vintage | Finch and Thistle

{ Monday, May 2, 2011 }

Seattle Met Royal Wedding Brunch

category: event design, floral design, Home, Weddings

I got pretty caught up in all the Royal Wedding coverage last week, in part due to the fact that I was working on the design of a Royal Wedding Viewing Brunch for Seattle Metropolitan Bride and Groom magazine. Working with Seattle Met B&G editor Laura Cassidy and publisher Nicole Vogel, we devised a plan to turn Nicole’s gorgeous new South Lake Union condo into an English tea party for the day.

Lisa Dupar catered with inventive tea sandwiches (mint and cucumber!), blood orange mimosas, pots and pots of tea, and at my request, Wills and Kate cookies and Union Jack shortbread. I used vintage tea tins, teapots and apothecary jars to display the candy buffet and decorated the space with stacks of teacups, postcards from Charles and Diana’s wedding and antique fairy tale books. Guests arrived in elaborate hats and fascinators and had their picture taken with Wills and Kate in the photo booth. King Arthur even made an appearance!

Seattle Met Bride and Groom Royal Wedding Brunch Dessert Table

Tagged: Brunch, Dessert table, event design, Royal Wedding, Seattle Metropolitan Bride & Groom, vintage, wedding flowers, William and Kate

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{ Monday, April 25, 2011 }

Royal Garden Party

category: Home

As I mentioned last week, the UK will enjoy a four day weekend in order to properly celebrate William and Kate’s nuptials on Friday and many will be throwing street parties to celebrate. My favorite English floral designer, Miss Pickering, was asked to give Daily Telegraph readers some inspiration for decorating their own parties. Her idea was to take all the glitz and glamor outside – an idea I recently put into practice for one of my own inspiration shoots.

Miss PIckering Sunday Telegraph Royal Wedding I love all the red and pink roses with pops of chartreuse amongst the formal china and silver plate. I also love the plethora of Union Jacks, the old fashioned living room setup outside with old sconces hung in the trees and patriotic bunting framing the table. And don’t even get me started on the “made in England” tag on the boutonniere…genius!

Royal Wedding Garden Party Miss Pickering Miss Pickering Royal Wedding Garden Party

Miss Pickering Royal Garden Party boutonniere

All images courtesy of Miss P and to view more behind the scenes details from the Telegraph shoot, check out her blog post here.

Tagged: garden party, miss pickering, red and pink, Royal Wedding, silver, sunday telegraph, vintage, wedding

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{ Friday, March 11, 2011 }

pink on black

category: floral design, Home

When my new black amethyst glass vases arrived in the mail this week I could hardly wait to put them to work displaying the new lovelies blooming in my garden. But wait I did. What a crazy week! Appointment after appointment, email after email, open houses, meetings…phew. Add on house guests descending en masse and five dogs taking over every inch of the house and come Friday morning I hightailed it to the flower markets, dying to get out of the madness!

I was looking for peonies but it’s been a long, cold winter in the Northwest, so while there were a few hot pink ones to be had, they were a bit sad looking for $5 a stem (yes, wholesale!) I settled for ranunculus instead because, really, they do look like baby peonies and then I came home and raided my garden for hellebore and cherry blossom. I love the contrast of the blush and hot pink against the black vases and how they are currently hard at work brightening up my living room, stealing the spotlight from five terriers and their never-ending dog hair…

Tagged: black, centerpiece, hellebore, pink, ranunculus, spring flowers, vintage

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{ Thursday, November 18, 2010 }

2nd Saturdayz

category: Diy ideas, Home, inspiration

I have been meaning to attend a 2nd Saturdayz for some time and now that wedding season is winding down, I finally got to check it out. A must for vintage loving brides and designers, 2nd Saturdayz is held every month on, you guessed it, the second Saturday over at Magnusen Park in Sandpoint.

Perhaps the poster gives it away, but this is no ordinary flea market. This is a market where every booth is styled and decorated to be worthy of a magazine shoot. The ladies who run the show, known as The Junk Tribe, are passionate about vintage shabby chic and picky about which vendors they let in the door. I scored some fabulous new props for next summer’s weddings (library card catalog as seating chart -anyone?), a $20 vintage Christmas tree and some gorgeous holiday trees made from recycled wool sweaters.