It really began on Thursday as I pushed through making the rosettes from 6 PM until 4 AM then on Friday afternoon until 2 AM. Saturday morning I was on the road by 7:30 to drive (1 1/2 hr.) to the villa in Sierra Madre (Pasadena area) to meet the bride who had flown in from SF the night before and my bro and sister-in-love. This was also the day for the bridal shower and her bachelorette party.
We walked around the villa fine tuning the decorating needs.
I feel very honored to be asked to be this involved.
The villa is beautiful.
This is the Elle Wood’s staircase, as I call it.
Votive candles will line the stairs in the evening as the bride ascends the 100 year old carrara marble steps to toss her bouquet to the open hands below.
One of the many chandeliers that is my responsibility to make colorful.
I think I am in over my head… literally!
And another…
This was the first time I could put the rosettes to the 12 very tall and dark doors I will be decorating. The doors were more formidable than I remembered on my first visit and I can see I need a much bolder statement of at least 5 to 7 rosettes per door with a couple extra large ones for a stronger base. I will also have to hot glue them in a pre-arrangement to keep their spacing. We found out taping them to the door to the back takes off the paint. We will use my first idea of a thumb tack on top of the door and perhaps a use a very thin ribbon since more rosettes will be used.
My heart just sank when I saw the scale eventhough the door is only 24″ wide. It means more rosettes but I will not be coming up again until the day before the wedding and I will not have the chance to give it another test run. This makes me fairly nervous. It will also push my cookie production back. I was silently panicking at this point and feeling… UGH!
I was asking whoever would listen on a non-audible frequency ‘how am I going to do all this’ when something caught my eye over a doorway.
Answer received.
Thank you. I needed that.
We moved to the outside.
This is the formal entrance to the house.
Guess what will adorn the doors as guests arrive?
I think you are getting the rosy picture by now.
This is a little patio off the entry doors to the left of it. It leads to the library, a room filled with dark wood floor to ceiling book cases with leather bound books.
I didn’t take a photo of the inside since I’m not decorating in there and I needed to focus. The room is quite spectacular though. The bar will be set up inside. There will be a few small tables on the patio along with some out on a grassy area in back of the house to encourage guests to explore areas outside as well.
In this photo we were counting the number of white paper lanterns that will be hung over the bistro lights. We are using a variety of round sizes and perhaps mix in a few squares. Between my collection and those we are borrowing from other family members we will not have to purchase them but we will need to hang them ourselves, hence the tape measure.
This photo was for placement scale as the bride and her parents filled in. The ceremony and reception will both be located in the courtyard. Going with the bride’s desire for non-tradition and the landscape challenges surrounding the villa, I suggested having everyone already seated at the tables with special seating for the family. It’s a go! When the ceremony is over a sweetheart’s table for the bride and groom will be placed here.
Everything will turn out beautifully and as I reminded the groom in a recent conversation when he was mentioning how all this was so important… at the end of the day, he still gets the girl.
The bride has suggested the following entrance to the ceremony.
Perhaps the new tradition? 😉
