2020 in Review

We’re kicking off the blog with a look back at the strange and beautiful year we had. Here are a few highlights from the studio and beyond:

JANUARY:

We kicked off with a fun branding shoot with the very talented Lisa Hufford whose beautiful work you’ve seen often on our Instagram and website. Not only did she make our studio and flowers look exquisite, she taught me the tricks she uses to make her couples channel their inner models on their big day. Look down! Now over! Now touch your ear! It was super fun and the light & airy pictures were beyond our dreams!

FEBRUARY

February is always a busy month in flowerland! We started with a mini-bouquet giveaway for Valentine’s Day and deliveries of red roses all across Chicago. I celebrated my birthday attending a gull frolic in northern Illinois (no judgement!). We had an extra-special wedding at the Evanston’s Women’s Club featuring this RIDICULOUS cascade that may or may not have escaped from the 18th century. We closed out with the Lakeshore in Love styled shoot mega-event with a dream team of vendors. Whereas normally we skew soft, gardeny, and airy, we pushed our limits with a modern, edgy look featuring dried and sprayed materials to create something super cool! Photo by Tuan B. with styling by Wedicity.

Photo credit: Tuan B

MARCH

The pandemic forces Chicago into lockdown, cancelling spring weddings and sending everyone into panicked turmoil. Our last wedding is shifted up to March 19th as the city starts to close down. By the 24th I have retreated to my in-laws in rural Virginia to weather out the storm in the most apocalypse-proof place I know.

Oh, but good news? We received BEST OF THE KNOT in our first full year of operations!

APRIL

Gloom & doom as the postponements keep on coming. So, I help my mother in law bring her local farmer’s market online (check it out! It’s really well done!). It’s spring in Virginia so I build a cold frame and start gardening. Also, we allowed Basil outside where he promptly got himself stuck up a pecan tree. I strapped on a harness and got pulled up via pickup truck to rescue him. The little idiot did it like three more times when we were there, but eventually figured out how to get himself down. Country adventures!

MAY

I join TikTok’s Creative Learning Fund and start making some quarantine content despite generally being an awkward human being. You can check them all out here or just leave me alone and spare me the embarrassment, haha. Let’s move on.

JUNE

Lots of baking and TikToks to pass the time. But wait! A change in venue to an Indiana country club blesses us with a wedding to design for. It’s a memorable install with a last-minute thunderstorm forcing us to move the ceremony inside at the last minute. A microwedding in shades of purple the next week welcomes us back to business.

JULY

We do the loveliest microwedding in the Glessner House courtyard, shades of peach and white with one of my favorite arches of the year. The venue is a total hidden gem in the heart of Chicago and you all HAVE to go on a tour once the great quar has ended!

AUGUST

Five weddings this month as we start to all figure out how to celebrate in a pandemic. A waved wedding at the Zephyr had one set of guests for the ceremony, another set for dinner, and a third set for drinks and dancing at the end. Another celebrated in a private suite at the Thompson hotel. So creative and resourceful! And just look at these colors…

We also upped our E-Commerce game by adding a selection of plants & containers to purchase online. Bouquets & vase arrangements are on their way for 2021!

SEPTEMBER

Now we’re cranking with 9 weddings and a new weekly corporate account. We worked on rooftops, in backyards, and all the way to Champaign to make it happen for our couples. But maybe our favorite was our good friends who got married on the University of Chicago campus where they met. Their Zoom wedding was one of the sweetest, most heartfelt ceremonies I have seen and I cried like a baby on my end of the screen. Just look at their cuteness and tell me 2020 was no good.

Photo credit: Kate Kaplan Photography

OCTOBER

Another intimate and stunningly beautiful wedding, this time for a good friend getting married on a horse barn in Kentucky. She gave me free reign to just bring a truckload of flowers down from Chicago and ended up with my favorite ceremony install of the year, rustic-elegant-textured with an incredible color palette. To see them so happy, beautiful, and in love was absolutely magical. Le sigh.

Photo credit: Jennifer Chang Photography

NOVEMBER

Microweddings, election news, and an incredible styled shoot at BT Wildman. We have a LOT of amazing pictures to share from that shoot so don’t worry. Here are a couple teasers to get you excited!

Also, we bought a house!

DECEMBER

The year finally draws to a close with holiday arrangements and good news of the vaccine! Let’s toast to 2021 with lots of weddings, celebrations, joy, and flowers all around. Happy Holidays to all of you who kept us going through a year of uncertainty. We all have a lot to be thankful for.