Featured: Claire & Peter, a marquee wedding in the Southern Highlands - Real Weddings magazine

There are so many people who worked together with heart, a sense of humour, a desire to rise to any challenge (tree in the wrong place anyone?), to create magic on the last weekend in October last year, but I want to take the time to make tribute to a few, without whom we could not have been allowed to shine.

Firstly to Claire & Peter and their families: for believing in us, trusting us, welcoming us into their home and their lives, and not once making us feel we were anything but treasured and respected.

To my team on this one -- Shane, Anna, Sam, Peter, Bettina -- for working with flair, dedication, a serious lack of sleep, and possibly too much pizza, too late at night, for way too long. I can never thank you enough for all you did, not only in the months, days and hours leading up to the wedding day, but for being back up at dawn on Sunday, smiles on your faces and ready to make the post wedding celebration brunch one to be remembered by everyone who attended. For the thousands of roses you helped me strip, the marquee walls and table linens you labouriously steamed by hand (have your backs recovered yet? ;-)), the lace bar you lovingly created, for the several truckloads of gear you prepared, packed, loaded, unloaded, set up, packed, unloaded, cleaned and stored. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

To Karin Johnson, who manages Your Event Solution at Bowral: you were a calm and professional joy to work with for the months leading up to the event, as well as on the days we toiled away together leading up to the wedding. I love that you don't want to give no as an answer. That your tiffany chairs are impeccably white. That you knocked yourself out to design a marquee construction site that required serious packing, so we could place it where the view was best, allowed Peter & Claire (and us)  the long banquet tables of our dreams, and saved the cherished weeping cherry in Mrs Mason's front garden.

Thank you all for helping us make it happen.

Love,

Alicia x

Event design, styling & management, flowers, stationery & mirror seating plans all

 by Form Over Function.

Crystal and etched glass vases and candleholders, chandeliers, latte damask table runners, white linen, lace bar, antique bench, ottomans, side tables, silver table lamps, glassware & cutlery, latte damask and latte self stripe marquee walls

 all available from Form Over Function's hire depot.

Site construction design & management, marquees, timber flooring, white tiffany chairs,

 banquet tables, catering & serviceware equipment hire & outdoor lighting

 by Your Event Solution.

,

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.

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