Now for my theme. I wanted to do something totally out of the ordinary and find a venue that offers something a little different than the huge ballrooms or garden weddings. I had heard that there was a space at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey that looked right into a shark tank. As soon as I found out about the venue, my mind was made up and I couldn’t imagine of a more fun place to design an event for. My theme was Under the Sea, which could have turned out pretty kitschy/tacky if taken to the extreme, but I chose coral as my main styling element and I tried to stay away from the ‘fish’ aspect that would have been easy to fall into.
Currents Ballroom offers a great space and offers all kinds of amenities to its Brides, including an in-house caterer and amazing service! Stacy is the facility coordinator there and she was awesome and so helpful! She even hooked me up with an amazing lighting tech from DynamiteFX, named Doug. I have officially decided that the right lighting can make or break the perfect event. Doug was beyond helpful with everything the day of shoot, he set-up a bunch of pin-spots on the floral arrangement and cake, a gobo (a lit-up monogram), a lighting water effect, and a lighted curtain! The lighted curtain really made the room, which is for the most part gray. The curtain allowed us to bring in a lot of light AND virtually change the color of the room! They even up-lit the place card table and ended up helping out the photographer, Gary from AC Photo, for some of the shots.
There are many things that go into producing a successful event, as I learned through this photo shoot, but I cannot tell you how important it is to have great vendors; and I really did have some of the absolute best!
Jill and Stephen from the Sweet Life Bakery are probably the greatest cake designers ever! Josie had used them for her inspiration and they were gracious enough to help me out with mine too! They created a cake that was covered with coral and Jill handmade the cake-topper!
Another great vendor was my florist, David, from The Flower Shoppe Ltd. He designed the florals and the base that was beyond cool. Judy, Laura, and I were all blown away by the way he put star fish and coral garland in the base of the vase!
However, you can’t have a great table without great linens. Howard and Chuck at Event Rentals Ltd. were great with helping me pick out linens. Now I think that chair covers are pretty, but I think they are pretty dated too, so offered the suggestion to just use sashes – it adds the color with a modern flair. I used plain polyester linens with a sheer overlay to add some shimmer.
Now it all comes down to dress, as always. Like I said my photo shoot did have a more Sweet Sixteen vibe to it, but we went to a great dress shop called Rissy Roo, the owner Marissa helped me pick out a dress for my model Gia. Rissy Roo was a HUGE selection of dresses ranging from bridesmaid dresses to casual sundresses, but the one that we picked out for the photo shoot was absolutely perfect. The bright coral color really popped against all the blue in the room and even more important Gia felt like a movie star.
For this photo shoot I did end up creating and making a lot of things. I made the place cards/party favors and the table number myself with some cardstock and red rock candy that looked like coral. With the economy the way it is, the DYI projects are becoming more popular and I think that they end up looking even better than anything you can purchase pre-made.
Overall I think that the photo shoot turned out as a great success and I think that I was able to offer a view to an Under the Sea theme that hasn’t been done already and staying about from the totally typical ‘beachy’ themes. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed some of these great pictures and can get some inspiration of your own from here for your future event!
