7:30 AM

The Wedding at the Boston Seaport Hotel Continued

Hi! So, here we are continuing the story of the wedding at the Boston Seaport Hotel. If you want to see the beginning of the story of my journey to create the flowers for the wedding, you can see it here. The story continues with the packing up of the flowers into a UHaul van along with two other cars and with my helpers and me heading to Boston. The ride went surprisingly well, no delays or catastophes, and all of a sudden we were there! A piece of cake. Phew! Such a relief!

As soon as we arrived, it was time to get the bouquets, corsages and boutonnieres delivered to the bridal party. Everything was carefully placed in white boxes and sent off to the correct hotel rooms for delivery. The bride, bridesmaids and mother-of-the-bride were getting dressed for the wedding and they all looked beautiful!!

This box held the bridesmaids bouquets. Long flowing peach ribbons were tied at the handle of these bouquets. You can see the ribbons below. I am hoping to be able to see a photo of the bridesmaids carrying their bouquets down the aisle. I think the bouquets must have looked so pretty next to their blue dresses! That was the idea, anyway!

This is the Mother-of-the-Bride Bouquet.

If you go to my previous Boston Seaport post, you will read the story of my dilemma with the "peach" peony. Even with the color problem of the peony, I still really loved this bouquet. I thought the colors were astounding and the bouquet was fancy and delicate.

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More bridesmaid bouquets

The mothers' bouquets, Grammie's corsage and a boutonniere, all ready to be delivered.

I couldn't resist showing you the bride's bouquet one more time.

I wanted to add this photo because you can see, in the background (kind of), the entrance to the reception area of the hotel. This is where I was able to park my vehicles and go about the work of set-up and delivery. It was great!! This was one of the best venues with which I have had the pleasure to work. Melissa, the wedding coordinator at the hotel, was awesome also! She was so helpful and really, really, nice. Such a pleasure! The parking attendant was so kind and considerate of our needs, as well. The whole experience at the hotel was just wonderful. I can't say enough about how great everyone was, all the way to the lady in the kitchen who told me, "how beautiful" my flowers were. I took that as a great compliment and was truly touched.

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Next, it was time to get the entry area and ballroom decorated for the wedding. This arrangement was to greet the guests as they entered the wedding area of the hotel. It was the grandest of all the arrangements I made for this occasion. As you can see, the flowers sat on a high trumpet-shaped vase. It was supposed to have a dramatic effect and I think it did.

I loved all the flowers in this piece. There were pink peonies, white roses, peach roses, peach and pink ranunculus, peach and pink spray roses, peach and white stock, white dahlias, white and pink sweet peas, white lisianthus and, last but not least, pink cherry blossom branches. Lots of flowers! Truly lovely!

This is what greeted the guests as they entered the reception area.

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Also, to be placed in the entry hall on a side table was this arrangement.

Many of the same flowers were used in this arrangement as had been used in the trumpet vase arrangement. However, a large white peony, white anemone, pink astilbe and dahlias were added to the mix in this one.

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Once the trumpet vase and side arrangements were in place, we were on to the ballroom to set-up and finish the reception centerpieces. Most of the tables would have low centerpieces, fourteen to be exact. They looked like the one pictured below. However, all the low centerpieces were slightly different from one other so as to be unique and interesting.

You can see from this sampling that each centerpiece was, in deed, slightly different from the other. The colors again were to be peach, pink and white but, these centerpieces were to have a "touch" of blue and gray. The dusty miller added the gray. Cornflower and another "mystery" blue flower were added for the blue accent.

The next task at hand was to assemble the tall centerpieces. There were six of them in all. Floral arrangements like the one below were placed on top of 36" tall clear, glass vases. Voila! Tall Centerpieces! Almost...

After the centerpieces were safely set on top of the vases, I needed to add the finishing touches. Greens needed to flow down the sides of the arrangements and a few more greens were added to the top. This part was a bit time consuming and before we knew it, we had been at the hotel for almost three hours.

Here is the finished product. Sorry for the background clutter in the picture. The hotel was in the process of setting up the room at the same time I was delivering and setting up the flowers. We were all working together to make the room gorgeous!

Here you can see the tall and the low centerpieces next to each other before all the dinnerware had been arranged on the tables.

Thankfully, some of the guests at the wedding were friends of mine and I was able to obtain a photo of the ballroom after the room had been totally decorated and set-up for the wedding. I wish the photograph allowed you to see the tall centerpieces better. There is one way in the background of this photo. You'll just have to take my word for it that everything looked lovely :).

This was the view out the window of the hotel. Pretty cool, huh?! Such a great place for a wedding and it was the perfect day, weatherwise!

The last task I had to do at the hotel before leaving for the church (I had to place some white bows on the railings of the entry to the church) was to decorate the wedding cake. I thought I would be doing this in the ballroom. I had decorated other cakes before and they were usually placed in the reception area by the time I needed to work on them. However, this time the cake was in the refrigerator. My assistants and I hovered in the corner of the walk-in refrigerator and decorated the cake. It got a little chilly but we had a great time anyway.

More beautiful flowers

Here is another hijacked photo from one of my friends who was a guest at the wedding :). This is the cake as the guests saw it that evening. The rose petals and candles were a nice touch.

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The happy couple as they walked down the aisle after the ceremony. Lovely, lovely, lovely.