Some brides and grooms seek out the most dramatic venue they can find for their wedding. Thankfully, Philadelphia offers quite a few grand historic buildings to choose from, from The Franklin Institute to the Crystal Tea Room. But The Great Hall at the Please Touch Museum, with its classic Beaux-Arts architecture, soaring, 60-foot ceilings and majestic glass dome, stands in a class all its own.  At an early March wedding, guests enjoyed a whimsical cocktail reception in the glass-enclosed Carousel Hall before moving into the Great Hall for a Springtime-inspired dinner dance celebration.

 

Spring weddings are synonymous with flowering branches of some sort, with the fluffy powder pink Cherry blossoms as the most requested by savvy brides. This year, Mother Nature brought Spring to us a little earlier than normal.  Yet, managing to get our hands on an orchard of flowering Cherry in mid February was not an  easy task. Why mid February? Because these branches need time to warm up and open in full before they can be shown off in public!

Classic round dinner tables dressed with hot pink satin layered with red chain sequin overlays held romantic Cherry blossom “trees” that offered a natural, yet romantic softness to the enormous space. Metallic gold accessories, such as napkin rings, charger plates with gold and red glass, gilded table numbers, were added to the table settings for a layer of traditional elegance.  We even changed out the chair cushions to vibrant deep pink satin for a monochromatic look. As a key element to the design of the wedding, we provided all of the lighting for the event as well as the dinner tables, the latter proving to be quite challenging with such widespread table designs. Wide washes of light and dramatic uplighting of the architecture in hues of magenta, pink and amber enhanced the grandness of the South Foyer and Great Hall.

The South Foyer offered an impressive entrance and exit for the event and our 18 foot long rectangular place card table added a pop of color and fragance to the space.  Like the dinner tables, flowering Cherry branches added height to the table but other Spring flowers such as hyacinth, tulips and peonies danced down the center of the table in modern crystal vases.  Later in the evening the table was used as a wedding sweets table for guests as they departed the celebration.  Love was definitely in bloom at the Please Touch Museum!

{Photos: John Armich}