14 Stories

If you're not already, come follow us on Pinterest as we organize our clients beautiful same-sex weddings into thoughtful inspiration boards!  

For example, up there now you'll see:

• Preppy Provincetown:  a non-nautical, non-beachy preppy and masculine gay wedding in Provincetown
• Sophisticated Fun House:  you won't believe your eyes
• Glass and Steel:  masculine and very New York

Check it out!

 I say it all the time - I love love love what I do.  I have the coolest job, and part of what makes it cool is the collaboration that is part of any wedding planning process.  There's the obvious collaboration between my clients and myself but it's also my goal to create a "team" with the other wedding vendors involved.

Take our last wedding, for example.  The grooms wanted their favorite restaurant to do the catering.  But that restaurant is not a caterer.  They don't have service staff with wedding experience.  They don't manage rental items.  We used that restaurant only for the food.  I worked with a rental company for every plate, every knife, every bowl (and of course the cool decor items).  I worked with another company to provide all the staffing, including the bartenders.  They sent a banquet captain, two bartenders and servers.  Then I worked with yet another company for the alcohol.  All of that was ordered and delivered.  

When it came time for the actual wedding day, I was in charge and had my assistant as my #2.  We started with a team meeting with the entire catering team and went through the entire flow of the wedding, addressed questions and discussed all of the setup needs.  We divided and conquered all the setup (as illustrated in the last post) and the end result was fantastic.  

It's my job to be the leader and to bring everyone together towards a common goal, an amazing common goal, to treat everyone with respect and empower them to do their job.  And that is so much fun, because weddings should be fun.

We planned a really great Boston gay wedding wedding last Saturday night.  Two grooms, Mark and Jody, hired us to transform a Unitarian church hall and create a really stylish, colorful and fun space.  Check out my amateur Droid phone photos below as I share the story of how the style of the space came together...


The room when we first arrived - some tables were the church's and the rental company left all the chairs stacked.  We used all rectangular tables, some 6' and some 8'. The grooms sat at a small round sweetheart table.


Another view - the room itself was really cool, a blank canvas for our design


We laid out all the tables according to the floor plan we'd pre-designed.  We took down the LOVE banner and another banner and cleared off the corner by the stage, next to the piano (it was full of 'stuff').  


We draped the tables with a violet lamour linen that captures light really well.  We placed the leather slipper chairs according to my floor plan.


The floral arrangements (two different styles on alternating tables) start to get set by Spruce Floral (they rock!) The little signs in the foreground are the table name signs, not yet distributed.


The team at work.  Place settings go down...


Teal napkins in place; drapes closed on the stage.


Candles in matching colors in place.  Menus for each table distributed.


Close up of the flocked purple mitsumata branches with green orchids (that's not paint!)


Style 2 of centerpieces - view of the full, completed table


With all of the window shades drawn, and the addition of uplights around the room

It's pretty cool, right?  Even with my amateur photos...  I can't wait to see the real ones.  It's fantastic to see the evolution of an event space, and in a space like this, almost anything is possible.  Believe it or not, I have a photo from the very next day when this room was used for a church rummage sale!

How are you planning to style your wedding?

It's really fun for us when we are hired to make a place look much different than it did before for a couple's wedding.  I'm going to give a few examples of that in the next few posts. 

This wedding below took place at Chimney Corners summer camp in Becket, Massachusetts.  We had the camp for the entire weekend and all of the meals were held in the dining hall below.  After lunch on Saturday, we completely transformed the dining hall for the wedding reception.  

Every time we work in a space, there are some fundamental decisions that happen.  We start by deciding what, if anything in the room, needs to be covered up.  For example, are there particularly ugly walls we need to drape?  Then, we decide if the room(s) need distinct spaces like a lounge or a bar area, and if so, whether or not we need screens or drapes to create sections.  Then, we work through the flow and I create a floor plan (to scale) in our software program.

Once we make these decisions and agree on the flow of the space, we choose decor for the dinner tables.  We start with the linens, and then add each layer on top including charger plates, stemware, flatware, china, napkin (what color), menu at each place setting?, table name signs, table escort and/or place cards, and floral.  And then come the chairs, other furniture and any additional floral and decor elements (like the lighting) throughout the room.

For this summer camp wedding, you can see the results below.  When the guests arrived after the ceremony, they were treated to a dramatic transformation from the room where, just a few hours earlier, they had lunch.  I think the images also illustrate what a powerful team effort wedding production is - we literally can't do any of this without an amazing team.


Photos by Ilene Perlman.  Flowers by Jessica's Country Flowers.  Lighting by Boston Uplights.  Graphic Design by J Sherman Studio.

The little guy serving as the ring bearer usually isn’t asked to do too much. He will often walk next to the flower girl during the processional while holding the pillow with the wedding rings.

If you do have a ring bearer, there’s a product that’s a great alternative to the traditional ring pillow. Our clients love it!

Paloma’s Nest is a company that created the Original Ring Bearer Bowl, a ceramic bowl that can have your choice of wording. It’s adorable and truly an heirloom wedding item. The bowls can be purchased at www.PalomasNest.com.



Note that we do not accept paid endorsements so our love of this product comes from the kindness of our heart!

In theory, there are some nice advantages to planning a wedding at your home or another private residence. The home could have a special meaning to you. You could save on a venue rental fee. You are not limited by an eight hour rental period and can set up and break down at your leisure. The party could go all night if you want.

But don’t be blinded by the advantages and think through these potential obstacles before making your final decision:

• How is your septic system? Can it handle 50 or more guests? Do you have 2 or more restrooms that guests can use? Will you have to rent portapotties or a luxury potatpotty trailer? 
• How is your parking situation? Is there enough parking for all of the vendors in the driveway. What about the guests? Will you have to hire a valet or rent a lot and provide shuttle service? 
• Is the home big enough for everyone to be inside for dinner and dancing? Or will you require a tent? Are you prepared to deal with the damage that tents (and the tent delivery truck) cause to the lawn? 
• Is there a good spot on the property for a wedding ceremony? What if it rains? 
• Are there any noise ordinances in the city or town where the wedding would be held? Are there nosey neighbors or neighbors who would call the cops to complain about noise? 
• Is there a large kitchen onsite? The caterer will have a lot of food to warm up or prepare and will need plenty of counter space and ovens. If you can’t offer that, the caterer may have to set up a catering tent and/or rent convection ovens. 
• How many amps of electricity does the home have? Are there some circuits with available power? If you are bringing in a tent, the lighting and heating of the tent requires significant power. If you are bringing in a DJ or band, they require significant power. So does a nice portapotty. Find out if you have enough power to provide or whether you will need to rent a generator. 
• Is the home in an area known to have poor drainage in the event or rain? Is it especially buggy in the summer and if so, can the property be sprayed? 

In general, unless it’s a very well equipped property or a wedding smaller than 50 guests, I advise against holding a wedding in someone’s home or on their property. The logistics can get very complicated and I would definitely suggest that you hire a wedding planner to make sure that all of these details are covered.

Please use a caterer for your wedding in a private residence. Don’t rely on your friends, family or let alone, yourself to prepare food. If you need to, you can prepare the food in advance and rent wait staff and bartenders to serve it – but please outsource at least some of this for your own sanity!

Are you planning to get married in a private home?

Every Friday from now on I'll be posting a photo of the week, in many cases from one of my client's weddings. 

This photo was from a wedding this past April.  My clients live in Manhattan and came to Boston to be married, bringing about 50 friends and family from around the world.  One of the grooms is Jewish and one of my most favorite wedding traditions is the horah - especially when it's two brides or two grooms up on those chairs.  There's almost nothing more fun.  I love the pure joy of the dance - and the look of near fear in Steve's eyes - and the look on the mom's face in the foreground.  I miss these guys!




Photo by Zoom Photography. 

Happy weekend everyone!

Sarah and Harold were married on Sunday, May 24 at the beautiful Veronique Ballroom in Brookline, MA.  One of my favorite things about weddings is the story of the couple and Sarah and Harold have a great story! 

For one reason or another, Sarah and Harold each found themselves "stuck" living in Nashville for a year.  They found each other online and developed a strong connection and fast friendship.  They stayed strictly as friends since they each had plans to move to opposite sides of the country.  But because love doesn't listen to reason, they fell in love, still moved, and planned their wedding from DC and Boulder.  Early next year they'll be in Boston together.  Here are some of the highlight pics from their gorgeous wedding.  Photos by Grazier Photography and video by Generations CinemaStories.  Floral design by Spruce.  Check out the video for pics of the stunning ketubah written in Hebrew, Korean and English!

This wedding was fun!  The band Beantown, kept the party going, and Sarah's mom, her sisters and cousin rocked the house with a secret, planned performance of My Guy! 


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Untitled from GENERATIONS cinemastories on Vimeo.

Sorry, the subject sounds a little dirty.
But
I seem to be seeing succulents everywhere lately, even when we had lunch at a sandwich shop over the weekend.  And I love them.  One of my favorite Boston-area floral designers, Sarah from Spruce, often uses them when my clients are looking for a modern look.  And I recommended them to a day of coordination client whose reception is in a funky space.

From Wikipedia: Succulent plants, also known as succulents or fat plants, are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climate or soil conditions. Succulent plants store water in their leaves, stems and/or roots. The storage of water often gives succulent plants a more swollen or fleshy appearance than other plants, also known as succulence.

Without further ado, some succulent love!

is the Wild Irish Rose, amended from the original recipe.  What's yours?


We had a signature cocktail tasting party last month and invited a few friends over to help us choose the perfect cocktail to serve our guests.  We weren't sure what theme to work with - the Irish theme or the color scheme (one of our colors is navy).  We ended up making and serving a bunch of god-awful tasting drinks, including some with curacao and coconut rum! Never again!  But it was a great excuse for a mini party...

We settled on the Wild Irish Rose, and tried several iterations of our own creation...try it out for yourself - you'll never taste the Jameson's.

In a cocktail shaker, combine the following over ice:
2oz Jameson's
1/2 oz grenadine
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice

Shake and serve straight up in a chilled martini glass with a sugared rim.  Delicious and pretty in pink - though that's the only pink you'll see at our wedding.

I am sometimes a bit ridiculous, so as our cocktail hour begins and these drinks are passed to our guests, the Irish band is going to perform My Wild Irish Rose.  Very likely no one will get the reference but Jen and I, but no matter.

So, what's your signature cocktail?  I'm always looking to try new cocktail recipes, especially on our deck in the summer.