We at Starlicious Lifestyle Events have been moving studio to Kensington ,Johannesburg closer to our Salon - Colours Hair Grafix. We are in the process of renovations to create a small and intimate studio from which to work where we can serve you a glorious glass of champagne or tea, aherrm, whilst we sit back and talk about every little detail pertaining to your wedding.
One particular detail we wish to emphasise is the decor. This studio will offer all our brides to be a full resource of goodies and ideas for a wedding and or a special event party. From your invitations to the details of your flowers, tablesettings and more. This brings me to a discussion I had recently with a bride about the stresses of creating a table setting that works.
We have recently completed a wedding ( awaiting photos from our genius photographer in order to show you more) where the table setings were a real challenge. To add to the stresses of who sits where, we were serving a meal in a Chinese banquet fashion which as many of you may know, involved clumpy lazy susans and huge platters of oriental food. How do you make room for the pretty things which need to adorn your tables? Some Chinese people have a custom of dishing out cigarettes and beers at a wedding and this posed a particular challenge to us.
The beers were easy, they needed to be served chilled anyway so they could be served as people wanted them. Cigarettes are not everybodys forte. So we concealed them in beautiful silver boxes we once purchased from the christmas faire, now they looked like little gifts, rather than packs of cigarretes. It all takes a little thought and a little imagination. The first hard and fast rule with a table setting is:
THERE ARE NO RULES. Gone are the days of laying cutlery in eating order unless you particularly wish to serve a formal silver service. Nowadays we have been known to wrap cutlery in napkins, arrange them across the top of your plate, whatever takes your fancy. Flowers too should be taken a little more lightly. Nothing plucks my nerves more than a ghastly centerpiece with no thought, no practicality and no imagination. Opt for bounteaous blossoming blooms of flowers on a tall centerpiece or candlestick if you wish to stay purist and traditional, but ensure your guests can see each other and chat easily- or all you have done is waste money and distance your guests from having a fun time.
Look at the proportions of the room you are using, imagine the amount of centerpieces one will see when the room is full. Does it fit your scheme? Too much? Too little? How do they contribute to the romantic charm of the room? How do they proportion the elegance of the decor? Are they upstaging? All these factors play an enormous part in getting it right. Frankly I prefer to tone them down.
Once you add people all dressed differently, any room can look full and cluttered. Try to be smart. Just because you have a sensational budget (for those of you who do) doesnt mean you should waste it away on flowers that people will enjoy for a few hours and then have to turf or handout to strangers as they leave. Add fewer flowers in a transparent vase , with some water, add a few decorations like diamond baubles or a few leaves and create something special, unique and whimsical. In months ahead, I will be doing small video demos on our new website http://www.starlicious.co.za/ (launching June 2008) to show you how smarter one can be.
These video blogs will discuss everything from table centerpieces to fashioning your hair and make up for your special day. Moreover, if you have no imagination, then you need a planner, someone who can think outside of the box, someone you can trust to be creative and ingenius. There really is no point in thinking you may know more, just because you know what you want. “SMILE”. The Afrikaans say : “Goedkoop is duurkoop.” translated that means, cheap buying is expensive. Instead opt for 3 supergrade roses in a glorious crystal centerpiece than spend R 500 per arrangement for flowers that barely make it from the florist to the venue without drooping.
Ensure your florist shows you the mockup of your centerpiece and ensure he has booked your quality flowers well in advance.
Linen- Be clever, dont stare at boring old linen and think thats all you can do. I have purchased fabric from the decor suppliers, indian markets, drapers and tailors, even from a haberdashery that have caught my eye. Treat fabric like a painting on a wall, how it creates the entire starting point for everything to come in that room. An entire colour scheme for a wedding can come out of one piece of fabric you desperately love. You may even find yourself mixing colours and textures or patterns you never imagined possible, all from one piece of cloth.
Use one pattern at most two that compliment each other. one classic and one geometric, perhaps. We live in the age of Modern Glam, a sophisticated look without the frills, but with at least some of the pattern. Combine things that you love to create a look that is elegant and fresh. One that is uniquely - YOU. One client loved silver, so using RED as the base, we draped the entire room in Christmas Red fabric, ceiling included. Added the cutlery in silverware, we adorned the tables with red fabric, trimmed with red fringe. Red topiary wreaths everywhere including miniatures on the chair backs with chair ties, we made red balls of roses we perched on huge champagne troughs in silver as the centerpieces of the room. AWESOME was the result.
The red was the canvas to show off the silver. Everything from flowers to plates and glassware were Red, neautralising the whole room and showing off the silver… brilliantly. Sometimes a single element of colour or pattern is all you need. In design - “repetition brings rythm”, so rather than adding too many different things, try repeating what you have to create uniformity and elegance, be it a colour, an object, a flower, or a pattern. I promise you will astound yourself with the results. Let me know how you have succesfully created something different. I am sure many readers are keen to learn more. Thank you for this incredible site and a great way of chatting to you about how to get it right. Be blessed and do something wonderful for someone today.
One particular detail we wish to emphasise is the decor. This studio will offer all our brides to be a full resource of goodies and ideas for a wedding and or a special event party. From your invitations to the details of your flowers, tablesettings and more. This brings me to a discussion I had recently with a bride about the stresses of creating a table setting that works.
We have recently completed a wedding ( awaiting photos from our genius photographer in order to show you more) where the table setings were a real challenge. To add to the stresses of who sits where, we were serving a meal in a Chinese banquet fashion which as many of you may know, involved clumpy lazy susans and huge platters of oriental food. How do you make room for the pretty things which need to adorn your tables? Some Chinese people have a custom of dishing out cigarettes and beers at a wedding and this posed a particular challenge to us.
The beers were easy, they needed to be served chilled anyway so they could be served as people wanted them. Cigarettes are not everybodys forte. So we concealed them in beautiful silver boxes we once purchased from the christmas faire, now they looked like little gifts, rather than packs of cigarretes. It all takes a little thought and a little imagination. The first hard and fast rule with a table setting is:
THERE ARE NO RULES. Gone are the days of laying cutlery in eating order unless you particularly wish to serve a formal silver service. Nowadays we have been known to wrap cutlery in napkins, arrange them across the top of your plate, whatever takes your fancy. Flowers too should be taken a little more lightly. Nothing plucks my nerves more than a ghastly centerpiece with no thought, no practicality and no imagination. Opt for bounteaous blossoming blooms of flowers on a tall centerpiece or candlestick if you wish to stay purist and traditional, but ensure your guests can see each other and chat easily- or all you have done is waste money and distance your guests from having a fun time.
Look at the proportions of the room you are using, imagine the amount of centerpieces one will see when the room is full. Does it fit your scheme? Too much? Too little? How do they contribute to the romantic charm of the room? How do they proportion the elegance of the decor? Are they upstaging? All these factors play an enormous part in getting it right. Frankly I prefer to tone them down.
Once you add people all dressed differently, any room can look full and cluttered. Try to be smart. Just because you have a sensational budget (for those of you who do) doesnt mean you should waste it away on flowers that people will enjoy for a few hours and then have to turf or handout to strangers as they leave. Add fewer flowers in a transparent vase , with some water, add a few decorations like diamond baubles or a few leaves and create something special, unique and whimsical. In months ahead, I will be doing small video demos on our new website http://www.starlicious.co.za/ (launching June 2008) to show you how smarter one can be.
These video blogs will discuss everything from table centerpieces to fashioning your hair and make up for your special day. Moreover, if you have no imagination, then you need a planner, someone who can think outside of the box, someone you can trust to be creative and ingenius. There really is no point in thinking you may know more, just because you know what you want. “SMILE”. The Afrikaans say : “Goedkoop is duurkoop.” translated that means, cheap buying is expensive. Instead opt for 3 supergrade roses in a glorious crystal centerpiece than spend R 500 per arrangement for flowers that barely make it from the florist to the venue without drooping.
Ensure your florist shows you the mockup of your centerpiece and ensure he has booked your quality flowers well in advance.
Linen- Be clever, dont stare at boring old linen and think thats all you can do. I have purchased fabric from the decor suppliers, indian markets, drapers and tailors, even from a haberdashery that have caught my eye. Treat fabric like a painting on a wall, how it creates the entire starting point for everything to come in that room. An entire colour scheme for a wedding can come out of one piece of fabric you desperately love. You may even find yourself mixing colours and textures or patterns you never imagined possible, all from one piece of cloth.
Use one pattern at most two that compliment each other. one classic and one geometric, perhaps. We live in the age of Modern Glam, a sophisticated look without the frills, but with at least some of the pattern. Combine things that you love to create a look that is elegant and fresh. One that is uniquely - YOU. One client loved silver, so using RED as the base, we draped the entire room in Christmas Red fabric, ceiling included. Added the cutlery in silverware, we adorned the tables with red fabric, trimmed with red fringe. Red topiary wreaths everywhere including miniatures on the chair backs with chair ties, we made red balls of roses we perched on huge champagne troughs in silver as the centerpieces of the room. AWESOME was the result.
The red was the canvas to show off the silver. Everything from flowers to plates and glassware were Red, neautralising the whole room and showing off the silver… brilliantly. Sometimes a single element of colour or pattern is all you need. In design - “repetition brings rythm”, so rather than adding too many different things, try repeating what you have to create uniformity and elegance, be it a colour, an object, a flower, or a pattern. I promise you will astound yourself with the results. Let me know how you have succesfully created something different. I am sure many readers are keen to learn more. Thank you for this incredible site and a great way of chatting to you about how to get it right. Be blessed and do something wonderful for someone today.
