornelle bronze I grew, chocolate cosmos, sahara spray roses, deer fern, agonis, and amaranthus.

For other personals for the family, I kept the boutonnieres simple with agonis, deer fern, and sahara spray roses, with the addition of chocolate cosmos for corsages.

I can’t stop smiling at the picture of Zach and his grandma.

After the ceremony I moved some of the components of the altar and the mushrooms from the aisle to the end of the long table.

The hanging chandelier was decorated with droopy accents of green and bronze amaranthus, musa butterfly ranunculus, agonis, blue echinops, and cushion mums.

Amongst the beige runner and moss were petite airy centerpieces, gold mercury glass votives, and silver taper candles in assorted heights.

The centerpieces had high texture from the bronze curly dock and low texture from the ninebark blooms, nestled in the moss. The apricot with dark throat lisianthus absolutely stunned among the blue echinops, musa butterfly ranunculus, doria peach button mums, and deer fern. I was shooting for a more rusty-red ranunculus but I love how the musa color had two tones and lightened up the accents on the table a bit.

Kelsey really went all out on the table accessories, matching the goblets, cuttlery, chargers, assorted napkin rings (there were a few apples becuase -duh- Twilight forever), and napkins to the family china with beige and blue dainty floral print.

Kelsey’s cousin provided the wedding cake, which I adorned with two levels of clusters inside the cake stand accented with moss. There’s something about the dark chocolate cosmos on a neutral cake that makes them look like they’re dancing among the cornell bronze dahlias, musa butterfly ranunculus, sahara spray roses, and deer fern.

I love how the fabric and trailing grapevine turned out on this dresser that served as the cake table. Can you tell it was an 86 degree day though?

Zach and Kelsey I’m so honored that you let me run with your inspiration and trusted me to work my floral magic for such a special day!