Congratulations Val & Andy! (part 1 : the setup)
Valentine’s Day weekend brought us a fabulous opportunity to work on Val & Andy’s wedding! Val actually found us in a strange way…she runs a small business called Blue Canary Vintage! Googling herself one day, she came across our website. Fate has a funny way of working, doesn’t it?
Andy & Val chose The Xchange as their venue. The beautiful loft space in Chelsea was the perfect size for their 160-guest wedding. Plus Val used to work there so it was a natural choice! Here’s the not-so-fabulous-looking building from the street:
Once you get up on the 9th floor, though, things change considerably for the better. Here’s the general idea:
Even better, check out the view of the Hudson River! The building is less than half a block away from the water. The huge windows give plenty of sunlight and a spectacular feeling of being on top of the world:
Since there wasn’t an event in the space on Friday (and the booking manager is friends with the bride), we were able to get in a day early to start decorating. Luckily Party Rental Ltd. was also able to deliver on Friday so we had the tables and chairs ready to go. Here’s what the room looked like circa 1pm on Friday:
Wait, did you see that mountain of stuff towards the back? Those are all the decorations the bride brought! Since Val works at the Brooklyn Flea and has a knack for everything vintage, she acquired a significant amount of decor pieces for the wedding. In this pile we have about 200 mason jars with candles, a dozen vintage toy airplanes, a ton of glass dishes with old-school-style candy, vintage wooden crates, 900+ yards of satin & grosgrain ribbon, vintage linens for the buffet tables, a giant airplane vinyl sticker for a wall, and a slew of other random things. Val’s vision really came to life when this stuff started getting put together:
The biggest project we had for Friday’s setup was a curtain made out of ribbon. When Val and I initially visited the space we agreed that there should be a beautiful focal piece for the ceremony. Luckily there was a metal beam in the exact right spot and the idea of the ribbon curtain was born! Here’s the progress as of about 4pm on Friday:
Installation was relatively simple although extremely time-intensive. We simply cut 10′ sections of ribbon, climbed up on a ladder, and tied them to the metal beam! The installation wasn’t a job for someone afraid of heights! I must have spent about three hours on that huge ladder. Here’s the view from above, looking down at the floor. I like this photo because you can see the stacks and stacks of mason jars in the upper right:
Another big project was running ribbons down the columns to give the aisle a more defined space. Since we were going to flip the room into the luncheon reception, Val wanted to be sure we gave the ceremony a little more of an identity. Plus it drew the eye upwards and broke up the all-white space:
While I was working on my ribbon curtain project, Val’s friend Darren was busy putting together some floral arrangements. How awesome is it to have such talented friends?! Here are the all-white bouquets (Val’s is front & center):
Here are a small portion of the centerpieces Darren made. He used the mason jars and created a TON of mini arrangements that would be mixed and matched on each table. We combined two or three jars per table and it looked fabulous:
The room, around 8pm on Friday night. T-minus seventeen hours until the wedding! Do you see how the ribbon curtain has a lot of space between each piece? That’s not how it looked in my head and I was pretty disappointed that it wasn’t as full as I wanted it. Tying more ribbons was a viable option but would’ve taken HOURS and looked a little clumpier and messier than I envisioned. Upon some consultation with Darren, we decided to hang up some white drape behind the ribbons. Luckily the venue just happened to have pipe and drape accessible so we zip-tied six sections of drape panels to the same metal beam.
Here’s the ‘before:’
And ‘after,’ the next morning after we put the drape panels up. See how the line of lighting disappears and the ribbons look more full? This also allowed the band to set up behind the curtain and avoid a quick move into their space, helping the timeline move along during cocktail hour. Visually and logistically it was a great solution! If only wedding guests knew that beautiful event decor is sometimes the product of a quick-fix!
I thought the ribbon streamers looked pretty fab too:
On my walk back to the train I noticed the Empire State Building was wearing red, pink and white. What a way to get in the mood for a Valentine’s Day wedding!
In our next post we’ll show you how the wedding ceremony and luncheon reception looked. (hint: it was pretty fabulous). There was even an afterparty at night…we flipped the room twice! Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3!
Tags: brown, chelsea, Laura, loft, manhattan, NYC, party rental ltd, real wedding, red, white, xchange