Covered: Vintage inspired shoot makes the front page

http://www.modernwedding.com.au/

http://www.bailie.com.au/

Country Charm: Pretty Vintage Wedding Inspiration

http://www.modernwedding.com.au/
http://www.bailie.com.au/

Centennial Parklands Dining Expo - Table #2 Vintage Romance

One of the joys -- and challenges - of styling a whole lot of different looks for the one venue on the one night (as we have to when we take part in an expo at Centennial Parklands Dining) is how to create different seasonal looks to encompass the moods and colours flowers offer at different times of the year, only we're attending flower market on the one day, in the one season, to gather all we need to style the tables.

But the flower gods of Tasmania smiled upon us this February and supplied us with these delicious pink peonies - a flower we would normally only have access to in late October through to early December.

Combined with the fact we had access to blackberries in season, rosy crab apples picked fresh from a tree growing at the gate of our favourite farmer's property on the outskirts of Sydney, watermelon hued dahlias and lusicious velvety celosia in shades of sunset pink, we were a bit excited about designing this arrangement for the very new cream and vintage glass footed flower stands now on the shelf in our hire range. (This was their very first outing. They would also make excellent cake or sweet stands for a dessert buffet, as as there's a lovely cut glass plate under all those delicious flowers, but we digress.).

For this romantic, vintage setting we placed a large mirror at the centre of a table clothed in cream linen, added a crystal cut plate filled with rosy crab apples to the side of the main centrepiece, scattered glass votives with a fleur de lys embossed pattern around the mirror and before each guest. Cream napkins were held by a beaded cream napkin ring and a cream gift box tied up in chocolate and dusty pink striped ribbon, with fresh blackberries as a top knot, were at each place setting.

Etched wine glasses carried the vintage feel through to the tableware, and cream and chocolate stationery, with pink caligraphied names, from our stationery range finished off the look.

Cream anyone? Would you like one lump, or two?

Enjoy.
x

Form Over Function flowers and styling captured with grace and beauty by Photography by Anliette.

Centennial Parklands Dining Expo - Table #1 - Summer Bridal

Now we don't have anything against white in here -- honest! -- but as we sketched and plotted and designed away to come up with six new looks for the latest showcase at Centennial Parklands Dining, we could not help ourselves in wanting to create a traditional bridal table that was everything but.

And here we share the results with you.

With a venue set within one of Sydney's living, breathing garden treasures, it was was hard to resist bringing the colours and textures of the outside in.

We dipped into our hire range to cover the table in a bold yet earthy mix of green, white and chocolate stripes, lined the front edge of the table with a collection of white ceramic vases and flower holders placed before each guest, and created vivid green and crisp white arrangements featuring hydrangea, succulents, calla lilies, very young privet berry and more.

Before each guest glowed one of our white crete votives, and the summertime feel continued through the use of paperlace white glasses and tumblers from our hire range.

A fan was added at each place setting - pretty and practical for a summer wedding - as well as a menu from our Bohdi range of stationery.

And the best thing about this design? It would be just as perfect for a private or corporate celebration of any sort.

Enjoy.

More looks unveiled tomorrow.

x

Form Over Function styling and flowers captured with beauty and grace by Photography by Anliette

white ceramic vases, trays and holders filled with structural and beautiful summer blooms, berries and plants

calla lily nestled within a spray of young privet berry

one of our white footed vases filled with an arrangement of white callas, hydrangea foliage & lotus flowers

the vase seen from the other side: the lotus pod is what is left once the lotus flower, seen here in pink bloom, has opened up and lost its petals

Could this summery and beautiful creation from Faye Cahill Cake Design be any more perfect for this setting?

old fashioned snapdragons in a moderrn setting

fans for cooling, and pretty floral glasses to keep that summer feel running right through to the tableware

More, more, more: Liz & Sean, the MCA and a Real Wedding to remember

With the weekend almost here - & a wet, wet, wet one forecast for our home town - I thought those spending the coming days curled up with their lap top seeking inspiration for their wedding day might enjoy seeing more of the styling touches from Liz & Sean's wedding day at the MCA.

Now these images I captured with my trusty Canon DSLR (point, shoot, works most of the time...yay), so no comparing with what Trish from tealily photography captured & was published in Real Weddings, okay?

And we've also been good & updated our online hire depot, so if any of the items here catch your eye, it's all available for hire - the turquoise blue candlesticks; the mirror table runners; conical glass candlesticks in a range of sizes (I love how they allow us to tuck fresh blooms within); the footed glass vases filled with massed arrangements of white peonies, hydrangea, david austen roses & lissianthus (well flowers for sale not hire but you know what I mean); the tiffany blue, white & darkest charcoal table linens; white chesterfield ottomans; oversized ornately framed mirrors & more.

The stationery we designed just for Liz will be on our online stationery store soon too, but those who don't want to wait that long, just drop us line.

But my favourite shot? Steven Khalil, who designed the dress for his friend Liz, fussing over her just before she made her big entrance. And the simple beauty of the peony bouquet: there's nothing tricky here, just superb blooms at their peak. More wedding flowers should be like this, methinks.

Enjoy. Alicia x

Liz & Sean, the MCA and a Real Wedding to remember

At last, at last it's here. We've been a little bit excited waiting for the always divine, stylish, chic and inspirational June issue of Real Weddings magazine to arrive on the stands and here you can see why. We loved styling this wedding. We loved working for this gorgeous couple (inside and out). And we love the fact we can share all its gorgeous details in living colour with you now courtesy of the talents of Trish from tealily photography, who captured the day so, so beautifully through her lens. We look forward to sharing many more details with you tomorrow.



Enjoy



x

On our marks, get ready, design ten tables now

Our blog has been feeling decidedy unloved because we've been busy working on designing several corporate events, meeting with lots of brides to be and spending time in the country preparing for a very special event later this year, so as we turn to the next thing on our to do list -- designing at least ten different table looks for the open night at Centennial Parklands Dining next month --we thought we'd share some of our favourite tables from the open day we styled at this beautiful Sydney venue in February.

The only thing that makes this fun job so hard is sticking to only designing ten (ok let's make it twelve) tables when we have so much delicious new stock on the shelves in our hire depot and more on the way.

We hope you enjoy the inspiration and if you are wanting to attend the open night on Thursday July 8 (gorgeous canapes, a glass or two of bubbles, the opportunity to see the venue's tables dressed in lots of different ways... what's not to love) cross over to our facebook page, drop us a line and we'll organise an invite for you.

Till soon,

Alicia x

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

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