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Amy and Matt’s gorgeous Sorrento Hotel wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty today! You may remember my previous post, but be sure and check out the feature for more of Kip Beelman‘s gorgeous images.

seattle wedding flowers

I thought things would slow down in the autumn, but it turns out that everything’s still moving full steam ahead in the design studio! So many summer and early fall weddings to share with you over the next few weeks but for many of them, I’m waiting to receive the professional pictures.  Some of those are from Erin and Evan’s beautiful Woodland Park Rose Garden wedding back in September but Erin just sent me a couple of pictures that her guests took and I had to share…

Finch & Thistle Woodland Park Bride and GroomLove that instragram app (almost as much as I love the Cafe au Lait dahias)! I’m dying to show you the ceremony decor – a gazebo dripping with antique hydrangea and garden roses – but for now, here’s one picture that I took of the centerpieces as we set up the reception space at The Canal.

Seattle Event Designer

 

Amy and Matt’s intimate 40 person wedding took place in the Penthouse in Capital Hill’s Sorrento Hotel and was captured beautifully in these images by Kip Beelman. The bride and groom wanted a soft, vintage look with lots of texture and unexpected floral elements such as succulents and nigella pods. I used my collection of vintage milk glass for vases and then decorated with vintage books and mason jars in the fireplace and on the cocktail tables. I loved how the room was left “as-is” with it’s cozy furniture and fireplace to welcome guests and then “turned” to bring the tables out for the reception. It made it easy to use all the centerpieces as additional decor for the ceremony.

bride and groom sorrento hotelwhite and green organic boutonnierescloseup white bouquetsorrento hotelmilk glass centerpiecebook fireplace display

library at sorrento

green and white dahlia bouquetsorrento hotel decor

vintage centerpiece seattlesorrento hotel wedding

white and green wedding cakeguestbook display

sorrento hotel weddingbride and bridesmaid bouquets seattle

bride and groom sorrento hotel

Amy and Matt were a lovely couple to work with – so in love and excited about the wedding planning process and the vendors they were working with. Congratulations to you both and all the best as you begin this new phase of your lives together!

 

Jennifer and Jerry’s wedding design was inspired by the bride’s absolutely stunning blush pink Luly Yang gown. Jennifer wanted pink flowers but she wanted an edgier, more urban look to match the wedding venue – Tom Douglas’ Palace Ballroom.

Finch & Thistle Palace Ballroom wedding

Jennifer and Jerry’s photographer, Barbara Kinney, is a Seattle based photographer who was the official photographer for the Clinton Administration White House and Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

pink and grey bridal bouquet

I decided to contrast the various pink tones with grey, red and a deep chocolate and keep the look very textured with stem upon stem of garden roses, grey berzilia, koko puff dahlias and red sedum.  Dark plum and brown flowers and foliage (chocolate dahlias, nine bark and smoke bush) helped give the arrangements contrast against the blush pink linens and tied in the reception to the ceremony’s dark chiviari chairs.

brown chivari chair tiespink and plum wedding centerpieces

pink and brown centerpieces

pink vintage centerpiece

sweet little flower girls

brown, red and pink bridesmaid bouquetspink and brown chair posyA cupboard and chandelier from Vintage Ambiance was used first as the “altar” and then as the backdrop for the stunning cake table by The People’s Cake.

vintage cupboard altar

I absolutely adore these garden roses. So beautiful and they also have an amazing scent. They provide a lovely ruffled look like a peony when peonies aren’t in season (and are as pricey as peonies, but worth every penny).

pink wedding vintage

Kelsey from Sugarcomb Event Design put together this fabulous escort card display using a wine barrel from Jennifer and Jerry’s winery, Guardian Cellars, with a monogram mimicking the wedding invitation.

creative escort card displayIt’s rare that I attend a cake tasting, but Jennifer invited me to come along and share with Kaysie of The People’s Cake the actual colors and flowers that I would be using for the arrangements.

pink and rose gold wedding cakes

So thrilled to see Abbie and Matt’s gorgeous Golden Gardens wedding featured on Style Me Pretty today! You may remember some of the images by Nickel Images that I shared a few weeks back, but check out the article for even more beautiful photos and all the details from Abbie.

Real Seattle wedding by Finh & Thistle

August is busy

Understatement of the summer, perhaps? So very busy that it’s hard to find time to even look through the latest flower pictures, let alone post them. Here’s a couple from this weekend and I’ll try to get some more up after next weekend’s triple header but it might just have to be September instead. Promise it’ll be worth the wait!

Seattle wedding flowers centerpiece

The dusty looking flowers are scabiosa. I love them. They come in a beautiful range of red, yellow and purple hues from faded to vibrant. And don’t get me started about the clematis. I almost died when I saw the double blossoms at the market. Raspberry colored, ruffled blossoms on vines so dark that they almost look blue. Seriously gorgeous.

Seattle vintage wedding flowerswhite garden roses, scabiosa and clematis
scabiosa and clematis

Published: Not Just Another Guestbook…

Looking for a creative way to remember the big day without using the standard guest book? I recently shared a couple of fun ideas with writer Anna Sachse that were published around the web

4 Unique Guest Book Ideas … No Book Required

July 14, 2011 1:59 pm by Anna Sachse

Friend & Family Recipe Book

For a sweet (or savory) reminder of loved ones, Rachel Bowes, owner of Seattle-based Finch & Thistle Events, suggests including a blank recipe card with your invitation, as well as a note requesting that guests scribble down a favorite recipe (and why it’s meaningful) and bring the card to the wedding. At the reception, set up a table where guests can then affix their card to a classy notebook, and find blank cards if needed.

Guest Book Box

Mette Morgan, co-founder and editor of DIYWedding.org, suggests decorating a heart-shaped box (with a lid!) and either cutting out or buying a stack of heart-shaped pieces of thin cardboard – at least one per guest. You can then either set up a table or hand out the hearts during dinner. After all the guests write their messages, the hearts are placed in the box, which is then sealed and not to be reopened until your first anniversary.

To see the rest of the ideas, you can check out Anna’s article here.

August Floral Workshop

Seattle floral design workshopIf you’ve ever wanted to learn how to arrange a centerpiece for a dinner party or just to prettify your house, now’s your chance! In collaboration with Blossom & Bloom, we are offering a Summer floral design workshop at 7pm on Thursday, August 25 in the garden of our West Seattle studio. Come and sip cocktails, munch on some tasty treats and have fun while learning the basic principals of floral design and mechanics of making an arrangement that looks great using blooms from the market and your own garden/neighborhood park/condo landscaping.

For $125 you will go home with an arrangement valued at over $85 designed by you! We’ve limited the spaces to ensure everyone gets enough personal attention so sign up now to reserve your place!

You can sign up on our Facebook page here. If the class is already sold out, email us at rachel@finchandthistleevents.com and we’ll add you to the wait list. If there is demand, we may add another workshop date.

I am so thrilled to have a shoot I designed and styled featured on my favorite wedding blog, Style Me Pretty, today! Huge thanks are due to Angela and Evan Photography for stunning images, Iwona Konarski for the lovely ombre stationery, Teryl Hawk for gorgeous hair and makeup, Melanie Backschies of Plum Cushion for the beautiful coordinating pillows, Baked for the cute and delicious wedding cake, our models Caleb and Chelsea for braving the cold, and Wine and Roses for allowing us to shoot in their barn.

Finch & Thistle on Style Me PrettyCheck it out here and tell us what you think!

 

Abbie and Matt’s June wedding at Golden Gardens has to be my favorite wedding to date. Abbie was a dream client – a bride with vision on a mission to craft every element of her big day who loved every idea I dreamed up. I loved the location – Golden Garden’s Bathhouse, I loved the catering plan – Taco truck and Molly Moon’s ice cream, and I loved the high style, low budget vintage travel theme. An all around love-fest. Very fitting seeing as Abbie told me afterwards that someone told her the reception decor could be summed up in one word – “love.”

After months of planning, designing, cutting out tiny felt mustaches (Abbie), and growing (I let my catmint grow rampant in preparation for this wedding), Julie and I arrived to set up around noon and were met with bags and bags of paper pom-poms, paper place mats, shells and vintage bottles. Then I got to roam free, setting up all the prop displays and floral arrangements, hanging ribbon and pom-poms and decorating to my heart’s desire. Did I not say it was a dream wedding?

I really struggled to narrow down the images I wanted to share. I took so many pictures and then I saw the gorgeous images from Nickel Images and just went a bit wild. Definitely check out the Nickels’ blog for more details (a two part post!) of the day and some words from Abbie about her inspiration. There’s a story for every prop display…

{All images courtesy of Nickel Images unless otherwise credited}

The bride and bridesmaids wore silver sparkly Toms!

Photography: Finch & Thistle (except top image)

Photography: Finch & Thistle

Photography: Finch & Thistle

Images 2,6,7 Finch & Thistle