Museum Weddings: I was inspired to write this article based on the fabulous wine and tasting event held at the Morris Museum to benefit St. Hubert’s Animal Shelter on Wednesday of this past week. J&M did some pieces for the museum including my labor of love, 2 giant birch tree structures with hanging carnation and green mum balls for the modern front entrance of the museum (which of course I forgot to take pictures of and am currently trying to hunt down someone who remembered.) We had such a blast (for once I was able to just relax and be a guest) walking around the exhibits and admiring the beauty of the modern theater area coupled with the classic mansion house. So in honor of the St. Hubert’s event I felt that I should follow up to my “Tent Weddings” piece I did earlier this year and do “Museum Weddings.” Last year we did a wedding at the Morris Museum that came out beautifully. Held in the front entrance of the newly remodeled modern entrance to the theater, the reception wasn’t the typical sit down dinner and consisted of waiters passing trays the whole night. So there were only a few small sit down tables and a couple of high ball tables, in which we did two styles of arrangements. When the bride first came to me she had come up with the idea to have each of her bridesmaids in the same style dress but a different color, the colors she had chosen where hot pink, light pink, dark purple and light purple. She wanted to stay with that color palette without mixing the colors together. So we decided on doing a collection piece of small carnation cubes with each of the bridesmaids dress colors and a cube of grass in the center (it was a spring wedding so we wanted to do a nod to the “new growth” aspect of the season) for the larger tables guests would sit at.  The second centerpiece was for high tables against the wall and went along with how the couple met, the couple had met while working for penguin publishing and that they both loved to read so we incorporated some books with spines in their wedding colors and held them in place with two of our “book end” grass cubes.  Overall it was one of my favorite weddings that I have done because we really took the couples likes and story and translated it into the pieces that were truly unique to their day.This past month we also did another museum wedding held at the Chelsea Art Museum in NYC, another beautiful museum more modern in its design with white walls with primarily abstract pieces. For this wedding we did a mixture of really simple tall monoflora arrangements incorporating Manzanita branches.       We also pulled in a bit of a modern garden fusion in a few of the larger pieces (including the lovely but entirely obnoxious to move above mentioned birch tree sculpture pieces, above.) as well as the bridal party flowers by incorporating the traditional garden flowers like herbs, roses and hydrangeas with the modern styles of a more rounded tighter look.     So despite the fact that I love to do museum weddings, and as you can see from our pictures they can be really beautiful and unique venue options. There are a few drawbacks that one needs to concider: 1) Museums have a day job. - Most museums are open to the public during the day, and because of that reason most day weddings are out of the question. In addition to that, you may need to pay extra to vendors for same day pick up of all rental items if the museum does not have a storage place. 2) Museums have rules. - A lot of times you need to be careful with what you can/ cannot do in a museum, and sometimes that can effect your decor. For example when I did the wedding at the Chelsea Art Musuem we had origionally planned to do this large floral piece on the grand piano in front of a painting. Unfortunately the museum securiity felt that such a large piece filled willl water in front of a 2 million dollar paintign was too much of a hazard and we had to put it somewhere else. 3) Museums are museums. - Basically most museums are not recieving the majority of their income from weddings and events held in their spaces. Their income is mainly generated by their day to day visitors as well as gift shop sales or just straight donations. As a result the majority of the planning and organization of wedding is going to fall onto you or (if you've hired your own) a wedding planner and not a catering manager. Overall I think that museums offer a great space to work with. They are something a little different and unexpected and allow you to bring a ot of your own personality and style to your wedding. I think that if you have the right team to help you and are clear about a museums rules and regulations you can really have a beautiful day! |
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