springtime wedding #1 - ali & sam



bridesmaid bouquet



ceremony backdrop flowers

 No, really, it can't be July since we showered a little picture love our blog's way?!

Ok, promise to make it up to you this week as we play serious catch up on the lovely things we have been up to in the past few months.

We tried to be all 2010 on Friday and do a day in the life of a wedding for Ali & Sam on our facebook page (sneak peeks of which you see here), but the iPhone refused to play when it came to uploading images (and it wasn't us being techno-illiterate promise), so here we are on a chilly, grey Sunday morning in Sydney, blogging instead, and thinking how great it was the sun shone down on such a lovely, lovely couple on Friday when they married under a stunning weeping willow at Centennial Parklands.

And those extremely large ducks you see looking oh so cute as they take a walk through the park with Ali & Sam? Let me tell you, they were tres scary up close and personal when I was setting up the ceremony flowers by the lake (even armed with a candleholder on a stake to gently try to prod them away from me, just in case they got too close, it was scary). But who can blame the proud new parents? There were little ducklings everywhere ('tis Spring after all), and they were just being protective.

Ali + Sam

Proud parent ducks & Sam + Ali

After the ceremony, Ali, Sam and their guests strolled to Centennial Parklands Dining where the wisteria around the restaurant is in spectacular bloom, for a reception that was all about fantastic food, wine, friends and dancing. Ali opted for a classic, and classy, combination of navy & cream for the day, so we dressed the tables with beautiful midnight blue tablecloths, and created centerpieces with a collection of beautiful cream ceramic vases and bowls filled with the best spring has to offer: hyacinth, jonquils, freesia, ranunculus, roses and carnations (now, now don't turn up your nose, they are such a beautiful flower used in massed arrangements like those shown here). Adding her own touch to the tables, Ali used etched silver tin hearts tied off with cream and navy ribbon as the place cards for the guests.

When we arrived towards the end of the night, it was evident no-one wanted to leave. Now we know that's always a good sign of how much fun was being had. We'll share a few more of our happy snaps below, but really look forward to sharing Cameron Bloom's beautiful images in the not too distant future with you. x


cream ceramic bowl with ranunculus and more



navy cloths, cream ceramic vase with spring blooms



hyacinth, jonquils, ranunculus, carnations, roses & more



centennial parklands dining - a spring setting

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