Bringing Wedding Inspiration to Life by Firefly Events
The very first step to planning you wedding is quite likely going to be choosing colors and an overall aesthetic. You have million ideas rushing through your mind as pin different themes, and selecting them down to just one can often be a challenge. So we’re often asked how to take your dream wedding collage and bring it to real life. Teissia and Alia of Firefly Events in NYC are with us to share a very special feature: turning wedding inspiration from idea into reality. Their booth at this August’s The Cream Event NYC was out-of-this-world incredible, made possible by Firefly’s wedding savvy know-how in designing the most beautiful soirees. I’ll let Teissia and Alia take it from here, and keep an eye out for some handy tutorials within!
From the designers, Teissia and Alia: The design process is one of our favorite parts of our job! Not just the execution, but the actual process of creating and collaborating to make an idea in your head, come to life. At The Cream event in August, we took the opportunity to try something completely new and different — and today we’re super excited to share a behind the scenes look at how it all came together!
photos above by Moss and Isaac
Earlier this summer, the ladies at The Cream sent us a moodboard and color story to use as a jumping off point. This is a great place to start any design project, because it begins to define what you don’t want. After seeing the board we made a quick list of what we did want to convey in our design. We find that it’s really helpful to keep an inspiration list with some go-to words and phrases to help define your design. Here was our list for The Cream:
- A simplistic aesthetic
- A contrast of masculine and feminine
- Draw inspiration from interior design
- Incorporate the entire space from floor to ceiling
These were all ideas that had been percolating over the last few months and we were dying to test them out. When we do side projects like The Cream, or put together inspiration shoots, we love to use them as strictly creative spaces where we can experiment with new ideas and build on others. These three elements are the foundation for all of our design work, and they’re easy tools that anyone can use: A Moodboard + Color Story, an Inspiration List (this could also be as simple as a list of adjectives, like “fun, cozy, nautical” etc.), and a few Key Pieces. For weddings, the first Key Piece can be your wedding gown.
photo by Moss and Isaac
One incredible thing to note is that they made almost everything themselves – including the table! Using reclaimed wood and Ikea trestle legs 🙂 Perhaps you might want to steal their idea for your dessert table? Our first project is a set of 6 placemats in a fun black and white tribal print. Super easy!
1. Supplies:
– 6 pieces of fabric, each measuring your desired size (we got ours here)
– A roll of Stitch Witchery (also known as “magic hem”)
– Ruler
– Iron
-Pencil
2. Lay your fabric pattern side down and use your ruler to mark where you would like to fold your fabric. For our placemats we used a stiff cotton-linen canvas so it easily took the fold. If yours doesn’t, use a few straight pins to hold the fabric in place. Cut a few strips of Stitch Witchery and place between each fold.
3. Iron each fold and let the Stitch Witchery do its magic. Voila! Custom placemats.
For our broken marble table runner, Taylor headed to an old bar that was being renovated and brought a sledge hammer. This is one of our favorite rules of crafting: Always keep your eyes and ears open. You never know when free stuff might come your way! Keep your eyes peeled for the free section of Craigslist 🙂
It’s important to be flexible and go with the flow, because you never know exactly how your design will turn out until you install it in the venue. There are always little tweaks and changes once you’re on site and sometimes those can be the best part!
For this space, they worked with Fox Fodder Farm for the hanging flowers arragements + fresh flower veil wreath, and the dreamcatchers were crafted by Electric Love. Thanks so much for reading our story and thanks to Tree of Life Films for putting together this little video of our setup on the big day!
If you want another peek at our recap for their space, check it out here. So worth revisiting! Thank you Firefly Events for the visit and Tree of Life Films for the video!
Absolutely love the idea of the marble, that is so creative!
This is such a creative and innovative idea! Chunky marble slaps as runners. What a dream:) Great design!