Rocket Science Weddings and Events

I want to congratulate Zoe & Devin, past clients of mine, on the birth of their baby girl. Last week's Cylinder Thursday post was dedicated to them, but I forgot to mention that. Last week I also mentioned how much I want to do baby showers. Well, I attended a great one at Oak Ridge Country Club not too long ago for Vanessa, the uber talented graphic designer for Amy Zaroff Events + Design.

Vanessa and her husband don't want to find out what they are having, so I thought the team at Amy Zaroff did a great job of creating a gender neutral baby shower without looking generic. Or Winnie the Pooh. I apologize in advance for my crappy iPhone pictures.

Cute keepsake for baby, loving wishes from all the attendees. And of course the pencil was included for us to write our wishes with!

Our placemat was a quiz on all things baby.

The delicious dessert, a banana pudding and cake pop, done by Cocoa and Fig.

This post today is in honor of Jen and Josh's wedding this past weekend. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Rutz! I will of course post a full blog post of their day when I get the amazing photos from 1012 photo. Until then, on to Cylinder Thursday!

This cylinder makes use of the abundant hosta plant. (If you don't have hosta overtaking your yard and you want to try this look, you can head to my house or my mom's house, we have plenty!) I love hosta leaves because of their deep veins. Even a solid green leaf is so pretty because the veins add texture. The hosta leaf makes a good, local substitute for an aspidistra leaf, reducing the carbon footprint (and cost if you cut them from your yard) of the arrangement. Go green with greens!

Here is how this easy arrangement comes together:

1. Pick your hosta leaves. For this wedding the sister of the bride had these large, variegated leaves that I loved. When I cut them I left a little stem so I could keep them in water overnight. For the arrangement though I cut the stem off using a sharp knife and then flipped the leaf over and "deveined" it, making the back of the leaf a little more pliable. You have have to be careful not to cut too much off or else you cut through the leaf.

2. Hold the leaf between your thumb and forefinger and wrap around to make a tight loop. Place in cylinder.

3. Fill with water to desired height.

4. Top with candle or other floral.

This leaf was not as long as some others, so it didn't wrap around the cylinder as well. However, I like this look too. The leaf takes up most of the cylinder and you get more of a "leaf feel" as opposed to just abstract green color in the cylinder.

Here are the cylinders as one of Jen and Josh's centerpiece. You can see how great they work for a long, skinny dinner table. They don't take up much room but have high impact. We used a variety of yellow flowers, but these are floating cushion mums. Other flowers that would work great as a floating top to the cylinder: roses, standard or Fiji mums, dahlias, gerbera daisies, and cymbidium orchids.