Runway Bride

We had the best time planning this fashion-themed wedding shower for our 'Runway Bride' last year. The bride's mother, sister and Lidia Tacconelli and I schemed, planned and executed the most decadent party -- a fashion- themed brunch on a cold and grey Sunday last November at Malaparte.

Given that our bride loves all-things-fashion, we divided the guests up into 4 long tables, each with their very own designer look...

First up: Chanel with the classic 'tweed' runner (printed digitally, of course, by our friends over at Emerson Design), adorned with the pouffiest, whitest hydrangeas I've seen in a long time.

Next: Missoni. It's hard to tell from this angle, but Lidia arranged the carnations in the famous zig-zag pattern all down the troughs as well.

Dolce & Gabbana had their signature leopard print and red, red roses...

And finally, the Marc Jacobs table, in honour of our bride's favourite perfume: Daisy. To keep the look consistent, every table had the same core elements: black ghost chairs from Contemporary Furniture Rentals, black linens from Around the Table and black lucite troughs from FIORI.

When guests arrived, they were treated to passed 'breakfast' hors d'oeuvre: this photo shows the  yummy, mini-french toast on skewers, complete with real maple syrup in the bottom of the cups.

And look at these little lovelies: Mini lobster and quail-egg benedicts. The chefs at Malaparte got pretty creative with some wonderful breakfast finger foods. And everything tasted even better than it looked.

When the guests sat down, each place had a 'Vogue' magazine that doubled as a place card holder (the mailing label on the bottom right corner had each guest's name printed out) and opened up to reveal the menu that was to be served, all designed like a magazine layout.

Each course was created with the four designers in mind: Marc Jacobs? New York Pretzels & Lox... Dolce & Gabbana? Truffled Gnocchi... Chanel? Crèpes, bien sûr! And finally, our Missoni-themed dessert: Sweet melon and burrata.

We set up a lounge area, complete with Pucci pillows where we laid out the take away gifts: beautiful coffee table books and movies, all with fashion titles.

Finally, as with any wedding shower in a good, Italian family, many of the guests brought home-baked goodies. We had to keep making the table bigger and bigger as people arrived with more and more treats. It got to the point where I couldn't add any more tables to the space to accommodate all the desserts... Yes, people baked that much stuff for our guest of honour.

We did up boxes for the ladies to take bounty from the sweet table home with them, again with our copyright-infringement (eek!) take on the Bergdorf Goodman logo. I like to think of it as free advertising for that wonderful store... yeah, that's it...

Finally, a glimpse of the paper, tissue and ribbon we wrapped the flowers up with at the end of the party. The ladies literally left with armfuls of flowers, books and sweets!

Thank you, as always, to Anthony Manieri from 5ive15ifteen Photo Company and a special shout out to all the Oliver & Bonaccini staff at Malaparte. You all helped us create an experience that few will forget anytime soon...

PS: WedLuxe Magazine featured this shower on their blog last month. Click here for more pics and even more details!

A Three-Hour Tour... A Three-Hour Tour

So, you may have heard through the grapevine that we built a 5000 sq. ft. floating ballroom in Muskoka a couple of weeks ago. Yes, you read right: it was well and truly floating.  On a lake.

The dilemma? If the tent is on the water, where on earth do you put the toilets? Our solution was to float them right next to the tent. Yup. On the water too. This post is dedicated to the journey the Royal Flush took that day -- it's Maiden Voyage, so to speak. The first picture shows us backing the 30,000 pound bathroom trailer onto a barge before sending it on on it's 3-hour trip across Lake Joseph...

This photo shows how little wiggle room there was to manoeuvre it into place in our attempt to get it perfectly centred for even weight distribution. For those of you techie readers out there, the barge is 12' x 40' and the bathroom is 8.5' x 32,' with a 3-ft hitch to factor in as well. The barge driver had to add ballast to the left side once it was in place to make it a more even ride.

Over three hours later, this was the first view I had of the unit coming into view. I squealed like a proud mother, once I finally saw it arriving. It had been like sending your child off to first day of kindergarten, watching it pull away from the boat launch, heading off into the great unknown...

Doesn't it look lonely, out there by itself, slowly chugging into place? The party-goers never questioned how the bathroom got beside the tent... it was just there. Now, dear readers, you know what went into making it happen. (Not to mention the fact we had to factor in that it was going to weigh a whole lot more when it went back on it's merry way to dry land... ahem). Yes, all of these things have to be accounted for: we can't leave anything to chance!

Yet another example of the extremely non-boring life of an Event Planner...