The Challenge:
Elizabeth Anne Designs teamed up with The Sweetest Occasion for the Inspired Creations Contest. Basically, vendors were asked to submit photo shoots featuring their most creative, unique, and out-of-the-box concepts all for under $500. I love a challenge, and I’m proud to say we made it to the Top 10.
Here’s the full description of what we came up with. Like what you see? Please leave your comment on the Elizabeth Anne Designs blog. We would really appreciate it.
The Concept: Guest Book:
Caribbean/Latin art with an updated, bohemian flair. The mix-and-match style is a nod to the DIY trend with lots of layers and mixed media.
The Inspiration:
The Color Palette:
The [Imaginary] Couple:
They met while on vacation in Costa Rica and share a love of painting and museums. Their appreciation for art has taken them to Europe, Asia, and South America. They got engaged while on vacation in the Caribbean, where they discovered the work of Paul Gauguin, a post-Impressionist artist from the late 1800s, and decided to incorporate his work, as well as their other artistic interests, into their wedding.
To incorporate the couple’s love of painting, we created a unique paint-inspired guestbook using paint chips from a local hardware store. We then embellished the first paint chip using a scrapbook punch and scrapbook paper.
Dessert:
Our couple wanted their desserts to be a work of art—literally. I made icing in a Caribbean color palette and miniature cakes to match. Guests were invited to “paint” on their cakes using the colored icing with paint brushes. Directions, printed on scrapbook paper, read “You are the artist. (1) Choose your cake. (2) Choose your icing. (3) Create your design.” I also created a three-tier fondant-covered wedding cake with Caribbean-inspired gumpaste flowers.
Flowers:
Megan Gray of Honey and Poppies took her inspiration from Gauguin’s tropic paintings and old floral still lives. She wanted the flowers to be lush, exotic, and sensual, but with an element of refined sophistication. (Imagine a wealthy artist’s Caribbean villa filled with bohemian artist-types.)
The flowers include peonies, dahlias, roses, sweet peas, ranunculus, and snowball viburnum. To bring a more exotic feel to them, she layered in tons of texture with vines of passion flower, clematis, and pepper berries, and finally added in wispy curled ferns and peacock feathers.
Table Numbers:
Another mixed media inspired piece, we created the table number collage out of scrapbook paper and paint chips and negative space for the actual number, an interesting take on the traditional.
Invitation:
We created a collage reminiscent of the couple’s favorite artist and had colored prints made, backed them with card stock, and affixed them onto the front cover of the invitation. Invitations were printed with an ink jet printer on scrapbook paper.
Place Cards/Favors:
I created miniature collages for each guest’s place card that would also serve as their favor. The mini canvas and easel sets were purchased at a local arts and crafts store and painted with acrylic paints. Guests’ names were printed on scrapbook paper, cut into the desired shape, and decoupaged on the canvas along with paper and paint chip cut outs.
Participants:
Cake, desserts, concept design: Erica OBrien(http://www.ericaobrien.com/)
Flowers, concept design: Megan Gray (http://honeyandpoppies.com/)
Coordination and planning: Candice Maloney (http://www.de-lovelyevents.com/)
Photography: Jessica Claire (http://www.jessicaclaire.net/)
Rentals: Signature Party Rentals (http://www.signatureparty.com/)
Venue: The Villa del Sol (http://www.thevilladelsol.com/) 
This theme is gorgeous! Love all the pretty colors!