Abbey & Jakes New Orleans Wedding

Something Borrowed Blooms’ Social Media Director; Abbey, shares all the floral details of her fun and eclectic wedding

Hi there! My name is Abbey and I'm the Social Media Manager for Something Borrowed Blooms. Like all good love stories, my now-husband, Jake, and I met at a college bar over a loaded plate of nachos, and ever since that day, we’ve been inseparable. We dated for three years before he popped the question at my parent's house in New Orleans in October 2020. Coming off the pandemic and realizing that the majority of 2020 weddings were being pushed to 2021, we decided to have a two-year engagement and set the date for October 22nd, 2022. 

With a lot of time to plan (and a lot of time to bounce from idea to idea), the weekend we had been planning and looking forward to for two years finally came! Thankfully with the help of our family, friends, amazing co-workers, and SBBlooms, the wedding of our dreams came to life and we wouldn't change a single detail.

Keep reading to learn all the details of making the wedding of our dreams come true!

From my first day as an SBBlooms employee five years ago, I knew I would rent my wedding flowers from the best in the wedding industry. But personal bias aside, Jake and I are very low-maintenance people and really love any idea that brings convenience to our lives and when it came to wedding flowers, Something Borrowed Blooms was the obvious choice. Not only was it the most convenient option, but the prices were also unmatched in comparison to fresh flowers.

SBBlooms Tip: Have patience and let the vision come to you. I get it, you wait all this time to finally get that ring and it's hard not to want to dive right into the design and aesthetics of the one day that you've been dreaming about for so long. But my tip for anyone beginning the wedding planning process is to wait until you've secured your venue and the dress. Based on my wedding Pinterest board that I have been adding to for years, I went into wedding planning with a modern, monochromatic, ultra-classic wedding vision, but after settling on the venue and saying yes to the dress, we ended up doing almost the exact opposite.

For the Rehearsal Dinner:

Thursday was our Rehearsal Dinner which was held at Desi Vegas, a steakhouse in downtown New Orleans. Our wedding was a big affair with close to 300 people so the events leading up to our wedding day were very intimate. The room we were in was all white with mirrored accents and floor-to-ceiling windows which inspired me to rent the Audrey Collection. I placed the centerpieces on top of circle mirrored chargers with White and Silver Glass Votives spread throughout. 

For the Ceremony:

When it came time to select florals for the wedding day, I was ultimately drawn to and inspired by the bougainvillea in the Gemma Collection. I thought it was the perfect collection to set the tone for the night. For the ceremony, we got married at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church which featured white marble everything along with light blue and gold accents. I knew I didn't want to decorate the church too much and took this as my chance to incorporate that neutral color palette I always wanted. 

My bridesmaids wore Soft Champagne satin dresses from Revelry and the guys wore navy tuxes. My bridal bouquet was a custom silk arrangement made by our Lead Designer here at SBBlooms (Perks of working at Something Borrowed Blooms). To stick with the neutral color palette, we sourced a white bougainvillea stem and made a light-toned version of our Gemma Hand-Tied Bridal Bouquet. My bridesmaids held the Gemma Posy and I stuck some of the white bougainvillea stems in the back to tie in all the florals. 

To recreate a similar look, take a look at the Audrey Collection!

For the Reception:

After deciding on The Civic Theater for our reception venue, our vision came together almost instantly. The Civic Theater is the oldest operating opera house in Louisiana and it fit our vision perfectly. It was a perfect mix of old vs new with the original infrastructure painted bright white and as you move into the venue, you see exposed brick with an industrial black staircase. Aside from the looks of the venue, it was a big space so there were a lot of areas I wanted to use for multiple over-the-top floral moments. Renting all the decor and florals from SBBlooms was the only cost-effective way we could do that.

For the reception, we set the tone with the Gemma Collection. Jake and I both agreed that the bright color and playfulness the collection emulates were perfect for the fun and lively reception we wanted. From the very beginning of wedding planning, we both agreed that we wanted the reception to feel like a fun and lively party where our favorite people were all present- and yes, we really do have 300 favorite people in our lives. 

Aside from the large disco ball, there wasn't much going on above the dance floor, so I had the idea of creating these large-scale, hanging, multi-tiered, floral chandeliers where it looked like it was raining bougainvillea petals. To make this vision come to life, we got some pool noodles and connected the ends to create rings. We used one pool noodle for the top tier and two pool noodles for the bottom tier. We layered the Laurel Garland on the inside of the rings as a greenery base so that from every angle the pool noodle was covered. Then, we layered the Gemma Garland on the outside of the pool noodles and secured it all with zip ties. To make it look like the petals were falling, I collected the bougainvillea petal scraps for two years and strung them on some fishing line. I had close to seventy strands and used them in a few different areas. We wanted to make the dance floor really special to keep our guests there all night and the chandeliers really helped to elevate the area. 

We had two lounge areas in between the dance floor and the main seating area to break up the space and give our guests a more comfortable seating option, but I also wanted it to have a dual purpose and create a cool photo moment since we didn't do a photo booth. We pushed these retro chartreuse sofas up against the walls of the venue which gave us a blank canvas for some really grand installs. On one side we had an arch that we covered with garland and hung our custom neon sign. On the other side, I took two grid walls and put them on both sides of the sofa and created this lush, overflowing install with the Gemma Garlands. 

Thankfully I had all of my amazing co-workers from SBBlooms to help us set up everything on the day of the wedding. When the reception was over, they boxed everything up and loaded it into a Uhaul, and drove it back to SBBlooms headquarters the next day. My experience with SBBlooms was stress-free and seamless as I knew it would be. It was so fun being the customer and bringing my own wedding vision to life!