Wedding Industry Experts 2013 Awards...& Our Greatest Hits

I've been nominated for Best Event Designer and Best Wedding Planner in the Wedding Industry Experts 2013 Awards. Winners are chosen by vote, and voting starts April 16th thru 23rd. Do you believe I'm the best?  Please mark your calendars and cast your votes for me:

• Best Event Designer
• Best Wedding Planner
  

In the meantime, enjoy this look at ID BOHEMIA's greatest hits, starting with our first event in 2007. I can hardly believe it's 2013. Where does the time go?

The event that launched ID BOHEMIA: our own wedding in 2007, inspired by the Bohemian ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love, in colours pulled from peacock plumage. Even years later, we continue to get requests to publish this wedding. True art is timeless.

Photo: Klyment Tan

Photo: Dong Kim

Ryan and Melissa's hypercolour wedding on Vancouver Island. These paper installations were modelled on photographs of Cinque Terre, their favourite vacation spot.

An installation from my art school days: "An Open Love Letter to My Rama | There is no Japanese word for 'Identity'". Fine art and artistic exploration is the backbone of our work. It informs everything we do.

A set design we created for the Stollery Children's Hospital Snowflake Gala feature auction back in 2008. This set was for a guided fly-in fishing trip to Comox, BC, and featured a treasure map of Vancouver Island, and a 10' scale model of a deHavilland Beaver bush plane (the very same plane the winning bidder would fly in). ID BOHEMIA has been a proud and continuous supporter of the Stollery Children's Hospital for 5 years running!

Photos: Klyment Tan

A golden-hued winter wedding we created for a bride in love with antiques, hand thrown pottery and stained glass, and a groom looking for just right mood light.

An Indian-flavoured intercultural wedding ceremony and reception, inspired by the couple's wish for an intimate garden wedding within a massive hotel ballroom. In the bride's words:

"Aaron and Christina created an ambiance fit for royalty: purple and pink mood lighting, paper star lanterns, papier-mached peacocks, lanterns as centre pieces, glitz everywhere and, of course, the big attraction: a giant, custom-made tree that represented the feelings of strength, shelter and rootedness we give each other."

Photos: ENV Photography

"Sea of Light", an editorial for WedLuxe Magazine, where Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale is translated into light and airy underwater-inspired wedding day ideas.

“Beginning with Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, we drew on classic fairy tale illustrations by Edmund Dulac, Harry Clarke and Arthur Rackham, and looked for connections between sea and land, asking, “Where might a mermaid princess meet a human prince and fall in love?” We saw the ocean as an ethereal sea of light and air, with fresh whites, glowing gold and silver, and touches of green. This gleaming ocean’s earthly complement might be a manor house on the ocean at the dawn of summer, with warm sunlight, mornings on the beach and crisp linens. The feel is elegantly casual, fresh, light and dreamy.”

Photos: Dong Kim and Adam Fick

The midnight table we designed for the Site 6 Events Summit, in collaboration with Karin Hoogland at Site 6 and Janine Sebastian at Fabloomosity, featured in Blush Magazine.

Photo: ENV Photography

A 1920s beach wedding in Port Ryerse, Ontario. As featured on The Wedding Co:

"Parasols and popcorn under a 3-peaked midway tent, complete with barbershop singers and circus performers. The dj played crackling old-time rags all day long and Cowbell’s catering staff served up sizzling portions of home-cut fries, deep-fried fish and corn-on-the-cob. Perfect fare to soak up the moonshine on the shoreside.

Photos: Karri North Photography

...and Beauty and The Beast, an inspiration editorial we created for WedLuxe, featured on the WedLuxe Couture Chronicles.

"Our story is based on the traditional French fairy tale "Beauty and The Beast" and the Inuit folk tale "The Magic Drum." These two tales come from vastly different cultures, but both talk about the transformative power of love. We hoped to convey the idea of marriage as a continual nourishing exchange—between two people and between the couple and their loved ones—putting a modern spin on the traditional damsel-in-distress tale. As well, as a company based in the prairie, we hoped to evoke a beautiful sense of prairie life. Seeing a parallel between the architecture of barns and grain elevators and the exposed arch-ribs and pointed spires of Gothic churches, we took our cues from the evolving Gothic aesthetic: from architecture in mediæval Europe, to literature in the Victorian age, to the modern subculture.

Of course, there is even more we could share, but we're still hoping to get some things published. We'll let you know when that happens.

Thanks for your support and your love for ID BOHEMIA! Vote for us, and please like, tweet, blog and share this!

Inspirations and Diversions: The Creative Internet

Our friends at John James sent us this link: The Creative Internet (106 things). Here are a few of our favourites:

• " johnny cash project:
  Chris Milk collaborated with Aaron Koblin and Mr Doob to allow Johnny Cash fans to draw each frame for Johnny Cash's final video.
  
  The Johnny Cash Project"
  
  
  
• "splicing:
  Pogo from Perth uses old cartoons - or footage of his mum in the garden - to make beautiful records"
  
  
  
  
• "life in a day:
  What happens when you ask everyone in the world to take a video of their life on the same day? A project with Kevin McDonald, Ridley Scott and many more."
  
  
  
  
• "portfolio mapping:
  Designers create portfolios using maps
  
  microtyp.org
  blaubo.com
  Stas Kulesh"
  
  
  

Enjoy your weekend!

Inspirations and Diversions: Set Design and Soundtrack for a New Generation

We're working on new set designs for the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation's Snowflake Gala. This is our 5th year working with them, and is guaranteed to be our most stupendous, exciting and magical year yet! The theme for 2012 is Vintage Circus, and I'm creating signage templates for the feature auction using circus inspired fonts, which we'll then project onto wood on a massive scale and paint in the Gala's theme colours of deep purple, cranberry, cream, and red. Some of the fonts I'm using include: Circus, Coney Island, Circus Ornate, Romantiques, Rosewood Std and Carnivalee Freakshow (pictured in order above).
We're also creating harlequin patterned backdrops, pennant banners, and ringmaster platforms.

I can hardly wait to see the finished designs. In the meantime, enjoy a selection from the playlist I created for my daughter Riven Maru Scott's baby shower. We'll be posting photos from that event in the coming weeks, thanks to the sweet and amazing talents of Susan at Picture That.

Inspirations and Diversions: He Saw It, He Loved It, He Ate It

via Chris Yoon via acehotel:

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Maurice Sendak, rest in peace.

The Bigger Picture: Comfort Beyond Decals and Fuzz

A nursery for the budding Bohemian? (via A Detailed House)

My husband and I are expecting our first child, and she's due in about a month. The most common question I get asked, after

1. Do you know what you're having? Likely a girl, but we're not 100% sure. And no, we have no preference.
2. Are you excited? Yes. Excited, terrified and content all at the same time.
3. Can I touch your belly? Ha ha! Yes.

is: have you started decorating the nursery? Being someone who creates beautiful and inviting spaces for a living, people are always surprised when I answer no. Aaron and I have our reasons, of course. (Among them, we would like to try co-sleeping, aka sleep sharing, and we're renovating our house and are currently using the potential nursery space as a much needed office.) But while we have no plans for a nursery as yet, this much-anticipated addition to our family has me thinking deeply and often about notions of comfort and home. What makes the "perfect" space?

It's never too early to culture your baby.
That painting above the crib is like the love child of Mark Mullin and Fiona Rae.
(via A Detailed House)

In addition to the practical issues of square metres and child rearing, part of what's holding me back is the strangeness of designing and building a space for someone I have yet to meet (and I say that as a reflection of my own creative process, and not in judgement of the many loving parents who've devoted themselves to nursery building pre-baby-arrival). Even with naming our baby, yes, we have some names chosen, but Aaron and I are not attached to any of them, and we'll happily pick an as yet unconsidered name should she (or he) not suit Stella or Mercer or Cougar.

Do baby girls dictate pink? Would you raise a boy in this room? (via A Detailed House)

Serenity now. Would our baby appreciate an all white space?
Especially one with furniture inspired by French and Swedish 18th century design.
This baby may become an antiques dealer or furniture historian.
(via Chic Shack)

Or maybe she'd prefer a jolt of colour to go with her typography lesson.
The baby in this room may design your wedding invitations some day.
(via A Detailed House)

Above two photos: Kennedy era White House nurseries (via Blue Badger)
Is this how you nurture future lawyers and publishers?
Is perfect colour coordination the key to comfort?

What should I be looking or asking for (if anything at all)? Taking stock of my own life, I have so much. We live well, in a beautiful home, we've never gone hungry, and we enjoy the love and company of a wide circle of family, friends and colleagues. Our basic needs of food, water and shelter are more than satisfied, and we can afford luxuries like a reliable vehicle, travel abroad, and a nice glass of wine with dinner (though only Aaron enjoys that last one, at the moment).

Although our baby is still but a wriggle in my belly, already, so many people have shown us much generosity. My parents are giving us a crib, my aunt found us a stroller, Aaron's parents will make us something beautiful, fellow parents and friends have offered and given us plenty of beautiful clothes and tiny shoes, my sister stumbled on a whale poster years ago that is perfect for a future nursery, a few toys have found their way into our home, and even the lovely people we work with can't resist showering us with cute and fluffy dresses. (You may recall this sweet purple party frock, given to us by Gay Derk at Derks and Bridal Fantasy.)

A pale and interesting nursery, with a capiz shell pendant light (likely from the Philippines),
French bergère chair and white Moroccan poufs for the tiny world traveller.
(via A Detailed House)

Don't get me wrong. At some point, when our child needs her own space, we will make one for her. And we are very fortunate to have the resources, time, and yes, expertise to make it comfortable, functional and beautiful. But I know that when that time comes, the creation of that space will not be a matter of ticking off a shopping list or completing a set of tasks. Creating the perfect space isn't about completing a checklist. Ultimately, comfort is about appreciation; comfort is a state of mind.