Flowers in The Big Apple

After leaving Jersey we packed our bags and headed off to the Big Apple for The Chapel Designers 2012  "conference".  I was honored to attend last year when Holly Chapple tweeted "meet me in NYC"  and a group of floral designers from all over the country came together for a few days in NYC.  This year Holly did it again but bigger and better.  We had a group of 40 amazing designers from all over the country that specialize in event floral design. Holly worked amazingly hard to create 3 awesome days packed full of meeting the best in the industry and learning how to improve our business. 

We started our flower marathon at Matthew Robins' office where he greeted us with champagne and welcomed us into his beautiful studio. As a welcome gift Holly gave each one of us Matthew's new book Inspired Weddings, which he later individually signed. We were also so lucky to have Matthew design for us while sharing his experiences in the industry.  I also want to thank Florabundance for providing all the flowers for Matthew to work with.   

 

 

Monday morning we all woke up bright and early to start our day with Tara Guerard of Soiree.

Waiting for us were these adorable tote bags filled with goodies along with a booklet with all our names, faces and info and a brief schedule for the week. Thank you Wedding Chicks for the totes!

Tara was an absolute joy to hear speak.  She shared valuable information about her business practices and how she  achieves a home life balance with 3 kids one of which is an infant. 

Tuesday morning started out with a stroll through the flower market. This place is the ultimate mecca for a flower junkie.

A few of the Chapel Designers at G. Page

It was then off to Martha Stewart's office for a tour of where all the magic happens. Unfortunately no photos were allowed past the reception desk.  

Wednesday, my last day in NYC fast approached and I was off to the Flower School New York for a hand tied bouquet class with Ariella Chezar.  It was an honor to learn from such a passionate designer.  What impressed me the most about Ariella was how calm she was, although she said sometimes it takes her up to two hours to complete a bridal bouquet she never seemed frustrated. 

My Bouquet

Ariella showing us how to add ribbon for a finishing touch.

After the class was over I had two hours to kill before my train back to DC. I ended my amazing NYC Chapel Designer trip surrounded by thousands of yards of beautiful ribbon at M&J Trimming. 

The Williams go to Jersey

Third time is a charm.

Williams & Kaufmans - 2008

When our friends announced three years ago that they were moving back home to Jersey we were sad to say good bye but promised we would come visit soon.  Soon turned into two years later and still no visit.  We knew we needed to get something on the calendar so three months in advance we scheduled a trip in August.  We were all ready to go and then Huricane Irene showed up and we had to cancel.  That's ok we said we'll reschedule for October and then a freak snow storm hit.  Really!  I was starting to think the universe wasn't on our side here but we were determined to make it up there. I knew I would be in NYC in March for a Floral Design conference (more of that to come) so I suggested we come the weekend before and then I would head into the city. 

We made it!... after 7.5 hours of sitting in DC/Nova traffic...Baltimore traffic and then Philly traffic we arrive at the Kaufman's casa!  Hooray!  

After enjoying NY bagels for breakfast we headed off to the park.   Virginia had a great time swinging on these awesome swings!

Then it was off to have lunch and take a tour of their town, Ramsey. This town couldn't get any more cute, railroad and all!

Aimee and Adam took us to their favorite sandwich shop, Porto Alegre Cafe. 

    

...and then we made a stop at the local cupcake shop, Baked in a Cup

The rest of the weekend was spent catching up and just hanging out like old times.  Virginia had an absolute ball with their puggle Rylie.

The Kaufmans are also expecting their first child mid April so the unsolicited parenting advice was flowing as well as a pitch for them to purchase the Ergo baby carrier.  We even had Virginia model it.  

Thanks Kaufmans for a great time and we can't wait for our next trip up to Jersey.  

Urban Chic Says I Do

Last fall after all my weddings were over and Chris and I were settling into our slow season I started to realize that Virginia was missing out on something very important and that was being around other children.  We attended a first birthday party in August where I observed her in action with other kids and it wasn't pretty, she didn't like to share and was very territorial about things.  I soon realized it was time to join a play group.  A friend with a daughter Virginia's age recommend we join her play group, which was one of the best things I've done since quitting my job.  Through this mom's group I met Jacqui of Jacqui DePas Photography, like myself she juggles raising her two old (and one on the way) and a successful photography business. 

Jacqui teamed up with Urban Chic of Georgetown for their "Urban Chic Says I do" bridal event and did a series of photo shoots featuring rehearsal dinner dresses, engagement outfits and bridesmaids dresses. When planning the bridesmaids shoot she suggested they needed flowers in the photos and approached me about providing a few simple bouquets for the models to hold in exchange for being a sponsor for their event.  I immediately jumped at this opportunity since I always love it when photographers are willing and wanting to photograph my work.  I also was asked to provide a few flowers for the actual event at their boutique of which again I was more than happy to provide.  

Not knowing exactly how the table would be set up I tried to keep it simple and create multiple arrangements that could be displayed together or separate. 

  

Birch and Barley Living Social Dinner Deal

It's no secret I love a good deal, some would call me cheap but I call it being smart.  Saving in some places affords us the ability to splurge in others. Chris however would like nothing to do with coupons or deals, it is just an added hassle to him.  So you can imagine my surprise when he purchased a Living Social deal and was all giddy about it.  He called me up all excited that he bought 2 Living Social deals for a 5 course beer paring at Birch and Barley.  I'm 100% positive the only reason he bought this was because he saw the word BEER... and because he loves Birch and Barley.  When talking to him about the deal I asked, how much did you pay....uh.... "I don't remember was his response"   ok... well honey it sounds good and we left it at that.  

A couple days later I get a call from Chris saying... "remember that deal I bought... well I didn't read the fine print and a friend I know that works for Living Social just pinged me about what day I was going" He then proceeded to explain what he purchased; the deal was for a pop up resturant cooked by the chef from Birch and Barley located at the new Living Socials building 918 F Street and it was only good for a few days.  

Luckily we caught this two days before the deal expired and was able to make a reservation, if we had missed it I would have been pretty livid. We arranged for Grandma and Grandpa to watch Virginia and were getting excited for the night out in the city. Then it started to dawn us that we would be drinking a lot and how were we going to get home? We came to the conclusion we would need to stay the night, lucky for us we have a few free nights with Kimpton hotels due to the conferences we plan at their hotels, so Chris booked us a night at the Hotel George for free:)     

This was really shaping up to a be a fun night and all for a good deal (or so I thought)  

We arrived at the hotel George checked in and then hopped in a cab (cha ching) and headed over to the REAL Birch and Barley for a pre dinner beer, Chris briefly mentioned this part but I wasn't really listening, the reason we were going on Thursday night was because he planned a Tech happy hour that night and wanted to kill two birds with one stone. We kept trying to explain to people at the happy hour that we were going to a Birch and Barley dinner but not at the restaurant, this new concept was a little confusing to most. 

After sipping a few pre diner brews we hopped in another cab (cha ching) and headed over to this infamous 918 F street.  

First impressions were quite impressive, I loved the architecture of the building and of course Chris loved the HUGE screens.  

We were greeted at the door by young hip Living Social staff sporting the Living Social tshirt and then proceeded to the check in table.  We will say this was a little odd, we were in the mood to have a 5 course dinner and something about someone in a tshirt with a huge logo on it threw us off.  But when they explained that a yoga and painting class were also going on the building we understood the casualness of the tshirt.  

A history lesson on the way up to the 3rd floor, this building houses the last caged elevator in the District.

Now onto why we came, the food and beer!  Yes I was that girl that took a photo of every course, so if you were there and kept seeing a flash go off now you know why.  

I'm not a huge foodie so I don't want to critique this menu too much, all I can say as an average person is that I was slightly disappointed in having an all pasta meal for $85! But Chris did keep reminding me that the beer we were drinking alone made up for it.  

I took photos of the beer too, but honestly they didn't turn out, so I'll just share Chris's notes.  After he tasted each beer I asked for his comments, these notes are exactly the words he said, no editing.  For your reference here are the beers:

1. Calabaza Blanca

2. Stateside Saison 

3. Pepe Nero

4. McChouffe

5. Aventinus 

 

As a nice take home treat they ended dinner with this lemon poppy muffin for breakfast the next morning. Because this is run 100% by Living social no payment beyond the $85 is expected, we even asked if we should leave a tip and they said no it's all covered.  So...all in all I guess it wasn't that bad of a deal.  

 

Chris just couldn't get enough Birch and Barley so after taking this cute pic and saying good bye to the Living Social staff we walked off some of that beer and walked back to Birch and Barley to see if the happy hour was still going on, sadly it wasn't but that didn't stop us from enjoying one last beer (cha ching), we did have a hotel after all.  

We cabbed it back to the hotel (cha ching) passed out and woke up to a $48 valet parking bill (cha ching)

Oh well, I can't say this night was a deal but it sure was fun pretending I was young again living in the city.  By 10 am on Friday I was back to my normal life at a play date with Virginia.  

Valentine's Day Wine Challenge

My sister's annual wine Challenge started a few year ago, in fact the first one she had I was pregnant with my daughter so there was no drinking for me.  But this year I was able to enjoy the huge selection her guests brought as well contribute in the planning of the event.  

The only weekend that was available on the calendar was the weekend before Valentine's Day, I wasn't sure how people would respond to that date but it turned out she had a great turn out and of course we had a great theme to run with. 

The invites went out through Paperless Post, a great online site for sending stylish invitations for a fraction of the price of snail mail.  I also want to plug that they are a sponsor at JSConf this year and we love love love using them!  

The rules were simple, bring a bottle of wine of your choice that was $12 or less. I didn't count how many we ended up having but I'm pretty sure it was in the 20 bottle range.    

When each guest arrived, I brown bagged and numbered the bottle and entered it into a spread sheet so we could keep track of the bottles and who they belonged to, the numbers were in random order so it wasn't obvious if you were the first guest to arrive that your bottle was numbered 1.  The white wine bottles had white hearts and were put in a zip lock bag and then into the ice bucket.  

The guests then proceeded to the wine glass table and picked up their glass which was adorned with a heart shaped name tag and 4 voting tickets.  At the end of the night you simply wrote your favorite wine/s on the tickets and dropped it in the voting bucket.  I was not able to vote since I was the one bagging the bottles. 

Guest were also given an index card and mini pencils to keep track of which numbers they preferred, honestly by #5 they were starting to become a blur to me.  Oyster crackers and spit bucket were provided but I'm pretty sure I didn't take advantage of either of those.  

Desserts and food was all my sister.  She made brownies and cut them out with a heart shape cookie cutter and ordered Georgetown Cupcake mini's which surprisingly priced out to be less than other local bakeries, I know crazy right.  My mom made us her famous crab and artichoke dip and a variety cheeses were scattered throughout the room, I know how cliche, wine and cheese.  

The decorations were left up to me.  My sister didn't want to spend a lot of money so we did it on the cheap and used old wine bottles and painted them red and silver. Over all the paint held up great considering it was painted on glass and we did use a primer.  We did have a few scratches during transport over to her apartment but they weren't that noticeable.  

The bottles were filled with white carnations and mini callas and red parrot tulips.  A few of the bottles had candles but we didn't want to use too many candles in fear of starting a fire (lots of wine and fire don't always mix)  

I decorated her fireplace mantle with submerged red rose petals and floating candles.  

Voting was cut off at 10:30 and we then revealed each bottle so people could see which ones they liked.  Chris and I won second place with a wine we purchased at the Wine Cabinet in Reston.