Miss Missoni

Talk about a timely party! When we came up with a "Missoni Theme" for a birthday luncheon my client was throwing, it was long before we heard that the famous Italian fashion house had teamed up with Target to do a line of housewares and fashion! But. We are nothing if not festive girls (client included) and five days before the party, my client asked her daughter-in-law to head to Buffalo to pick up some things for our shin-dig... and you might say she got a little carried away! And thank goodness for that, because it TOTALLY added to the overall experience for the guests...

We did custom (digitally printed) place mats for each of the invitées, all based on famous Missoni fabrics. We had fun mixing it up with 5 different patterns and then contrasting menus. The daughter-in-law also picked up platters, mugs, tiered cake trays and even cosmetic bags & scarves, which we used for favours.

We went all out with the Italian fashionista theme, serving prosecco in colourful champagne flutes from Chair-man Mills while shmaltzy Italian music played in the background. Think 'O Solo Mio,' 'Volare,' 'That's Amore' and the like...

The dessert was probably my favourite thing that day: Tina Nyguen over at Noble Culinary made me a Missoni Bombe to serve to all the ladies (who don't eat much to begin with)... Veritable Missoni stripes of Mango, Blueberry, Blackcurrant, Lemon and Strawberry sorbet! Each layer had to be made and then left to sit and freeze in the mold before the next layer could be added. Bellissima!

Finally a shot of the whole table, complete with the customized place mats and flower arrangements in the mugs from Target! There were three different patterns on the mugs, so Lidia Tacconelli of FIORI did three colour versions to complement them. The original plan was to give the mugs away but then my client decided she liked them so much that she couldn't bear to part with them!

Love Letter Cookies

When I stumbled across Rosie Alyea's drool-worthy Sweetapolita blog awhile ago, I knew I had found the perfect favour for our literary bride and groom. Amongst the delectable confections, handy recipes and mouthwatering photos were her one-of-a-kind Love Letter Cookies. Needless to say, I stopped my online search right there and then.



We commissioned one for every guest in two colours; each individually adorned with either the bride or the groom's initials in a fondant version of a wax stamp -- how yummy are these? You can read about how she came up with the idea for the cookies on this page of her blog.

I encourage all of you to check out her blog; but be forewarned: even those of you who haven't baked since your Easy-Bake Oven days will be inspired and eager to open up the pantry (even if your baking powder is woefully passed it's prime). I am also happy to tell any readers out there that working with Rosie is even more delightful than the goodies she conjures up!

The View From Here

Here are two shots from a wedding Gabi did recently at The Toronto Hunt, with the bride and groom standing at the edge of the bluffs, overlooking Lake Ontario. These were taken by the fabulous Nikki McKean -- and we couldn't decide which one we liked better, so you get to see both!

Thank you, Nikki, for sharing such epic photos with us.

A Wicked Little Cake

When the father of one of our recent brides kiboshed her plans to have her dog walk down the aisle on her wedding day, she thought of a great way to include her beloved friend into the day anyway: she commissioned Jaime Ho of The Wicked Little Cake Company to capture the essence of Pebbles in a cake! Yes, the dog, the pillows and the flowers surrounding it are all edible. My associate Gabi then ensured that Pebbles had a place of honour that night -- to the right of the head table -- and was dramatically lit from above to make sure all the guests noticed she made it to the wedding after all!

I personally love it when clients introduce us to new vendors -- I'd never heard of Jaime or the fun & original work she does and can't wait to come up with something really unique for her to turn into a cake!

The View From Here

Well you can tell when our busy season hits -- the blog posts come to a screeching halt. It's a good thing to be busy, but I always feel a tinge of guilt when I'm ignoring She Said Spectacular! To that end, I'm going to try a new series entitled, "The View from Here," filled with short glimpses and quick snippets of the parties we do in (almost) real time, snapped with entirely unprofessional, iPhone photos.

"The View from Here" is the perfect description for the first entry in the series... these were taken last weekend at Malaparte at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; otherwise known as the new, permanent home of the Toronto International Film Festival. Perched high above the street is the most stunning terrace where the guests feel like they are partying in the sky. These pictures were taken mid-afternoon, but once the sun began to set and the lights in the surrounding buildings started twinkling on, the effect was truly magical.

The occasion was an engagement party for 225 guests -- people gasped as they came up the stairs and saw the view. (As a professional aside, there are 64 steps leading up above... let's just say the poor Malaparte serving staff got a very good workout that night)...

Not to mention the poor installation guys from Contemporary Furniture Rentals; ALL this furniture was schelpped up those same 64 stairs and then back down again at 2:00am... I think it'll be quite a while before they forgive me for this one!

I love how the happy sunflowers pop against the grey skyline in the background. Once we get the professional photos from the photographer we will share them -- it was such a glorious evening up in the clouds; I can't wait to see the pictures myself.

Ready for My Close Up

We were asked to film a segment on the Steven & Chris Show last week on the CBC; and while seeing myself on television absolutely makes me cringe, we showcased a few fun details that are worth featuring here on the blog.

Our challenge was to come up with a Kate Middleton-inspired head table, in honour of the upcoming Royal Wedding. More posts are sure to come from this fun experience, but for now, I thought I might show the menus and the favour cards.

One of the requests I had from the producers of the show was to have a DIY component to our table. With this in mind, we designed the menus to look like scrolls... Christine Flynn from Love the Design designed and printed them on a really cool parchment paper she fortuitously had lying around her studio. I then had wooden doweling cut to size and went to work with a trusty glue gun, some Crazy Glue and a whole lot of bling, courtesy of my local bead store.

For anyone who knew me back in high school, rest assured I am still TERRIBLE at math! The reason there are two different styles of beading is because I miscalculated how many mini crowns we would need. Alas, it turned out just fine because it shows the different looks you can achieve, just by switching out what you attach to the end of the dowel. This, of course, is for a very fancy wedding, but I imagine that you could put seashells on the side if you were having a beach wedding, or acorns if your nuptials were to take place in the countryside etc.

Finally, we were asked to come up with some kind of giveaway or favour... Quite honestly, I couldn't imagine Will and Kate doing anything of the kind, so I did what I suggest a lot of my clients do, and that is to make a charitable donation instead. For this, Christine Flynn designed an origami-fold card, that I sealed with a wax seal, encrusted with a formal 'W' for the House of Windsor. I picked a real charity that William is a big supporter of: The Prince's Trust, which helps educate, train and employ youth in the UK.

To read more of what we created for the actual shoot, click here.
Thank you to my sister for allowing me to take advantage of her and her Big Girl camera on a long weekend...

Dessert Fit for a Princess

Since the Royal Wedding is just around the corner, I thought I would publish a post about a wedding we did last year. It was the first time, believe it or not, that we were asked to create a Fairy Tale Wedding for a bride-to-be. She had found her Prince Charming, the castle was booked and now it was up to us to coordinate the details that would bring her dream to life.

One of the first calls I made was to the dashing caterer Rick Rowe, formerly with Daniel et Daniel, and now with Presidential Gourmet. Rick immediately got the vision and hit a home run when he suggested white-glove, cloche service and a Fabergé Egg for each guest, sitting under a cage of spun sugar for dessert.

The Egg itself was rich, dark chocolate, molded into a delicate egg form (in two halves to make the whole). These were filled with the lightest dark chocolate mousse and flavoured with a hint of Triple Sec. The spun sugar cage was molded and created in advance of the mousse. An entire week was spent creating the masterpiece, as the timing and order of the multiple steps (sugar cage, chocolate base, chocolate egg mold, mousse, egg decoration, dragées) was key to producing this fragile and beautiful indulgence.

I was so proud of Rick when he wrote to tell me that his creation won a Catie Award (the International Caterers Association), a few months after this magical evening. Working with such creative and professional people in this industry is one of the best parts of my job. I love when I give a colleague a nugget of an idea and then see them run with it -- in this case, Rick soared to new heights. This dessert made guests' mouths drop open when presented to them and went far beyond anything our Fairy Tale Princess ever imagined when she dreamed about her wedding...
Images courtesy of Storey Wilkins Photography

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

We did a blowout wedding last summer in cottage country at a beautiful, lakefront property. Our bride and groom got married on the boathouse deck and as the ceremony was drawing to a close, the massive Wenonah II pulled up at the dock below to whisk all the guests off for a 2-hour cocktail cruise around the lake.

We brainstormed to come up with a fun and creative way to tie this cruise into the rest of the wedding and -voilà- little floating boats became our escort cards for the night. Poor Barb at Fiori had the tedious task of folding close to 150 of these little charmers, but it was worth the effort to see the look of delight on guests' faces as they fished around to find their own names.

Finally, here's a little snippet of video that the wonderful Luis Moreira of Images Film and Video shot for us. It makes me laugh every time I see it:

Thank you to Storey, as always, for the great pictures, Lidia for the amazing decor and Luis for documenting the festivities so fabulously.