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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We are so grateful to have another beautiful bride featured on Style Me Pretty this week. The lovely images of the wedding were submitted by Robyn Rachel Photography and took place at The Ivy Room in Chicago, IL. Here’s a snippet from Style Me Pretty‘s post, these words come from the bride herself:

Whenever my husband and I get asked how we met we always laugh and respond “it’s a long story.” The story is we met 8 years ago on a college spring break trip with our friends and knew right away our spring break fling was something more and that we had found the one. Our friends to this day do not let us live the story down that “what happened on spring break didn’t stay on spring break” which made for fun reminiscent rehearsal dinner toasts! I was lucky that 8 years after we met on a beach in Florida, my husband proposed to me in Chicago using my grandmother’s diamond which made it all the more special.

The feeling of our wedding that our family and friends kept describing to us was “understated elegance” and that is exactly what we were going for! We wanted a wedding that would best reflect our relationship of being timeless and traditional, but also fun loving, romantic, and something fresh. We chose to get married at the Ivy Room Chicago as it was important to both of us to have the ceremony outside, but also be located in the heart of our favorite city and home near all of the action. Our officiant was from my church in the suburbs where I have gone my whole life so even though we were not in that particular space it was nice to have a piece of it there with us that day. We absolutely loved all that the Ivy Room had to offer and tried to compliment it with soft pinks (using peonies my favorite flower) and champagne colors and focus on candles and lighting. We wanted to make sure every detail was perfect, yet at the same time did not want to get carried away with too many little things and lose sight of what we were there for. This was especially evident in our guestbook which was done by our photographer to be a book of all of our engagement photos as the pages and our guests could write messages on top of the photos. We really loved how she wanted to capture and show our personality as a couple in both our engagement and wedding photos for our love for each other, Chicago, and our friends and family.

One thing that brought my husband and I together is the importance of the people in our life. We are close with our families, but also consider our friends to be family, as you can see by our large bridal party! We didn’t want to leave out anyone out in sharing in our day, even my niece as the flower girl who had to be carried down the aisle at just 9 months old!

We were so happy when the Chicago weather cooperated and allowed us to have the perfect day! It was really meaningful to us to have so many family and friends who had come to know our relationship so well over the past 8 years be there to support and celebrate and not leave our side on the dance floor for the entire evening! Everything was absolutely perfect and we wish we could relive the weekend all over again.

She was so amazing to work with and the leaf pattern on the wall added such texture and elegance to the entire reception. Here’s just a sneak peek of these great images.

You can find the entire article from Style Me Pretty here!
You can find out more about the Ivy Room here!
You can also view our Pinterest Board from The Ivy Room here for inspirations!

Photography: Robyn Rachel Photography | Venue: The Ivy Room Chicago | Floral Design: Kathie’s Flowers | Catering: George Jewell Catering | Lighting: Art of Imagination | Band: Nick Kitsos Band | Cake:Amy Beck Cake Design | Wedding Dress: Monique Lhuillier

Earlier this year, we were part of the Chez Crown 2013 – the Arie Crown’s Got Talent event at the Aragon Ballroom. The event was a celebration of the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School and we were glad to have been a part of the event.

The famous and historic Aragon ballroom, built in 1926, was originally designed to replicate a Spanish palace courtyard, complete with crystal chandeliers, mosaic tiles, terra-cotta ceilings, balconies and beautiful arches. While the space is most famous for hosting huge concerts of up to 4,500 people, it also plays host to a wide array of events of every size. To accomodate this talent event, we brought in a wide array of light, using some of the tricks we learned from theatrical lighting to welcome the guests and create a stunning setting for the talent portion of the event.

Starts were a theme throughout, an idea we played up on with our light & decor. We used teal and blues matched to the luxe invites sent to each guests and tied it all together in the main ballroom. As part of the event, the restaurant sponsors set up booths in the hallway leading into the main space – in this area we lined the walls with a soft teal color, and projected stars all along the way to match the decor inside the ballroom.

Scroll through the photos below –

Our office looked great all set up for the Bridal Gown Giveaway announcement party. All of us at Art of Imagination loved the small, intimate affair for 30 guests. We mingled with the finalists, sipped on champagne and enjoyed sushi by Thalia Spice and sweets by BomBon.

Take a look at the detail shots, especially for the gorgeous floral decor by Juliet Tan. 

Jenny Yoo, of course, provided a sample dress for the event. The winner will get to choose any dress from the collection, along with either a pin or sash. 

Juliet Tan provided the floral decor for the party and gave each couple a take-home centerpiece to enjoy. 

We also had fun, luxe goodie bags filled by all the vendor partners as an extra bonus for entering the competition and coming out that night to celebrate.

Sweets by Bonbon.

Thank you to all our vendors for helping make the announcement event a success: Fotio, Thalia Spice, Juliet Tan, Left Bank Bridal Finery, Crowne Plaza Hotel, BomBon Bakery and Maypole Photography for taking the photos. And Jenny Yoo for inspiring the giveaway.

We were recently part of Martha Stewart Wedding Party. Lovebird Events reached out to us early in their planning to be a part of the soiree. For the event, brides walked through an entry-way we created. For our area, we built a 12′ show-stopping chuppah centerpiece in the main show, using our ivory and platinum crepe-back satin.

Both we lit with uplighting in various shades of pink.

Scroll through for all the lovely details and stay tuned for a video of the event.

The chuppah we created for the event – the sashes were crystal-studded cuffs with fabric roses made from matching fabric.

Pure Kitchen Catering‘s Baked was on hand providing tasty treats for brides and guests.

These cute cake toppers were part of the Newlywish display.

Here’s the Fancy Candies team, rocking vintage aprons.

Fancy Candies display included plenty of quite-literal eye candy.

The ever-talented ladies at Hello Darling creating a whimsical & colorful table display.

Our friends at Poladora also had a booth, showcasing some of the many local businesses who are part of their registry.

The amazingly talented Reenie Rose painted one of her photo-realistic on-site between talking to brides and guests.

These treats are by Vosges Chocolates – we loved seeing bird feathers used on the favor boxes.

The Style Me Pretty feature for this Room 1520 wedding is our second recent mention on that blog. The editors over there really adore the West Loop venue’s clean lines and modern aesthetic and it was no surprise to see this lovely wedding featured on their site.

For this wedding, we worked with the couple to create a chuppah fabric structure to match the venue’s elegant look. We kept the chuppah simple, but nonetheless it created a dramatic and engaging focal point for the entire ceremony. It was the perfect canvas for the couple to stand in front of and as you’ll see, it created a romantic and clean backdrop for their pictures, softly filtering the light coming in from the outside to give the ceremony area a beautiful glow.

Scroll through the gallery of photos from Jeremy Lawson’s Photography and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

See the rest of the feature and the amazing team of wedding vendors here. Photos by Jeremy Lawson Photography. Be sure to visit the venue’s website to inquire. Event planning by Engaging Events by Ali.

This Rookery Building wedding is the epitome of the class, elegance and sophistication inherent in the building. We’ve talked at length about the history and charm of the venue and when a wedding like this comes along, it all comes together in a brilliant way that is just gorgeous.

Of course, the editors at Style me Pretty took note and promptly featured it on their website. Scroll through for the stunning photos and be inspired by the setting, the clean lines, DIY touches and the gorgeous, beaming couple.

We love this clean and minimal display created by Juliet, from Cattleya Bridal. Using a collection of pillar votives in varying sizes created this stunning place-setting look. We could see so many brides using this idea – even a DIY bride could easily recreate this look, it’s so versatile! You will see, the couple opted to wrap both levels of the interior in fabric, creating a seamless, complete look that added to the feeling of elegance throughout the evening. Wrapping the second level is, of course, optional, but more and more Rookery couples opt for that look on their big day.   

You can see the rest of the feature and the stunning details here. Florals by Cattleya Bridal. Wedding planning by Soiree Weddings & Events.  Photos by George Street Photo & Video.