Tag: wedding dress

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Reed & Rye Floral Design

Ashley Renee, the creative visionary behind Reed & Rye talks inspiration, creating a wedding with forever in mind, and her favorite bloom.

bride with floral bouquet
Ashley Renee of Reed & Rye Photo by Andre Argaez

Fresh beginnings from fresh blooms…

Ashley Renee launched her company in the Summer of 2019. Her Californian roots go deep. She was raised in Visalia and moved to San Diego in 2017 for a Dental Hygienist position. She met her husband after moving to San Diego from Visalia. During the planning of her 2019 wedding she realized she could channel her natural creativity into a career providing florals and event styling, all while tapping into her Californian roots. Reed & Rye’s Instagram feed exudes Californian beauty and boho vibes. It showcases the diversity of her creativity as a floral artist.

Reed & Rye’s Instagram Feed

Ashley has always been a creative at heart, as a kid she made jewelry and was president of the art club in high school and even took drawing classes in college. Art has always been a huge part or her life and frequently colors the ways she sees things. When her natural creativity was introduced to wedding planning she gravitated towards the floral and event design aspects of it the most strongly. It was the “shapes, colors, and textures” that drew her to floral design.

Ashley has a keen artistic eye and a distinct style. She’s most inspired by “warm tones, the variety of complex textures, and just the ability of a dried flower or foliage to live on past it’s typical life span for years to come!” It was this love of creating something that could last which led her in a slightly new direction.

Venturing into new flowering territory…

Wanting to reach more than just Southern California, Ashley recently “ventured into a new territory of flowering. The typical bride spends on average $250 for her wedding bouquet and then it sadly dies.”  Ashley opened up an Etsy store selling forever bouquets and arrangements for special occasions. These allow her clients to keep their wedding bouquets forever or gift a forever arrangement. These are made with a mixture of silk and dried florals and are equally stunning to the fresh florals she provides for events. She has “come up with options for brides to purchase bouquets that will last for years to come! Whether it be an all dried bouquet or a silk floral bouquet, they will stay in great shape and will serve as a wonderful memory of their beautiful day.” 

Forever bouquet by Reed & Rye . Photo by Hannah Pennell

Ashley’s favorite bloom…

When I asked Ashley what her favorite bloom was she said it was the Brown Lisianthus. I’d never seen this flower before, but fits with her warm boho vibes perfectly. For further inspiration, couples can check out Reed & Rye’s Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Etsy.

Ashley Renee with Brown Lisianthus, her current favorite bloom.

About the Author

Hannah Pennell writes about all that is style and fashion. She enjoys using her writing to shed light on artists and creatives in the San Diego area. She’s a big believer in breakfast, talking philosophy, and all things fashion. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

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Dressing a Galaxy

Highlights from Trisha Biggar’s Star Wars’ costumes. This blog shares details on a few of the costumes from the book Dressing a Galaxy.

As a HUGE Costume Design enthusiast I knew I had to get my hands on Trisha’s Biggar’s book, Dressing a Galaxy. The costumes have forever inspired me and stand out to me as a true standard for what is possible with costume design. Her research, attention to detail, and craftsmanship are extraordinary.

Trisha Biggar pulled from many sources to create the costumes you see in the Star Wars prequels. Biggar was strongly influenced by different cultures and periods, which is reflective in her use of materials. According to her Production Designer on these films, “She is passionate about the history of costumes, and she is always conscious of how her own designs relate to that history.” Click on the photo below or this link for more insight on cultural and historical influences on Biggar’s design.

As with a lot of films a great deal of work went in prior to shooting. The art department began prepping for Episode I three years before they began shooting. Nine months before they began principle photography, Biggar began to work full time. For Episode I she created a facility at a studio with 60 to 100 people. They worked long hours to create the film’s hundreds of costumes. They sourced materials from fabric fairs all over the world and worked directly with manufacturers in China, India, and Hong Kong.

Almost 100 were created for the the Star Wars prequels. A fan favorite of these is Padme Amidala’s wedding dress featured in the scene showing her marriage to Anakin Skywalker on Naboo. This wedding dress was made from an antique Victorian era bedspread. The bedspread was not quite large enough for the predesigned dress, but Biggar and George Lucas loved the lace so much that they altered the previous design. 

Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala marry on Naboo.
Padme Amidala veil from wedding ensemble

Utilizing the talents of an embroidery facility in Sydney, they appliqued with a manual satin stitch the available embroidered sections from an antique lace bedspread onto eleven silk tulle pattern sections that would eventually become the wedding ensemble. Since the amount of vintage fabric was limited, Biggar’s team made 300 yards of French-knit braid for Cornely scrollwork, to combine and meld the panels. The finished dress was studded with pearls.

The wedding dress was not the only costume in the film to incorporate vintage pieces and remnants. According to Biggar, “The distinctive qualities of antique textile pieces always appeal to me, and I particularly like being able to resurrect vintage materials and trimmings, revitalizing often delicate bits of embroidery, beadings, or lace from the Victorian era (or earlier) and incorporating them into new garments.” 

Close up of the vintage French fabric for Chancellor Valorum’s costume.
Chancellor Valorum

Biggar happened across some rolls of vintage 1930s and ‘40s fabric originating in France. She used these to create several costumes including Chancellor Valorum’s bruise-colored corded silk underrobe (see above) and the sunray-pleated underdress in orange shot silk in Amidala’s Throne Room Costume. The neck of Queen Amidala’s Throne Room Costume was enriched by placing layers of gold glass-bead fringing and Victorian bullion-embroidered lace motifs over the yoke area (below). 

Queen Amidala’s Throne Room costume.

Antique items were used in the costumes of Anakin Skywalker as well. Biggar used items from Africa for the creation of his Interior Freighter Disguise costume. It consists of his Jedi trousers and a taupe raw-silk open-weave undershirt. Biggar also used African mud cloth fabric  for a double-breasted vest. She completed the look with a dark green cummerbund, and a tan-and-green neck scarf, combined with a woven poncho in an off-white, vintage African fabric.

Interior Freighter Disguise
Interior Freighter Disguise

If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you were nerding out reading that. It’s so neat to see all that fashion from “a galaxy far, far away” has to offer. I hope this motivates you to rewatch the films and check your local library for Trisha Biggar’s book! May the force be with you!

Photos and information for this blog post were taken from:

 Biggar, T. (2005). Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Starwars.China: Palace Press International.