Mango Calla Favor Boxes - Oranges and Greens

Today is apparently a busy blog day for me! As you can see just by today's posts that I have been working on a lot of things the last few days! I received a call last week from a gentleman who was referred by the Hilton Waikoloa Village Wedding Atelier... the FABULOUS Kai Maxwell! He is getting married to his fiance, Suzette on 11/28/08. Yes, the day after Thanksgiving. It was a small order so I agreed to take it.

He really liked my mango calla lily favor box I did for a past client and asked if I could replicate it. Since he wasn't particular about the contents of the favor box, I suggested the Honolulu Cookie Company pineapple shortbread cookies in various non-chocolate flavors (so they wouldn't melt). He agreed and so these are some pictures I took of his favor boxes for his wedding! If you haven't tried these shortbread cookies, you are MISSING OUT! They are the BOMB! :) They are SOOOOOOO good! The great thing about them is you can order in bulk without having to purchase their pre-made boxes. That way you can have whatever flavors you want as long as you order in total a minimum of 100 cookies. Not hard to do especially when you have a lot of wedding guests. The cookies last about 6-8 weeks for the best freshness, but you can freeze them to prolong the freshness. 6 cookies fit nicely in each box.For a over the top gift you could fit in 8. What a sweet way to end the evening!

Teri & Frank - Hilton Waikoloa Village

This morning I finished Teri & Frank's favors for their upcoming wedding at the Hilton Waikoloa Village & Resort. Teri came to DK Designs by way of the wonderful wedding atelier staff at the Hilton. Teri wanted save-the-dates, invitations and favors. This is a style sheet of all the components (or most of them anyway) to give you an idea of what we did for her wedding. Her colors were a turquoise and hot pink. So we went with a hibiscus design since she is getting married after all in Hawaii. We did some scroll work as well whcih worked out nicely.

For Teri's favors, she was so torn on what flower to do. I told her you can do different flowers for the male and female guests as I've had several clients ask for one particular flower for the female guests and maybe a pineapple or a turtle for the male guests. I think these days, anything goes, as long as it's done well! :) So since her wedding was quite small, we went for flowers in whites and pinks (gardenia, cymbidium orchid, hibiscus, plumeria) and for the guys a mixture of pineapples and wooden turtle with mini plumerias and leaves). The ribbons are a light teal organza and rasberry pink silk ribbon and we tied her wedding invitation motif back in with her favor tags to finish them off. So you can see that carrying the theme through from your save-the-dates all the way to your favors truly makes the event unique and all your own. I've had so many clients tell me how much their guests were excited when they received the invitation and to see all the other pieces with the same motif really helped make the event that much more special.

Well, back to my other orders... I hope you like what you see..

Pineapples and Orchids

I'm finishing up another big order. This one comes from my client Laurie in Michigan. She and her husband are doing a vow renewal at the Hilton Waikoloa Village & Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii. She contacted me via the hotel's wedding atelier and asked if I could do her centerpieces, hair flowers, favors, table cards, place cards and thank you notes. Her basic theme was greens and pinks and she really liked the pineapple design I did for another client and fell in love with the green cymbidiums. We modified the color pink as she wanted it a bit darker and more vibrant than the original one I made for a previous Hilton client. This was a fun one since the wedding was small, but each piece really works well together. These are just a few of the images that I took of the items I made for Laurie and John.

Laurie decided on Big Island Candies dark chocolate dipped shortbread cookies to fill her favor boxes. If you have never tried these delightful shortbread cookies, TRY IT! They are really delicious - you can never just eat one, it's hard not to want to eat the whole box! On another note, if you love everything pineapple, try Honolulu Cookie Company cookies - another great shortbread cookie company out of Oahu. They make shortbread cookies in the shapes of pineapples and have these great fruit flavor shortbread cookies. I LOVE the lilikoi (passionfruit) and pineapple ones!

Recent Arrangements & Projects

I know it's been a while since my last blog post. It's been to say the very least CRAZY BUSY with keeping up with the demand. Some of these photos are pictures of things I made for my husband's work. I have seemed to developed a fan club with the women at his work. They LOVE Martha Stewart and they LOVE my stuff. So I felt the need to make some little arrangements for them. Now they want class! It's nice just to see their enthusiasm.

I've even gotten inquiries from women interested in taking the classes all the way from Arkansas, Ohio and Maryland! If only I had enough hours in the day to do it all! Some of these arrangements are also items I made for Etsy.com which have already sold.

This one is an arrangement of a tussie mussie bouquet and a matching boutonniere I made for a special project I was working on. It's green cymbidiums, pink freesia, pink hydrangeas, stephanotis flowers with crystals and greenish white ranunuculus flowers. Can you see the pink/green/white theme going on!!!

Favors & Centerpieces for a Vow Renewal

Another Hilton Waikoloa Village referral came my way just prior to the Martha Stewart Show airing. This particular client is celebrating a vow renewal with her husband. She contacted me for her small centerpieces for her guest tables, favors as well as her place cards, table cards and thank you cards. She wanted pinks and greens and loved the cymbidium orchid. It's interesting, I think green cymbidiums will never go out of style. It's always been one of my favorites!

Anyway, these are the centerpieces and the favor box we're doing for her vow renewal celebration. Things to say the very least have been HECTIC! Please note that I may not be able to post new material as often as I want to. It's wedding season and I'm trying to keep up with all the wedding orders already on the books as well as the etsy.com demand! It's definitely been a great thing to be on Etsy.com to say the very least. I even got someone in Australia asking me if I would ship her an arrangement!

Lorela & Ryan - My "Everything" Couple!
Hilton Waikoloa Village - 2/16/08
Lorela and Ryan are what I call... my "EVERYTHING" couple! They basically ordered everything from me! Let's see if I can remember everything they ordered:
Invitations, favor tags, place cards, table cards, ceremony program fans, fan tags, bridal party and OOT bag packet/inserts, wedding reception programs, bridal party bouquets, centerpieces... The order continues to grow... We're in the home stretch of this order.

This order has definitely been a challenge. This couple is my first official EVERYTHING couple.. The only thing they didn't order was their ceremony decor. :) Even though the order was challenging, it was a GREAT experience because Lorela pushed me to try new things I hadn't really done before. She is all about the bling and the monograms which was fun!

Lorela wanted "hot chocolate" callas, cameo callas, wine callas, bella tang and wine colored orchids... She also wanted to use a WINE theme throughout the wedding reception. Her bouquet is this all hot chocolate calla bouquet that will look stunning against her ivory/champagne wedding dress! She also wanted her attendants to have champagne colored bouquets against their chocolate bridesmaid dresses.


The interesting thing is that Lorela worked at the Hilton and saw my stuff in the wedding atelier office and I guess she thought it would be great to have my things for her wedding! The Hilton Waikoloa Village was my first big wedding atelier to take me on as preferred vendor!

Anyway, these are a few pictures of some of the items I created for their wedding.