Have Your Modern Spring Wedding In A Vintage Space

A green velvet ribbon from the Sugar Paper LA x Target collaboration, a vintage flower frog, and a desire to explore modern minimal floral and wedding design inspired our photo shoot at the historic Belle Isle Boat House in Detroit. 

Once home to the Detroit Boat Club, the oldest yachting club in the United States, the 116-year old Mediterranean Revival building is now open to private events and becoming a popular wedding venue in the city as it undergoes restoration. Inside, the building’s classically inspired ballroom has a soaring ceiling, ornate plasterwork, and tons of natural light from windows that overlook the Detroit River. Our team wanted to transform the ballroom with a minimal modern design concept, different from the vintage, rustic, and classically ballroom-esque designs we’d previously seen in the space.

By focusing on a more neutral color palette and clean lines while layering in velvet, matte, and semi-opaque textures, we allowed the ballroom’s classical ornamentation to be its own moment without feeling overdone or overpowered by our design. Fatima (Studio Terrain) kept the floral arrangements super clean and minimal by arranging fresh flowers, dried lunaria, and bleached Japanese fern in an ikebana-inspired style using low black bowls and vintage flower frogs. 

We also kept the tablescape design minimal by using matte black dinnerware and flatware, vintage smoke glasses, and layering rich black velvet napkins on top of an oatmeal-colored velvet tablecloth from La Tavola Linen. Our original green velvet ribbon inspiration made an appearance as part of the place setting to complement the menu and place card, and as the bridal bouquet wrap.

The delicate and semi-opaque qualities of the dried lunaria were carried into the stationery by using vellum paper as an accent in the invitation suite and for the menu cards.