Modern Vintage

Today's wedding week focus are flowers, ambiance and, the cake!

First up, Flowers. My favorite florist and Per Se's exclusive man, Luis Collazo, has fans that include Barbara Walters and Donald Trump but, is as down to earth as any incredibly talented person can be. In fact, I had no qualms discussing ways to cut-back on my floral budget for the wedding with him. Luis was not only my choice designer for his beautiful designs but, also, as Per Se's exclusive florist, I knew I could some how incorporate the restaurant's weekly arrangements seamlessly with my wedding's floral design. With that in mind, I asked that Per Se's arrangements for the week somehow matched my wedding colors and Luis and I decided on cream and off-white arrangements for my ceremony room, the bar and cocktail hour area and small chic centerpieces that worked to enhance the beauty of the nine-course dishes being served. The end result, I was only responsible for the ceremony and cocktail hour arrangements as well as personal bouquets and boutonniere.

Luis also worked with Per Se's pastry chef on the perfect look for my cake. Tons of sugar flowers were created to match my ceremony arrangements and bouquet. During my tasting and meals at Per Se prior to my wedding, I noticed they used all off-white dishes marked by patterned textures like herringbone, swirls and architectural lines. I knew I wanted an ivory cake and thought it would be great to mimic the dish patterns by swaping solid and basket-weave fondant covered tiers. I was blown away when I saw the finished product. On my last meeting with Per Se, we decided that we would like the cake to be served as any dessert would at Per Se would; the slices were plated beautifully with all it's appropriate trimmings.

We kept the centerpieces quite simple (the way Per Se's usual table arrangements are) to let the dishes shine. The dining room is so beautiful as well as the spectacular view of Central Park and Columbus Circle that we felt it would be ostentatious to have it any other way.

In keeping with the design of the restaurant, I searched for unique ways to display wedding essentials like the guest book and card box. I found a beautiful lidded glass jar at Pottery Barn and used that as a container for Vintage NY Postcards for guests to leave messages on in lieu of a traditional guestbook and instead of a card box, I bought a large lantern also from Potterybarn.  

Because my husband and I spent our entire lives in NYC. we chose to name our tables after cross streets of locations that are important to us (see my invitation stamps as well as my invitation suite for more on our cross streets motif). Our seating cards had a message inside requesting guests to "meet us on the corner of..." and that name of their table.

The seating cards and table cards are both from Crane's triple paneled line of entertainment accessories. Instead of traditional hand calligraphy, I wanted a vintage-deco look for these cards, and chose Kate Paperie's laser calligraphy services(my fabulous friend Nina in custom printing at the 57th Street location helped me pick out this great font!). Lastly, to display my table signs, I found some great wine cork place card holders that were very chic for a foodie event.

 Stay tuned tomorrow for more on my DIY projects and in-depth details about my favors (it was quite a project!).