Flagler Museum Wedding With All The Bells and Whistles

eddye
September 7, 2018
Categories: Real Weddings, Traditional Elegance

From the Bride… As a little girl, I always dreamed of getting married in the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. This Gilded Age mansion was once Henry Flagler’s wedding gift to his wife. Once Oliver and I looked at it together, we knew, immediately that it was the place for us. With the help of an amazing team of vendors… Anthology, Masi Events, Katie Lopez Photography, Nuage Designs, Pinwheel Film Company (and SO many more!) we were able to curate a day that was the start of the next incredible chapter of our lives as husband and wife…

We wanted the day to represent who we were as a couple, where we came from, where we have been, and where we are going. With this in mind, we planned our wedding style to be a “New England meets Floridian” theme. New England – since that is where Oliver is from, where both of us still have family (my parents go there four months out of the year) and where I spent every summer in Chatham, Cape Cod growing up. And Florida – since that is where I am from, where both of us met, currently live and where we were getting married.

Our theme was carried throughout our wedding day in all of our details, from the food (we served lobster roll and crab cake apps!) to the flowers (we used oranges and magnolias). The design was really first executed with our paper details and monogram by PAPEL & CO. In the monogram, we chose to use a hydrangea to represent New England and a banana leaf to represent Palm Beach. We used the monogram as our key visual, shown not only through our day of pieces, but also my wedding gift and our cocktail bars facade. Natalia from PAPEL & CO also did an amazing job illustrating the foliage of both locations in a cohesive way on our invitation pieces. We even had vintage stamps that represented both places, like a Cape Cod lighthouse and Florida Egrets.

In terms of the detail colors, both were a big significance in terms of our family. Blue and White china was incorporated into our design throughout as it represented the tradition of family – my grandmother and my mother, who are Danish, have both collected and used royal Copenhagen fine china throughout my life. The blue and white china detail was shown through our escort card display and day of signage (which were plates my mom and I collected throughout wedding planning), our cocktail linens (by Nuage!), our wedding card Ginger Jar, and our reception vaseware.

My favorite crafted detail was the escort card display as it was a labor of love by my mom and our amazing vendors – Jessica from Masi Events and Veronica from Anthology. The display was the statement piece I always dreamed of.

Our cake – by Earth & Sugar was a mix of classy and casual. We used classic buttercream frosting and styled it with florals by Anthology but the flavor was more casual. Using funfetti cake and cream cheese frosting.

Our flowers exceeded all our expectations thanks to Veronica from Anthology. The florals really represented New England meets Florida — using foliage from New England mixed with oranges from Florida. They were subtle, yet elegant and using low mixes of florals in blue and white vases, it assured an intimate dinner party vibe.

Oliver and I met (and work) at Burger King Corporate in Miami. So bringing this fun element of our story was especially important when thinking about our “late night food.” We created a custom logo using “The Hurds” with BK’s logo. This logo was used on the packaging for burgers and fries. We even branded it a “whopper of wedding” and handed out crowns during the Hora Loca.

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More from the Bride… With the “New England meets Floridian” theme in mind, we curated our primary color palette and style to represent the scenery of both locations. Our colors were ivory, dusty blue, dusty green plus blue/white china and rose gold details.

My gown was by Hayley Paige paired with Jimmy Choo heels. The dress was a modern take on a traditional style. The art deco sequins on the traditional mermaid style was just what I was looking for. I paired it with Jimmy Choo shoes that had an orchid on them which was important to me (as I was born in Hawaii).

For personal florals, Anthology used silvery green sage, garden roses and peonies and tied the bridesmaids’ bouquets with dusty blue velvet. At the ceremony and reception, Veronica used cascading urn arrangements inspired by the urns at Flagler. The magnolia urn arrangements at the reception added height to the room without ruining guests view of each other.

Incorporating unique and personal elements was one of my favorites part of wedding planning. Jessica and I worked together to see what touch points would most exemplify Oliver and me:

Oliver rowed at University of Penn so the men’s drink was served with a wood oar and I attended FSU so the female drink was served with a wood arrow.
He is also a notorious instagrammer amongst his friends for constantly posting food with the hashtag #tubbyapproved. Since Oliver was the lead on all things food with the help of Chez Gourmet, it was important we used this hashtag as an Easter egg on our wedding details. We used this on our cocktail napkins and our menu cards.
Although neither of us are Hispanic, the Miami and Hispanic culture of “hora loca’s” is important to us since we have attended many weddings with this element. We thought it would be an amazing touch to end the night.
We added Jordan almonds as a personal favor on the tablescape. As this a Greek heritage and was also served at my parents’ wedding, it was important that we continued the tradition.
For many years Oliver and I have always said our future family drink would be a “HURDicane” to represent our new last name and South Florida hurricanes. Having Chez Gourmet curate this for the first time and serve it at our cocktail hour was so special.

My one piece of advice to brides it to make it a weekend event – I was so glad we had events starting Thursday through Sunday because it gave us an opportunity to really talk and engage with to our guests on other events besides the wedding day. So on the wedding day, we could focus on enjoying time with each other and seeing those people who were only there on the day of. Making it a weekend event doesn’t need to be too expensive either – on Thursday we did a Cheeseburgers in Paradise themed BBQ in my parents backyard with bridal party and family as a welcome party.