Rooftop Garden Wedding
Meet our wonderful couple, Frankie and Stephen, who had so many beautiful, personal elements they hoped to include in their wedding day; we made it our goal to incorporate every single one. While focusing time in that arena, we also wanted to fully evolve the space Frankie and Stephen chose for their wedding - the rooftop of a downtown Hotel. A unique space to transform, we approached each task with creative thinking and challenged ourselves to out-of-the-box designs. What was created in the end was an extraordinarily stunning wedding celebration that we hope will remain a cherished memory for our lovely newlyweds forevermore.
Frankie had always wanted an outdoor wedding, but given the temperamental spring weather of the Midwest, decided the safest option for planning was an indoor venue. Luckily, we had some ideas that would bring the essence of her dream garden wedding to the indoor venues she had chosen. We decided to completely makeover the ceremony venue, the Queen City Club. To redesign the space, which began as a canvas of a red carpet and musty walls, we had to reimagine the space entirely. We wanted to bring to life Frankie’s dream of an enchanted garden wedding, so we pulled in every aspect of that theme we could imagine. We began with the carpeting - replacing the red carpet with a grassy green carpet to lay the foundation of being outside. The walls were draped with sheaths of champagne and lit with delicate lighting evoking the feeling of sitting under a large tree with sunlight filtering through the leaves. Draped greenery adorned the walls and hung from the large chandelier lighting in the room which made the chandelier candles look almost as if they were floating about in clouds of leaves. Wooden chairs lined with a decadent rainbow of flowers along the aisle finished the effect of the inside-enchanted garden.
To further involve the senses in the reimagined ceremonial garden, we brought the concept outside of the ceremony room itself as well. Each guest’s journey into the garden began as soon as they reached the transformed hallway to the ceremony aisle. We brought in beautiful wooden timber to create a wooden boardwalk from the hallway entrance all the way down the aisle to the platform where Frankie and Stephen would exchange their vows. The walls of the hallway were strung with small branches to create the sense of walking through a delicate, leafy archway one might find in a dusky, romantic garden scene. Large ferns lined the boardwalk to cover the remaining vestiges of carpeting, while tiny fairy lights strung behind the branches on the wall worked to make the space truly magical. Walking through the hallway, each guest could truly immerse themselves entirely into the illusion - the boards creaked slightly underfoot, alongside the sound of crickets and birds chirping softly as they do in summer evenings. The heady scent of all the flowers and greenery spread throughout the entire space. The bride truly had her dream ceremony in the middle of an enchanted garden.
Before transitioning to the full reception at the Lytle Hotel rooftop, we had a cocktail hour for guests at the Queen City Club. The cocktail reception was warm and intimate and provided guests with time to enjoy a cocktail while the bride and groom took some photos.
The reception space brought different challenges. Even though it would be late May, there was still a chance for cool weather and an even higher chance of rain. To keep the element of the outdoors in the reception, we worked with a Skyline Tent company to provide plenty of covered seating in case of inclement weather. The reception space had to be carefully planned because Frankie and Stephen opted to forego the typical seated reception in favor of an informal, Southern-style reception where courses were brought out on trays and passed around as guests were able to move about and mingle throughout the entire evening. Each course had its own signature cocktail, each of which was named after one of the couple’s three dogs - Fin, Harley, and Gordie - as well as a custom color of napkins and glassware to signal the changing of food. Even without the seated reception, there were still plenty of seating options; we built out two, custom lounge areas with green velvet sofas, white leather couches, and plenty of low-top and high-top tables intermixed around the rooftop. The finishing touch to the reception was the wedding cake - a five-tiered, periwinkle work of art encapsulated in sugar flower blooms that could be found in the real bouquets of flora throughout the space.
The evening final events found many guests on the custom-designed dance floor, created to look like a stone paver patio with grass growing through. Frankie, wanting a final surprise for all their guests, had the evening end with a brilliant fireworks display while we danced it out with a fantastic live band. It was a magical end to a gorgeous, enchanting summer wedding.
Our graphic designer created this image based on our design for Frankie and Stephen’s dream wedding. We were able to show them what their ceremony venue would look like beforehand to get their input and build excitement prior to implementation.
We did the same with their reception venue. Creating a visualized concept photo helps keep our creative vision in line with our client’s goals, which keeps everyone focused and excited!