Centennial Parklands Dining Expo - Tables #3 - It's not just about the bride

Now we have to reveal, it doesn't happen very often, but we think it's lovely when it does: a couple meet with us and ask for their wedding to be styled in a way that reflects both of them, in colours they both love, with touches both feminine and masculine.

Sometimes it is not always just about the bride, and the groom gets a say too (oops, did we just dare to write that?!).

So this was the inspiration behind this look we showcased at the Centennial Parklands Dining Expo - to come up with a design that was pretty without being girly, a design we could "man up" with a touches of beautiful pale camel suede and chocolate leather, while retaining a chic, contemporary look that is not at all gentleman's club.

We covered the table in a luxurious pale camel suede overlay from our hire range, and dipped into our hire depot to style the centre of each table with a chocolate ceramic ribbed vase filled with a pretty and soft arrangement of deep blue hydrangea, velevety dusty miller and the Australian native berezillia, added a delicious cornflower blue milk glass vase, a posy of oh so pretty thistle (though I was not thinking that when dealing with the thorns preparing said pretty posty) in an amber frosted glass vase, and a scatter of the same amber glass votives aglow with candlelight.

The cream, latte, chocolate and cornflower blue colour palette flowed through to the "vintage duo" stationery from our range - used for everything from the framed table number to thank you cards atop each gift box and menus tucked into each place setting alongisde napkins held by chocolate leather napkin rings.

We love, too, how it is a look that would work well, whatever the season, or whatever the event - be it wedding, private celebration or a corporate dinner to celebrate the end of another great working year.

Enjoy x

All decor items available for hire from Form Over Function. Stauionery by Form Over Function. Form Over Function styling and flowers captured with beauty and grace by Photography by Anliette.

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

Centennial Parklands Dining Expo #1 - Ten looks, which to choose?

We have to admit we're feeling just a little bit fluffy around the edges at FOF headquarters today after spending a wonderful evening at one of our very favourite venues in Sydney (fantastic food, stunning parklands setting, beautiful room, great staff, what's not to love), meeting lots of happy brides and grooms-to-be checking out Centennial Parklands Dining for their day (and it's not because we were the ones sipping champagne!)

[And for those who attended how yum were the bocconcini, cherry tomato & basil on lavosh, the blue swimmer crab, with apple & celeriac remoulade & roe, the Thai beef salad with Szechaun pickled cucumber, the cured ocean trout & fennel tartlet with eucalyptus honey and last but so, so not least, the miniature sticky meringues with fresh cream & raspberry compote?]

Now it's not every day we get to style ten different events in the one venue at the same time, so the team embraced the challenge with gusto, and although we are in the midst of winter (and a damn chilly one at that), we worked to bring summer, spring, autumn and winter to the venue all at once. As well as a wedding cake, dessert & lolly station that would have disappeared within the hour if one of our trusty assistants, Sam, had not been there to stand guard (in a lovely, smiling way of course).

And whilst the night was designed to make it easy for couples to find everything from a DJ and celebrant, to a stylist (that's us) to put their own individual stamp on their wedding day, some of the designs we came up with would work just as beautifully for a special dinner or lunch, be it for a corporate or private celebration.

When we launched into the blogosphere earlier this year, we promised we would offer a behind the scenes look at what we do and how it comes together, so over the next couple of weeks, we will be sharing lots of beautiful images captured by the very, very talented Mr Lucas Jarvis, of last night's showcase at Centennial Parklands Dining, and walking you through the whys and wherefores of each design.

But here's a sneak peek at some of the lovely images you have to look forward to.

Enjoy.

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

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