{all images by Edyta Szyszlo Photography, planning, styling + flower design by lovely little details}

I was honored when Rue Magazine reached out to me a while back to design and plan their GAP/styld.by fall launch party which took place this past week in San Francisco. After a few brainstorm calls with one of the publishers, I had a vision of berry baskets with gilded apples to pull out a slightly hipster, autumnal carnival theme. Not gonna lie, I was a little intimidated throwing out ideas to Rue, as they are known for being a source of the latest trends in fashion and style, but they liked my idea and told me to “run with it”. Some of my favorite projects (besides weddings) are when I’m told to “just go with it” because it truly allows my creative mind to run free. I’ve been dying to use these little cardboard berry baskets as “vases” and was so thrilled that Rue was down for the idea. With amazing “carnival foodie” food from Culinary Eye Catering (cotton candy, anyone?), beats from DJ Risk One and a badass photobooth from Tomfoolery, this event had all of my favorite things going on. Here are some of my favorite pics! 

Movie/carnival popcorn is my weakness. I would have no shame in going in to the movies and buying a bag of popcorn to go. So of course a popcorn machine was mandatory for this event, right?

I was so thankful to my lovely assistant Jessica who helped with the styling and breakdown {and who jetted over to party city before the event to fill the big round balloons!}

The swirly lollipops were a hit - I don’t think I’ve had one of those things since like 5th grade. It was fun to unleash the kid in everyone!

I created a backdrop for the front two panels when you enter the store to a) cover the space and b) bring the theme through to the wall hangings. To keep with the theme, I spray painted carnival tickets gold to act as one of the “ribbons” and used unsprayed tickets paired with different shades of crepe paper and sequin trim for the other layers. To keep everything in place I used double sided tape to affix the bottom ribbons to the ground so they’d stay nice and straight.

Armed with a little extra gold spray paint (after painting the apples, pincushion protea and golden tickets), I sprayed leftover wine bottles for a makeshift ring toss display that worked out pretty well last minute! haha

And the flowers! Yay! These were some of my favorite arrangements yet - I used dahlias, rose hips, garden roses, ranunculus, pincushion protea (that as I mentioned above, I sprayed gold), scabiosa, mint, maiden fern, mini pomegranates and a few other little blooms here and there. They came out perfectly imperfect :).

And I have to share this pic I shared on instagram - it wasn’t actually an arrangement, but a bucket of flowers I had prepped for the arrangements. I left my flower buckets at our old apartment in San Francisco before the move by accident, so I was prepping my blooms in canning pots - how fitting, right? Just the way these flowers fell in the pot looked so pretty, I would have liked this alone as an arrangement! But it was really just a bucket of flowers :)

Sequin linens were a must :)

Say what you want about stripey straws but I freaking love them. I always BMOS (bring my own straw) when I go out with girlfriends because party straws make things more fun. So when I spotted these STAR! stripe straws from my fave party detail source, Hey Yo Yo, I knew we had to have them for the event.

And OMG the Tomfoolery photobooth was insane!!! Edyta spent hours tediously setting up the backdrop to look like the balloon popping carnival game (luckily no darts were involved haha!) and it was the perfect accent to pull the entire event together. If you’re in the bay area and looking for a photobooth you HAVE to reach out to Tomfoolery - they are awesome.

All in all I think everyone had a great time and just as importantly, the Rue/GAP peeps were happy!

photographer: Edyta Szyszlo Photography
planning, styling + floral design: lovely little details
vintage rentals: One True Love Vintage Rentals
Catering: Culinary Eye Catering & Events
Sequin linens: La Tavola Fine Linens
Signage: Maia McDonald
Photobooth/Backdrop: Tomfoolery
DJ: DJ Risk One
Valet: California Valet
Cocktail Mixologist: Bob Van Noord
White Wine: Outcast Wines
Star/Stripe Straws: Hey Yo Yo
Balloons: Stephanie Shives Studio
Corporate planner: A SQUARED GROUP