Celebrating a New Year came with the celebration of a new life together for Nicole & Matt. Their NYE wedding surrounded them with great friends and dearest family as they counted down to 2014. The Rookery was the perfect wedding venue for this couple. They admired the architectural class that the space inherently had. The soft ivory tones of our custom fabric draped all around the ballroom made the wedding luxurious, while soft accents of metallic silver added to the personality and fun of the evening.

Our friend, Jason Kaczorowski magnificently captured the energy and love of the evening. These photos are just spectacular. Thanks Jason!!

Event Coordination – THE SMITTEN BRIDE | Jennifer
Photographer – JASON KACZOROWSKI
Preparation – W HOTEL CHICAGO
Dress – DIMITRAS BRIDAL
Hair – INDIRA SALON
Makeup – INDIRA SALON
Florist – JULIET TAN
Transportation – ALL AMERICAN LIMOUSINE
Musicians- STRING THEORY
DJ – STYLE MATTERS
Cake – AMY BECK CAKE DESIGN
Luxury Fabric/ Lighting – ART OF IMAGINATION | Deborah

Our team of designers absolutely love styling photo shoots. The creativity and opportunity to stretch our imaginations is at it’s highest when we get to work with so many of our friends. We were honored to be asked to contribute to the photo shoot at Stan Mansion for Wedding Guide Chicago.

It was such a beautiful day with a beautiful team of vendors. Each vendor brought their A’game and surpassed expectations to make the entire photo shoot breathtaking. The vision was Reflections in Black:

Designed with the formality and timelessness of ‘black tie’ in mind. We created a classic but contemporary ambiance that will work or any venue, any season and any color palette by changing the florals.

The vendor team included: DBY invitations & events, Elysia Root Cakes, Stan Mansion, Wedding Connections, M&M Special Events, Windy City Linens, Phillip’s Flowers, and, of course, these beautiful images were taken by Lemon Twist Images.

For more images and the full coverage, check out Wedding Guide Chicago’s Winter/Spring 2014 issue, on shelves now. Or simply click here to see their online coverage!

The beautiful partyscape included more than just a table set-up, we also set up a beautiful VIP lounge area in one of the wings of Stan Mansion. Our designer team added ambient uplighting with glimmers and sparkles to add a touch of bling to the black decadence.

Here’s a sneak peek of Michelle & Todd’s wedding at the Rookery in downtown Chicago. The beautiful wedding had a vibrant yet romantic palette of a deep purple with bright white. Here’s a beautiful photo of the ceremony that our designers had so much fun creating with the bride’s vision in mind.

We had so much fun visiting our friends at FOX News with some fun New Year’s Eve tips! Our theme this year, the fun and glittery, roaring 20s!! We all know that the Gatsby era was a time for parties and elegance, why not add these fun accents to your event to ring in the new year with style and class!

To read the full article, click here: http://bit.ly/1geg0WJ

Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Holiday parties are a festive way to celebrate your employees and all of their hard work throughout the year. To complete your celebration, it’s always fun to incorporate your branding into the design and decor of the event. For this particular event at Chicago’s House of Blues, we added the company’s logo within the dramatic lighting with the use of gobo lights. For an added touch, we lit up the bar and added their logo to the front.

Guests walked through the venue’s multiple rooms, each distinct yet cohesive with the coloring and table decor. To celebrate the winter season, we added snowflake light patterns throughout the dining area where guests enjoyed special musical guest, John Mayer. It was a magical night for all!

Once again we have a soft and elegant color palette for a beautiful wedding at The Rookery. Meredith’s special day included a few DIY details with luscious design elements that made the day completely hers.

Room 1520 is a blank canvas unlike any other venue in Chicago. The opportunity to work creatively is endless with colors, fabrics, spacial design, furniture… we have even added textured and patterned walls and floors with the use of decals. With so many possibilities we chose a few of our favorites for your inspiration!

Metallics

gold and steel

A Happy Place

sky blues with a little coral

Romantic Palette

reds and pinks

Luxurious & Swanky

blush tones

Fairytale

soft blues with a little pink

These color palettes were made with the help of ChipIt! by Sherwin Williams.

So many of our events take place inside, yet it’s so much fun when we get to take our decor outside and enjoy nature.  To celebrate Fall, Ignite Glass Studio hosted a Fall Festival and it just happened to take place on the most perfect fall day. They featured many of their artisans and beautiful glass pumpkins. Kids had a blast making their very own glass sculptures as they enjoyed fabulous treats from local food trucks.

Our design team brought in comfortable outdoor furniture and provided spacial design to create a flow for the guests. With multiple vendor tables, live musicians, glass blowing workshops, and a rooftop beer garden, the entire event was a family affair celebrating the beauty of autumn. Here’s a couple of photos provided by Heather Ahrens.

Toss The Bouquet invited wedding professionals from throughout the United States to come together and learn from stars in our industry. From trends to marketing ideas, renown speakers flew in from throughout the United States to share their expertise to these entrepreneurs at the W Hotel in downtown Chicago.

Beth Bernstein of SQN Events brought all of these beautiful minds together to speak and learn in a well-branded and designed day. We loved the color palette of a beautiful blue teal with a metallic gold. We provided various uplighting and fabric design throughout the space and it really popped in the photos (thank you Carasco Photography)! Sponsors of the event include SQN Events, Carasco Photography, Courtney Callahan Paper, Art of Imagination, Hello Darling, Private Label Linens, Tablescapes, and W City Center Hotel.

With the holiday season here, we can’t wait to setup our annual corporate decor. Whether it’s a local restaurant, a corporate office building or the streets of Michigan Avenue, each set up has it’s own holiday color palette that goes beyond the typical red and green. Our designers have created winter wonderlands using metallics, shades of blue, pink, emerald and gold. We hope these color palettes inspire you to put your own twist on holiday decor in your home.

Be sure to share your holiday setups with #ArtOfTheHolidays so we can keep the inspirations going! We’ll be sure to pin them to our Pinboard for all to see. 🙂

These color palettes were made with the help of ChipIt! by Sherwin Williams.

The Rookery is one of our favorite venues in Chicago, the architecture is just stunning. There was no better spot for Laura & Jon’s wedding than this historic gem. Their elegant color palette included soft pink and a beautiful ivory. The day was simply stunning and the photos only share a glimpse of their gorgeous love they share.

Belinda & Phyllis’ civil union at Centered Chef was unique in so many ways. The Buddhist ceremony included florals from Fab Floral that were all living, never cut.  To celebrate life, each guest took home the centerpieces with notecards describing how to care for their succulent and how to nurture the life to bloom. The couple invited their guests to be an integral part of the day. Multiple friends and family members were invited to speak during their ceremony. Guests also participated in interactive cooking demonstrations, from mocktails to crepes.

The simple and elegant design of the space added to the couple’s simplicity. Our designers used soft ivory fabric with amber lighting to create a focal area for the ceremony. The light emoting from the structure created the spiritual energy that the ladies were looking for. These fabulous photos were taken and provided by Liesl Diesel Photo.

Over the years we develop friendships that are as strong as family ties. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful holiday time, we often want to share it with our friends. Friendsgiving is the new term for this fun and festive dinner party. It’s a more casual environment, unlike the stereotypical family dinners that may be filled with a lot of emotions and stress.

Get creative with the table decor by combining vintage and modern plates with a few untailored DIY crafts. Use your Grandmother’s plates, that were handed down to you or even stop at at resale shop, like the Brown Elephant, and pick up some old vintage pieces where proceeds goes to a specific foundation. A table runner can easily be made from fabric remnants from your local fabric store. I selected a burlap fabric and just cut it down to size.

For the centerpiece, display a collection of pumpkins and branches with fall leaves that you can get from a local nursery or even your backyard. As a showstopper, I used hand-blown glass pumpkins that we made at a local glass blowing studio, Ignite Gallery….FUN! Then don’t forget candles, candles and more candles … your guests will love the intimate feel that they create.

On the buffet/beverage table I placed large tree branches in a glass vase. Paper leaf cutouts were available, and we asked each guest to write what they were grateful for this season. The cutouts were then tied onto the tree branches with raffa.

For the beverages, I went to a local brewery and selected some of the group’s favorite. If you are adventurous you can even brew your own. Have you friends bring their favorite side dishes that they love along with the recipes written on index cards. The turkey is key and the host(ess) of the dinner can create their own secret recipe especially with the stuffing. I love food network and always try new recipes…the question this year is to brine or not to the turkey.

It’s always fun to add some craft projects…I had soy, hand-poured candles that I picked up and went to a boutique paper store and purchased colored vellum, printed the letters T-H-A-N-K-S and cut it to size and tape to the cylinders….voila a nice centerpiece on my fireplace.

This photo shoot where we displayed ideas and suggestions for you was set at the beautiful urban venue Loft on Lake in the West Loop Chicago and all the photos taken by Steve Garrett from Lofty Weddings. Please see our list below for other vendors that helped put this look together with their special items.

Have a Great Friendsgiving and if you need any guidance or suggestion fell free to email us at info@artofimagination.com and I would be happy to help.

Style and Design: Art of Imagination
Platters: Nimblewell
Plates, glassware & silverware: Vintage Rentals
Handblown pumpkins: Ignite Glass Studios
Tables & chairs: Tablescapes
Table linens: Private Label
Beautiful venue: Loft On Lake
Photography: Lofty Weddings

Indian Wedding Ceremonies and Fusion Wedding Ceremony have very elaborate details that create lush environments full of love and passion. Whether the event is indoors or outdoors, the mandap is typically the focal point where all the tradition and rituals take place. Here are just a few of our favorite South Asian wedding set-ups; some are quick snapshots with my phone (…can’t wait to see the professional photos from those)

It was such an honor to be a part of Harry Caray’s wedding event this past summer. These images are spectacular from Jason Kaumeyer Photography. The different vignettes in each room looked even more beautiful in person. The character of the rooms at this landmark venue matched the exquisite design of the tablescapes and lounges that were set up. We hope you find some inspiration from these styled set-ups.

Sponsors:  Harry Caray Restaurant // Art of Imagination // DJ Harsh // Jason Kaumeyer Photography // Juliet Tan Foral Designs // Spin/Spun Cotton Candy // Tablescapes // Windy City Linen

The Spirit of Jose Cuervo came alive for one night only at the Stan Mansion in 2011. “Subterraneo” became the theme for one of the greatest nights in recent Chicago nightlife. Take a look at some of the scenes from the evening.

Jose Cuervo’s Day of the Dead celebration at Stan Mansion

Bash Events Presents: “Subterraneo” by Jose Cuervo from 80’s Babies Productions on Vimeo.

Red is the color of passion, desire, and love. Thus, it is a perfect color to be included in your wedding design plans. Whether it has a primary presence in your color palette or you offer your guests pops of red color in the small details, red is a very emotionally intense color.

• Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.
• Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
• Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
• Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

Wedding Design evokes feeling and mood for your guests to envelope themselves in while they focus on you, your marriage, and the love affair that’s in the air. Using red tones in your wedding designs can…

Pops of Red Color

Festive Red Details

Lush Royal Red

Modern Reds

Deep Deep Reds

Light & Soft Reds

Reds & Golds

Red Elegance

 To see more red inspirations, visit our Pinterest board just for you!

Recently, I designed an Indian Wedding ceremony and reception for a wonderful couple, Payal & Justin. The beautiful bride, Payal, had very definite ideas on the type of look that she wanted to create at The Harold Washington Library. For her, it was very important to see and feel all of elements put together before making her final decision. So we started with the basics. I created a sketch of the stage and fabric backdrop at our creative office, in order to figure out the look and feel that she envisioned based on the color palette that she had chosen. After her approval of the sketch, we made a trip together to a specialty fabric shop that carries a unique line of luxury fabrics. We went through aisles and rolls of luxe fabrics, laying them out on the large cutting tables to view what would be the best color palette and texture to create the envisioned backdrop. It was quite overwhelming for her as she would fall in love with a certain fabric and then find one that she loved even more. This is where the all important trust factor comes into play. I knew exactly what luxury fabrics would work for the wedding and guided her to the perfect selections. We found a gorgeous sheer white voile fabric with crystal beading, a stunning platinum crepe back satin fabric, and a vibrant and elegant purple wave fabric that we accented with crystal strands.

Ultimately, with design, it’s about choosing that perfect cohesive look, that when put together creates that “Wow” factor. In order to create this “Wow” factor, we brought all of these samples back to our creative office and put together a mock up of what the fabric backdrop would look like. It came out exactly as the sketch portrayed and it was truly perfect. The three fabrics worked together beautifully and added beauty and elegance to the ceremony. Also, the crystal beads and strands that we picked created not only texture but also a shimmer effect to the room as we enhanced with lighting. It is always a pleasure to create these one of a kind events and I feel truly blessed to be able to help make my clients’ event design a memory that will stay with them forever.

~Deborah Weisenhaus, President and Lead Designer at Art of Imagination

No we aren’t talking about brides that have affection for Julia Roberts… we’re talking Runway Brides. Brides that are taking inspiration from the fashion runways and incorporating fabulous designer dresses into their special day.

When meeting with a bride, my first question is “Do you have a photo of your dress?” This curiosity is two-fold. One, I have the pleasure of seeing my bride’s face light up with excitement, enthusiasm, and pride as she leans over for her phone to find that picture of the “one.” And secondly, I garner a sense of who this beautiful bride before me is and what inspires her style.

Here are two of our most recent brides and their runway-to-aisle fashion styles.

DENA – JENNY YOO

July 2013 at  The Rookery – Dena chose this beautiful strapless gown from Nabi by Jenny Yoo. Her Monarch gown is actually a convertible dress that offers fifteen different ways for a bride to style the dress. Our bride, Dena, added a bit more glam to the look with a beaded sash from Jenny Yoo.

The Monarch features a twisted strapless bodice that scoops softly at the center of the bust for a universally flattering look. The waistline hits just above the natural waist with soft gathers. The floor length skirt features an “A” line shape with full sweep. Skirt has two convertible panels in the front and four panels in the back that can create alternate necklines and skirt details. The dress is fully lined, with center back zipper. Available in Winter White

*Photos of Dena provided by Rebecca Marie Photography

ROSE – VERA WANG

June 2013 ~The Stan Mansion – Rose chose the Josephine gown from Vera Wang’s Fall 2012 collection. The collection offered many dresses in a unique color palette of soft bare nudes and rich textural blacks. The line’s alternative name was, in fact, Witchcraft.

Witchcraft
Light, airy, concoctions of froth…. inspired by black and nude undergarments, both mysterious and sexy, frivolous and fun, with transparent wisps of carefully organized tulle.

Photos of Rose provided by Roma Pictures.