Festive Holiday Wedding at the St. Pete Woman's Club

Demi and Ariel
Selected Photos by LeShayne Maddex

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Ariel took his role serious in proposing marriage to Demi. "After asking permission from my father and spending several weeks looking for the perfect ring, Ariel asked me to marry him. Ariel proposed to me on November 15, 2014," explained Demi.

He proposed to her with breakfast in bed. "He asked me what the significance of the day was and I had no idea! After several hints I was reminded that a year ago on that day Ariel and I had our first kiss. Ariel then took out the ring and stated that now we have something else to celebrate on this day," she added.

They planned a late December wedding  - one of our favorite times of year for nuptials.

Holiday weddings are festive and are already filled with "the spirit season." This proved true for Demi and Ariel's Dec. 30th enchanting burgundy, black, and gold wedding at the St. Pete Woman's Club.

The couple gave themselves over a year to plan their special day. Demi works for a popular event entertainment company, and as a professional, she knew that planning a great wedding takes time. 

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The ceremony was held on the front lawn with the social hour partially indoors. The main ballroom was aglow with uplighting and candles (LEDs). Inspired Events did an amazing job with décor elements that included tall manzanita branches, color-coordinated silks, and a variety of large lanterns.

Our glitzy gold fabrics and runners brought festive fceel to various tables.

 

Demi admitted that both she and Ariel are subtle: "but we like to have fun!" They wanted their celebration to be formal and elegant but a blast at the same time.

 

The ceremony faced Coffeepot Bayou. Many of the ceremony décor items were transferred inside the building for
"other uses."

"I want people to talk about how much fun our wedding was," recalled Demi. "The most important parts of the reception will definitely be our first dance, good food, and making sure everyone has a good time."

The majority of the social hour was held on the covered terrace. Demi and Ariel chose our Samuel Adams Beer Cheese with dippers as their displayed hors d'oeuvres.

Indoors, guests found their tables with listings attached to a beautiful gold mirror. The entryway featured the sign in and gift tables. 

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Demi had us alternate two different styles of guest table centerpieces; three black candlestick holders (with silk arrangements) were provided by her; the five-branch gold candlelabras were ours. 

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Floor length burgundy satin cloths were topped with glittery gold runners and gold chargers with black napkins. Our black spandex chair covers completed the look.

Catering By Robert designed the cake with a black fondant icing surrounded by accents of gold and burgundy.

Congratulations to Demi and Ariel on a fabulous celebration!

Event Planning, Design, Coordination and Catering:

Catering By Robert /Event Concepts . FL

www.cateringbyroberttampa.com

Décor and Florals:

Inspired Events, Luz and Linette Asencio

Cake:

Catering By Robert

Photography:

LeShayne Maddex

DJ:

Danny Collazo

Creating Your Own Special Look at a Popular Venue

Courtney and Ethan
Davis Islands Garden Club
Selected Photos by Jon Montis Photography

Every wedding couple has their own "time line" for deciding how to proceed in planning their wedding. For some it is the small details they have collected on their Pinterest wedding boards. For others it is the overall design of their chosen wedding venue. But cuisine is now a much more important component for wedding celebrations now.

Courtney and her bridal party and family took this seriously in the 18 months she allotted to plan her wedding by attending as many of our client only tastings as possible.

Unlike many caterers who offer "cookie cutter" tastings for potential or booked wedding clients, we take a different approach: after making the commitment to become a client, we offer bi-monthly tastings where we rotate our regular menu items in a themed environment with added specialty cuisine that may have been requested by current brides and grooms.

Courtney's valuable input following each open house helped us create a truly unique culinary experience on hers and many other clients' wedding day.

Unexpectedly, the décor elements were easily decided as Courtney got closer to her wedding day.

We are excited to share Courtney and Ethan's very special eggplant and blush pink wedding at Davis Islands Garden Club. 

Décor translates beyond the surroundings. It is a part of food presentation as well. Above, we  took hand-passed appetizers and displayed them on a color-coordinated platter with texture with matching garnish.

After the food choices were made, everything fell right into place for the look and feel of the wedding.

 Vicki helps cue bridal party members for the ceremony which was focused in natural setting along the waterfront.

An amazing new connection was forged between Courtney's florist, Ampar, who is a traveling florist from Dallas. Her business name is Fleurs & and Events. Courtney connected with her via a family member. I was impressed with the quality of flowers Ampar was able to put together in our in-house containers, from many miles away. As a result of our connection, we collaborated on a photo shoot in Dallas for a new event venue.

Courtney was as much concerned about comfort as she was about presentation. Besides renting the in-house cushions from the club, she and her mom provided comfy purple pillows that were placed around the patio social hour space.

Our small fish bowls were available to Ampar for accent pieces in the patio area.

Guests found their seats via guest table "clothes line." The practicality of this was that if there were last table assignment changes, only a 5 x 7 card had to be reprinted. These were in visible enough that guests could take their time in pin-pointing their table location.

All guest tables were consistent with white floor length cloths, deep purple main runners with gold and white damask accents down the center. Yet every other table featured a different centerpiece look with variations in florals and containers.

Texture is a great way to pull together a color scheme yet offer some variation.

What a cake from Goldie's Goodies! 

Our Gold Medallion menu items were displayed in the front foyer. One of Courtney's past tasting favorites was our Paella. Jon Montis captured it perfectly!

Presentation is so important. Below, we featured our version of BBQ via our Smoked Pork Chop Station where guests could add crunchy onions, cole slaw, and favorite BBQ sauce to their hand-chopped smoked pork on a slider roll.

The party moved on beyond the food and because of well planned timing, Courtney and Ethan were able to have lots of dancing until the end of the event.