3 Color Palettes that are HOT this Season

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With fall finally here, Floridians are officially in their wedding season! Even though the weather is still ridiculously hot, many couples have decided to include fall colors in their wedding scheme just to pretend that the south experiences some of the autumn weather. Through previous weddings over the past few months and upcoming ones still in progression, these three colors are the ones that we’ve seen most couples choose to incorporate into their special day!

Yellow

Venue: Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk | Photography: Celebrations of Tampa Bay

As one of Pantone’s colors of the year, brides have been eager to include a pop of yellow into their arrangements. Incorporating commonly known yellow flowers, such as sunflowers, is a great way to create a more lively tone to a very warm atmosphere. As stated in Pantone’s website, this hue creates the feeling that everything is going to continue to get brighter, which is what we all hope to achieve throughout the many years of marriage!

Muted Pink

Venue: The Orlo | Photography: Roberts Imagery

Following in the boho vibe that we’ve been seeing over the year, the soft shade of pink has appeared throughout this fall season. By incorporating a muted color and different styles of greenery, couples have been able to create arrangements with dimension while still giving off an earthy feel.

Burgundy

Venue: Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay | Photography: Jon Montis Photography

As we transition closer to the winter season, many couples have included a deep red shade into their wedding. Usually seen in winter weddings, burgundy has recently been utilized in the fall months as a transition color into the colder season.

Hilton Tampa Downtown Wedding – Whitney & Frank

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Whitney and Frank met on www.match.com and a few days later they had their first date (which ironically was St. Patrick’s Day!) After a few months of dating and endless chemistry they both knew that they had found the one. Frank decided to pop the question at one of their favorite restaurants, Armani’s, and surprised Whitney with an engagement party immediately after at her mom’s house!

Since they decided to have their wedding the following summer, Whitney and Frank wanted a venue that offered both their ceremony and reception indoors. Due to the large space and numerous ballrooms, The Hilton in Downtown Tampa became their number one choice. Soon after signing the contract with the venue, Whitney contacted Event Design for centerpieces, flowers, drapery, and other decor items to completely transform the space and prevent it from looking too ballroom-y.

Aside from the standard decor items, Whitney and Frank knew that they needed a large dance floor since they and their guests were very big dancers. To go with their classic color scheme, the couple decided on a matte all white style which allowed the light to bounce off perfectly for their photos!

Looking back on her wedding day, Whitney is glad she hired Event Design to take care of both her decor and florals to avoid having to communicate with numerous vendors. If she could give any piece of advice to couples it would be to provide your vendors with loads of pictures so you both are on the same page. By doing that, Whitney was able to get exactly what she envisioned and create the beautiful wedding that she had always hoped for!

Alsooo, fun fact! Whitney’s Aunt and Uncle were married at the same hotel 30 years prior so looking back at their wedding day Whitney and Frank are glad they were able to experience their first dance in the same room!

Venue: Hilton Tampa Downtown | Photography: Life’s Highlights | Decor, Floral, and Drapery: Event Design

5 Moments to Look Forward to on Your Wedding Day

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Is your wedding day right around the corner? Are you starting to feel the anxious jitters, butterflies, and every other emotion pouring out of you? Even if you still have some time until you walk down the aisle, you can probably relate to this feeling at least once or twice in your life. I mean, you’re only human, right?! So we can all take part in the excitement together, we’ve made a list of some of our favorite moments to look forward to our your special day!

Delivery of Personal Florals

Hand delivering bouquets and boutonnières is one of our favorite things! Typically, these are dropped off first thing in the morning and we love to see everyone’s faces light up once they’re seen. Another bonus to this is that it’s kind of like a sneak peak to what’s in store for the rest of the day!

Decorated Archway

Seeing the ceremony space in general is usually when the “OMG!” moment starts to kick in. Imagine walking down the aisle and seeing your significant other standing in front of the perfect archway that you both dreamed about. This is typically the time of day that your excitement pours out and tears begin to be shed!

Seeing Your Reception Space for the First Time

A lot of the times, the reception area is where couples dedicate the most attention to detail. Through numerous proposals and only mental visions, it is a whole different feeling seeing everything come together for the first time.

Finished Centerpieces

Seeing the arrangements that you once saw on Pinterest but weren’t sure would look good with your wedding colors. After countless hours going back and forth to make the perfect design it finally comes to life and is everything that you had imagined!

Small Touches That You Forgot About

There’s so much going on when you’re planning your wedding that there’s bound to be at least one thing you forgot that you splurged on. Whether it be the custom table numbers or specialty linen, seeing them on display is a nice little reminder of all of the work that you two put into your wedding day!

Okay, okay. We know there are far more than only five moments to look forward to on your wedding day. We could probably make an entire website dedicated to these occasions. After all, your wedding day is what you make of it so there’s a million things that you can be excited about!

Thanks to the awesome photographers Darin Crofton Photography, Lifelong Photography Studios, Jon Montis Photography, Sunglow Photography, & JCanelas Photography

Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay Wedding – Kimber & Nick

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Kimber and Nick met at a bar in their hometown of Chicago, Illinois. They began dating and eventually took their first vacation at the Grand Hyatt in Tampa Bay. They immediately fell in love with the hotel and after Nick gave a heartfelt proposal a few years later they knew that they had to come back to Tampa, Florida to exchange their vows.

After much discussion Kimber and Nick decided that they wanted to go with a modern theme that included blue and white hues. They decided to focus a portion of their attention to the ceremony space by including drapery and hanging blue delphinium flowers from the top. They also had two large arrangements on either side of the aisle that accented the sweetheart table when it was placed between them after the ceremony was over.

For the remainder of the reception space, the couple decided to include soft touches such as uplights, lilies, and blue table runners. Looking back on her day, Kimber says she is happy she put so much attention to the details and was able to get exactly what she envisioned. Though she claims that marrying Nick was the best part of her wedding, we think that our help with executing the decor came in a close second ;)

If Kimber could give any piece of advice to couples who are planning their wedding she would recommend finding vendors who stay in contact with you throughout the whole process. With planning a destination wedding, she was extremely comfortable with the constant communication between everyone on the Event Design team. Kimber is thankful that we took the time to discuss her entire vision and provide a variety of different options in order to achieve her dream decor. “(Event Design) helped us create the most beautiful set up and make our design dream a reality! (They) handled everything and communicated with our other vendors to make the day go flawless!!”

Venue: Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay | Photographer: Carrie Wildes

I’m Engaged! Which Vendors do I Hire First?

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Ceremony Venue: Bell Shoals Baptist Church | Reception Venue: The Regent

You just became engaged and can finally start the planning process for one of your most memorable days! Once a set budget is in mind, you might ask yourself where to start and which vendors should you reach out to first? While every single one of them is important in making a smooth and painless wedding day, there are a few that we recommend going to immediately to ensure availability!

Venue

We highly encourage couples to decide on a wedding location before they even pursue other venders. Once a date is chosen, you will be able to get a better idea on availability of other venders and if the facility is within their area of travel. Additionally, certain venues only allow the use of their preferred venders which could limit the ones to choose from.

Planner/Coordinator

Planners and coordinators are under utilized gems inside the wedding industry! It might not seem like it at first, but planning everything out and sticking to a schedule is a full time job! Having someone there to map out every detail and create a timeline can alleviate unnecessary stress and make everything run much more smoothly.

Photographer

There’s an art to taking the perfect photograph so if you’re in love with someone’s work don’t hesitate to reach out to see their availability! Photographers (especially well known ones) can fill up fast and chances are if you found the best one on Instagram, other couples have too!

Decor/Floral

The possibilities are endless when it comes to the decor and floral aspect of a wedding! We encourage speaking with a company early on to see how much it would cost to recreate absolutely everything that you envision. Once that’s figured out, you will then have the opportunity to decide on what you really want/need as well as get a better idea on how much money you’ll have to spend on other things.

Planning your wedding may seem overwhelming at first, (trust us, we know) but once you have your core vendors figured out everything else will come together more easily. Remember, it’s never too early to reach out to these individuals, especially the ones that you have your heart set on!

There’s a Flower Shortage. Now What?

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Photography: Joyelan.com | Venue: Tampa Garden Club Wedding

Have you noticed over the past few months that the prices of flowers have drastically increased? Whether you’ve purchased an arrangement from a local florist or ran into a grocery store to buy some stems to liven up your house, you’ve probably became aware that pricing is not what it used to be. This may leave you wondering why there is a sudden increase that seemed to happen overnight. Unfortunately, the price surge didn’t necessarily happen “overnight”, but instead has been building up since 2020 and has just now exploded.

To make a long story short, there is a major flower shortage throughout all of the United States. What caused that shortage you may ask? Well, there are a few major reasons that we’ve discussed down below.

Weather/Natural Disasters

One of the biggest struggles that all wholesalers have been experiencing is terrible growing conditions. A lot of the States in the US (and especially Florida) import their flowers from other regions. Many areas have been experiencing heavy rainfalls and flooding which has then caused rot, mold, and bug attracting bacteria.

COVID-19

With the rise of stress caused by the pandemic the need for flowers has also gone to an all time high. Even the smallest “sorry I can’t be with you” arrangements were sent out more frequently which created a surplus demand of flowers.

Closed Ports

In mid 2021 we are still feeling the repercussions of the pandemic which includes many ports being closed. Since we get a large majority of our flowers elsewhere, those areas are still having a hard time making deliveries due to shut downs and newly implemented regulations.

Farmer Strikes

Believe it or not, many farmers from other countries are going on strike due to tax reforms. Even the growers who aren’t taking part in the disagreement are having issues getting to their fields as well as shipping their products due to roadway blockades. Due to the difficulties in other regions, many wholesalers are having delayed orders which may not arrive to their facility until weeks later.

Okay, I understand the shortage, but what does this mean for my wedding planning process?

Florist cannot recommend enough to continue to go about your wedding planning! Just because we are experiencing some difficulties, doesn’t mean that we are unable to help you with your special day. One thing that we do ask is for you not to get your heart set on a certain flower because we are unable to guarantee its availability (especially if it’s outside of its normal growing season). Instead, we can work with an ideal color scheme and flower suggestions such as “I really love ranunculuses but I’d be equally as happy if they needed to be substituted with a similar flower such as a garden rose”.

Our company strives on customer service and loves to be as transparent with you as possible. We hope that these examples of flower shortages helps resolve some unanswered questions and prevent unnecessary stress later on down the road!

Venue 650 Wedding – Caitlin & Brandon

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Caitlin came to Event Design with a dream of getting married outside of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area and instead moving closer to Orlando. After much discussion with her (then) fiancé, Brandon, they decided on renting out an old newspaper printing house in Winter Haven. Venue 650 gave them the industrial vibe that they both were envisioning while still allowing plenty of opportunity to dress up the space with drapery and candle lights!

As soon as they confirmed their date, they decided to reach out to Event Design to get the decor details sorted out. Both Caitlin and Brandon had a vision of a natural theme with greenery, white flowers, and gold accents. Being extremely organized, Caitlin already had prepared HUNDREDS of photographs and inspirational boards of exactly what she wanted. With being over a year out, everything seemed to be going according to plan but then… COVID hit.

Everything seemed to have come crashing down and while still dreaming of having a spring wedding, Caitlin and Brandon decided to privately tie the knot anyway and celebrate with their friends and family later on in the summer at Venue 650.

This wedding was extremely special to Event Design because we had the opportunity to not only help design the space, but to coordinate the big day as well! Venue 650 is every couple and decor company’s dream space while providing a blank slate to work from but still including timeless pieces such as exposed beams and white brick walls. Event Design’s elegant touches such as drapery and custom made farm sweetheart table helped enhance the atmosphere even more. All of the other decor aspects were finished off by including specialty linen, florals, centerpieces, chargers, and furniture to create a memorable atmosphere that the guests (including Caitlin and Brandon) are still talking about!

Venue: Venue 650 | Photography: J Canelas Photography | Videography: J&S Media | Decor/Furniture/Floral: Us! | Hair & Makeup: Femme Akoi