Photography by Blumenthal Photography
Nightingales was established by Kathy Apostolidis in 1994 and has since been setting benchmarks for quality and service in the wedding industry, both in Australia and overseas. For more than 20 years, the team at Nightingales have been creating elegant, beautiful and unique weddings, working closely with each client in order to achieve their desired look, striving to ensure that every bride and groom is happy and stress-free on their wedding day.
We kick off our Super Stylist Sunday series with a chat to Kathy from Nightingales about her career, wedding tips and all things styling!
Photography by Blumenthal Photography
MW: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
KA: I'm Kathy Apostolidis, Stylist, Events by Nightingales.
I love beautiful things and I try to see the beauty in everything, whether it is elaborate, colourfully vibrant or simple monochromatic and understated. I love over the top experiences and celebrations, and simple rustic heartfelt get togethers. I love the people that I meet who entrust me with their special day and get really sad when its all over and I know I may not see them again, and I still get very excited to be at the beginning stages of creating a concept for a wedding or special event.
What do I love personally? I love travelling, music, tango and salsa dancing. I adore movies and books, good storytelling is one of my most favourite things which is how I approach planning a wedding, telling their story and making it experiential and engaging the senses of guests with every element. My love of travel enables me to pick up new ideas from all over the world and place them in a wedding or event concept, I try to travel at least once every year for inspiration.
When I have a weekend off I love cooking and having people over for lazy lunches under our grapevine and I love it when I can go for long walks with my husband and my adorable dog Zara.
MW: How did you get started as a stylist?
I started by just purely offering a planning service and part of this included helping them with the decorative details. This was quite simple at the start as the emphasis was on exceptional suppliers and venues, however as time went by I researched trends overseas and wanted to offer clients more exciting options in relation to decorative elements – I found that my clients got very excited with our decorative meetings which gave me the courage to expand this side of my business.
As well as this, I attended international wedding and event exhibitions in the USA and Europe which inspired me to spread my wings in creating tablescapes, impressive entrances, taking florals from simple arrangements to big bold and voluptuous installations and learning about lighting and how to introduce lighting in creative ways to create mystery, change the mood throughout the evening and focus on feature elements.
This growing stage in my styling career was very exciting because I also had to find suppliers who were talented but who also were brave and willing to experiment and push the boundaries further. Even now if the client is willing, I try to introduce a new element into each wedding so that we are constantly evolving, perfecting and experimenting. We need to keep pushing the boundaries by learning and growing with each wedding.
Photography (images 1-3) by Thomas Gallane, Photography (image 4) by James Day
MW: What colours and colour palette combinations do you love for next 12 months?
KA: Currently we are working on some unusual but gorgeous combinations: The ever popular and classic whites, cream and champagne tones with no greenery in sight and lots of candles in clear glass, with rich gold elements - very clean and traditional.
Four shades of pink together on a base of tiffany blue with copper accessories. Emerald green base with blood red florals very moody and bold with black marble accents. Natural timber tones with variegated green tones in foliage and soft taupe and grey steel tones in accessories.
Photography by Thomas Gallane
MW: What are your favourite new styling trends for 2016/2017?
KA:
- Construction of bespoke walls as backdrops, covered in subtle but detailed wallpapers, built with inserts that are lit from within and are able to hold either slip tapered art pieces or slip tapered florals.
- Bringing the outdoors in. By creating internal garden settings, complete with fountains, small bridges over ponds, trees and stone benches and love seats.
- Modern architectural settings, pleasing straight clean lines, simple geometric patterns in the table floor plan layout, and feature areas such as cake table and lounge areas to be placed on furniture pieces that range from octagonal vertical shelving units to industrial steel furniture bases that are upholstered in luxury fabrics and furnishings that are still wedding referenced.
- Experiential considerations for guests so that we are designing live food installations within these internal garden settings and modern lounge settings.
Photography by Thomas Gallane
MW: What are your five favourite styling elements to work with right now and why?
KA: We are currently working on some very unique and highly artistic projects that move away from traditional “wedding” environments and embrace art, architecture and nature.
Mixing metals such as platinum, gold, rose gold, copper and bronze elements in feature areas such as bridal tables… recently we designed and had constructed a fascia for a bridal table made of panels of a gold aged mirror overlaid with a platinum diamond pattern and then creating stages behind the bridal table to hold unstructured florals in vibrant tones, reminiscent of a Tuscan wall overgrown with spring blooms of all colours. We then added soft lighting so that it looked like dappled sunshine.
Strong architectural elements used in a very austere way for a lounge area next to the dancefloor. Imagine adding a white wall to the venue, just a plain white wall and in the centre hanging an artwork as a lone stark element.
To make a statement about the Groom’s love of a particular designer then adding simple cubist furniture for guests to sit and view when having a break from dancing.
Fabrics we are working with are either frothy and fun, heavily beaded and elaborate or plain stark white, some with soft lemon and lime accents in furnishings, or in some cases no linen at all!
Tables are raw and uncovered allowing the timber personality of each piece to shine through. Featuring up to 4 styles of chairs not mixed but grouped so as to give each table group a different personality and tablescapes consisting of unique clusters of plants and florals in unusual containers (not bric a brac) so that it is an adventure to walk through and explore the differences on each table, a very nice talking point.
Florals! My favourite item… We are working with every colour combination possible, as well as the whites and greens which will never date. Flowers will continue to be arranged in hanging installations, in vases the size of tree trunks and also in dainty crystal, gold and copper containers, geometric or classic in style… but geometrics are definitely emerging.
Cocktail or lounge furniture with industrial iron bases, geometric shapes, but with added luxury finishes such as marble or slate or timber parquetry. These unusual pieces mixed in with structured low lounges simple monochromatic steel tones that are über-sophisticated when adding one bold gold or highly polished silver centrepiece.
Photography by Inlighten
MW: What are your top 3 tips for brides wanting to create unique wedding style?
KA: What makes a style unique is YOU….so…
Be true to yourself – trust your heart, be brave, this is your day! It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, what matters is that you will look back and be so glad you did what you wanted!
Make it personal – include elements in there that represent you and your groom.
Be open to new things and to advice from your stylist – your stylist should be devoted to bringing to life your dream, its all about you, but also trust them when small changes have to happen to make it work, after all they have the experience and they also have your back.
Photography by Blumenthal Photography
MW: If you were designing your own wedding, how would you style it?
KA: I love fairytales so if I could have my reception anywhere in the world I would have it in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. All the tables would have candelabras that would have florals on either side consisting of white roses and phalanopsis orchids in different crystal and ceramic vases just tumbling to the table unstructured and unfettered.
But the coup de grace would be that all the hanging chandeliers in that room would have floral garlands connecting the chandeliers from the ceiling down to the candelabras in the centres of the tables. All wait staff would wear white with white gloves and small angel wings. All guests would be picked up at the entrance to the estate by white carriages drawn by white horses with white feather crowns and flower girls would sprinkle petals on the stairs as guests walked up to the entrance.
Hopefully one day I can create this for one of my clients!! There is enough plain plain in the world, this is one super special day so why hold back!
The other wedding that I would like to have is to get married in the Chapel of Love in Vegas by the best looking Elvis impersonator that I could find! (by the way… I did say earlier that I do love everything!)
Check out more from Kathy and the Nightingales team on their website, instagram and facebook.
MW x