Linen Hire Heaven - New York, New York #3

The party starts here - wish we'd thought of that slogan.

When Form Over Function launched into the blogosphere earlier this month one of our missions was to bring you a behind-the-scenes peek into the event industry, and here in New York, there would be practically no event that does not start here - at Cloth Connection.

With thousands of options - yes thousands - to choose from, it is no surrpise to learn that this is the place the crews from Martha Stewart and Preston Bailey come to pick the tablecloths, overlays, table runners, napkins and chair ties for the events they style.

As did Donald Trump for his own wedding (well his stylists anyway) and apparently people with $US500,000 to drop on a Project Runway themed sweet sixteen birthday party for their daughter.

When we visited this week, manager Laurie Brown was preparing a box of samples to ship to a client with a $US50,000 budget -- yes, you read that right -- allocated to styling just the place card table at a bar mitzvah.

Now if Sydney had a population of 9 million and counting, our linen racks at Form Over Function would look just like this (but check out the all things fabric section of our hire depot and you'll be spolit for choice anyway, and there's many new linen lines to be added just as soon as we're back from our Manhattan adventure).

Cloth Connection may cater for events with 1000 tables (that's no typo), and offer every linen on its racks in five sizes, but one thing Form Over Function has in common with this US giant, which began its life as a home business operating from a kitchen table just 25 years ago, is a passion for the way fabric transforms an event space, and a mission to custom make at every opportunity to ensure clients get exactly what they're looking for.

Adding overlays or replacing a venue's exisiting tablecloths is a must: not only does it allow you to put your own mark on a space, and introduce colour and texture to your tables, but it also ensures that the seriously inferior linens many venues provide don't play a starring role at your party.

We're sorry to report that too many venues skimp on their linen and hire in cheap polyester tablecloths. Straight out of their packets and onto the tables, as well as awful to the touch, they are heavily creased, sometimes stained, and never ever cover the ugly table legs of venue tables.

It was nice to discover someone else shares our obsession with a need to lay the groundwork for a beautiful event from the linens up. Just like us at Form Over Function, Cloth Connection hand-presses all its specialty linens and invests in devising ways to pack stock for transport with minimum crease lines (and we never, ever leave home without our steamer).

We love the overlays created for a denim and diamonds themed party (so Dallas) we show above, and the delicious extravagance of these sheer organza overlays with shimmer discs and lush feather edging.

But for a total over the top, only-in-America linen option (sorry but it's true) we could not go past these decadent croteched overlays created from a lavender and sparkle yarn.

We hope you're as inspired as we are by the delicious fabric possibilities here and check out our ever growing racks soon!

Alicia x

Spring Blossom Shower Brides - New York, New York #2

We're in love with spring.

It is literally raining spring blossom in New York's Central Park at the moment, and while we were busy strolling through its glades looking up at the beautiful and constant shower of petals raining down on us (and being grateful we don't suffer from hayfever) we came across two couples making the most of this spectacular backdrop for their wedding photos.

If you're dreaming of a wedding featuring the romance of spring blossom, get thee to a calender and map [or organise a wedding in Manhattan in mid to late April, we'd be very, very, very happy to help you make it happen ;-) ].

Over the years we've had many a bride disappointed to discover that blossom is not in season in December or March or June.

Branches of spring blossom start making their appearance at the Sydney flower markets in late August, early September, and are usually over by mid October.

But a warm winter can bring them on early. Or a bitterly cold one delay them. This is one bloom growers have no control over - they happen when they happen.

If you are wanting an outdoor ceremony with a tree blossom background, head to the southern highlands region two hours out of Sydney to find a location, and aim for a September/October spring wedding.

The lower reaches of the Blue Mountains (as well as its peaks) will also offer the possibility of a blossom wedding, as will Melbourne's city parks, and that city's beautiful hinterland regions.

Want to stay local? Keep your eyes peeled in spring, and take notice of where the blossom trees in your own neighbourhood may be - even if you don't end up with a blossom ceremony, there's no reason you can't have some images taken under the beautiful tree of an obliging neighbour.

Now Form Over Function will happily venue scout for you, and do the local, on the ground research to find you the photographic backdrop of your dreams, but if you are a do-it-yourself bride, make sure you take the time to speak to locals with an intimate knowledge of the area's floral seasons, and who know which tree is which, so there is no let down for you on the day when what you thought was a cherry blossom tree turns out to be a blossom-free Japanese maple.

Till soon

Alicia x

Flowers to go. Super size me. New York, New York #1

Ok, we've all heard about the super size meals, the bottomless cups of alleged coffee (sorry but we'll take espresso every time), but our visit to the Manhattan flower markets on 28th street between 6th and 7th Avenues had me doing a double take on more than one occasion.

You want your flowers big?

This was a case of blooms on steroids.

I have never seen roses, hyacinth, phallaenopsis orchids, hypericum berry, ranunculus, blossom or peony roses this large (and there was more, much more).

See for yourselves, this caramel coloured rose below - the combo rose - is an Israel import. Measure across the top of the open rose and it was more than 12cm across.
Most of the large headed roses in Australia are Colombian imports, and they would struggle to compete either size or beauty wise with this specimen.
















We came across the combo rose in Soho's Adore Me florist, and it took a lot of self control not to ask one of its lovely designers , Sarah, if we could jump across the counter and get to work pairing them with chocolate coloured succulents, aged lotus pods, some pale coffee coloured gingers (not that either of the last two were on the floor to be able to work with!).

We're looking forward to hassling our suppliers to see if they can start to bring this beauty to our shores too.

This is Adore Me on the left, and we spent a bit of time chatting with Sarah about bridal flower trends in Manhattan.

It's shifted from magenta and lime green with a touch of blue, to all reds and a move to the use of more interesting pieces to create more textured arrangements and bouquets, incorporating for example, pods and succulents.

Sounds like our kind of trend. Only we can report this has been at work in Australia for some time: Form Over Function, and other Sydney floral designers whose work we love, like Saskia from Grandiflora, were incorporating succulents, pods and husks into bouquets and arrangements at least a decade ago.

But wandering the flower district I can understand why New Yorkers and Martha Stewart Inc have been reluctant to let go of the softer, prettier arrangements that are a hallmark of this city's top floral designers.

There is an abundance of choice of blooms here that would spoil anyone. A direct result of a mass population that is there, ever eager to buy whatever is put out on the floor, and a case of the more is more.
















On the plus side for Sydneysiders, many of our best flowers are grown just kilometres from the markets. It does not get any fresher than David Austen roses picked off the bush late on Thursday afternoon and at the markets by midnight, ready for us to buy at 5am on Friday morning.

It also allows florists such as ourselves to have a very personal relationship with our growers - we've had some of Form Over Function's growers of choice hold back on harvesting blue hydrangeas just for us so we would have enough for a booked event, or plant a special stash of callas to ensure we would have what we needed for a particular date.

The New York flower markets have shrunk in the name of progress to a very large block, pushed back by the space hungry needs of this constantly evolving city taking over its warehouses to turn into apartments and office space.

Unlike the Sydney flower markets, which are done and dusted by 9am at the latest six days a week, and really only have the best suppliers there Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the markets here are open seven days a week, all day, and instead of one large warehouse, there are dozens of massive stores crammed with flowers, plants, trees (amazing what will grow on a rooftop here), as well as tools of the trade.

We're looking forward to sharing more images of the world's biggest cut flowers soon - but this city waits for no-one and we're outta here for now to go forth and seek inspiration.

Alicia x

retro sunset - a wedding by the sea

Buttonhole of the week. Tie of the week. Most stylish, beautiful inside and out, hard working, supportive, putting-up-with-too-much-with-grace-under-pressure best man of forever (he's my best friend Craig so I am allowed to be openly biased).

Here at Form Over Function we had to share. I captured this image as we got ready.

It's autumn, the wedding was set on a bushland clifftop by the sea, and retro fabric designs in a delicious shade of burnished orange and taupe set the tone for the whole of the day.

Watch this space for more soon.

Alicia x


PS Can't wait to see what Bailie Photography has captured of the day.

Vision in green

Now here in the land of Form Over Function we've been known to encounter the odd wedding photographer out there with a bit of a jaded eye (fortunately not often!).

You know the type. They think they've seen it all before, they pretend to be interested in a client's wedding day and they're not, and for them it's just another job (note to people who approach their work in this way - find a new career!). And couples end up with the photos to prove it.

Well, we're a bit more than blown away by the work of Bailie from Bailie Photography who captured Aivee and Peter's wedding at Pavilion on the Park last night - and can't imagine you won't be too.

He was actually excited by what he had to capture and it shows in every frame.

We can't wait to see the whole day through his lens. What a talent.

And writing of talents, Aivee's beautiful and graceful mum made the classically chic wedding cake (and yes, we confess we know it tasted as good as it looked) and created the delicate and exquisite flowers to grace the corners, adding another personal touch to a very special day.

Alicia x

An eventful life

'Tis the season to be busy, and we can't think of a better time to launch Form Over Function into that world wide blogosphere out there - a space where we'll tap away and post pretty photos, funny photos and simply stunning ones too; a space where we'll work to keep our clients and fellow travellers inspired, informed and maybe even amused, as we share the behind-the-scenes workings of an event design & hire company that hates to do the same thing twice.

We love Fridays in here. Happy and excited clients looking forward to their event on the weekend, means happy and excited us.

Burnished red dahlias sit on our desks today - such beautiful structural flowers in gorgeous, gorgeous shades - fresh from our pre-dawn trip to the flower markets in Sydney.

Their season is drawing to a close (sadly, but we look forward to cymbidium orchids just a week or two away), but one of our brides Aivee will enjoy masses of white dahlias with a just-there touch of pink, on her tables at Pavilion on the Park across from the Art Gallery of NSW tomorrow.

In Gloucester, in country NSW, Matt and Holly spent yesterday unpacking the boxes of style we shipped them earlier this week to transform their marquee for their wedding on a family property.

Wanting to steer clear of the all-white wedding, they turned to the colours of a country sunset, which they love, for inspiration.

And we love that they wanted to break out of the traditional country wedding thing and create a celebration that was their very own, so we came up with all it takes to warm up what is -- let's face it -- an (expensive) white plastic tent, and shipped it to them.

Deep aubergine marquee walls feature on two sides, large hanging vases from our hire range filled with purple orchids add interest, and we've created arrangements of delicate amber & violet beaded branches to fill the stunning metre tall tangerine vases which will feature in the corners of the space. Tables will be overlaid with delicate aubergine silk, with smaller tangerine vases picking up on the styling in the corners of the marquee, and pretty, pretty candleholders, some aubergine silk, others delicated beaded.

And wait till Matt sees THE dress.

I just caught up with Matt on the phone to check how set up was going, and might offer them a job - it's done. Was finished last night, so they're off to enjoy barefoot bowls with their family and friends for the afternoon.

Now that's what we call good planning.

And we love a groom-to-be who cares and takes an interest in every aspect of their looming wedding day: Matt described to me how they've sited the marquee so the open side faces west to capture the setting sun, and yesterday afternoon he and Holly took the time out to stand in their marquee watching the light change within as the sun set over the hills, casting a glow over the aubergine walls and tangerine vases.

Serious yum we think. Photos to follow soon.

Now, as much fun as it could be to keep blogging tapping, writing, we have flower arrangements to create...but who's complaining when this is what we are surrounded by:

Enjoy the view.

Alicia x