Styles - Tina Nisson Design

Contemporary Canapé trays

Posted on September 25, 2019 by TND

Looking for stylish canape trays?

Why is it so hard to find stylish canapé trays. I know it is because I have the same problem. I’ve been looking for canapé trays for various clients and my previous employers for over a decade. This is why I started designing my own.

Where it started for me.

Working for Alison Price caterers I was able to jump straight in and start designing what really worked. As a Chef before event designer this helps get what people really want without knowing it themselves. These were some of my most successful first designs in around 2006

perspex canape tray

canape tray

What came next

I set up on my own and carried on what I did in my last job – Event design & canapé tray design. A blend that still worked. These were a few sale items from my last website.

canape trays

canape tray

canape trays

canape tray

The modular tray below is one tray with multi uses. By having template you can remove to allow for different pots on top.

canape tray Canape trays

The below were one of my favourite designs for large events. A hidden drawer or two which allows movement to the other side of the room revealing more canapés to hungry guests.

Canape tray

Bespoke designs

Clients are always looking for something else though. Like the trays based on St Paul’s window below or something to hold mini pint glasses.

Branding

Then comes branding. This can be done by cutting out the acrylic so you can see through or having vinyl printed on.

canape tray
Canape trays

canape tray

Canape trays

What next

What came next was hiring out some of my top designs. Found here. This helps makes the products more affordable and rather than a design going to the back of a store cupboard, hiring it means you can try something different next time, keeping clients & guests interested & keeping waste down.

The next stage

As you can see my go to medium for making canapé trays is acrylic as that’s what I started out using. One of my fabricators do build pieces from other materials like wood, metal & Corian however they are more expensive than acrylic and that unfortunately is expensive enough. However my next line needs to be made from sustainable products right!?!?

Watch this space…

How to create rustic and woodland themed weddings and events

Posted on April 4, 2019 by TND

How do I create rustic & woodland themed wedding or event

Most people will think..Well that’s easy & maybe to some people it is..It could also be why it is such a popular choice and I might add still going strong. When we’ve seen ‘vintage’ come and go and come back in some forms again. Still so many people love the idea of a rustic themed wedding.

What it means

Rustic is a very loose term and can simply be a bride thinking she wants the opposite of a slick contemporary look. Or for some they choose to style everything down to the favours in a strong woodland / rustic theme*. That’s their take and there really is no right and wrong. You should use your own artistic licence here. For example if I hear woodland I think a cute outdoor space to dress. But the client may be trying to recreate that mystical forest outdoor theme inside top to toe.

*I love this image found on pinterest of the detail you can go to.

Rustic & woodland themed weddings and events

What you need

There are 3 main ingredients here. Top of the list is tree slices, these are used mainly to elevate the design whether it is for cakes, buffet, food station or a photoshoot. Candles give that magical look. Moss fills in the gaps. Then anything else you add leads it in one direction or another. Apple crate definitely more rustic. Pine cones & leaves will take you more strongly to the woodland path. Although as I said before both will intertwine.

This one on Pinterest is utterly gorgeous with just three (my magic number) items. Logs, candles & flowers. Right down the middle rustic and or woodland. Gorgeous.

How to create rustic and woodland themed weddings and events

These are my version of how you can elaborate on a woodland theme. The extra props I used on both pushed into an enchanted forest theme complete with potion bottles, branches, bones, ivy and mystic balls.

How to create rustic and woodland themed weddings and events

The most important thing

The styling always looks the best if you can elevate it so the eye is drawn comfortably around the spectacle in whatever form this may be. It won’t look anywhere near as impressive if you have to look down onto a flat table. Get some large pieces in there to really lift it in my case here for this wedding at the garden museum – apple crates and plenty of them. Get it high.

How to create rustic and woodland themed weddings and events Many of these props can now be hired here and if you don’t see what you are looking for do get in touch on the contact form.

Here’s some rustic themed canapé tray styling to complete the look. These weren’t all created for the same event. So try and stick with something that matches and runs throughout. For example I would continue using these Shimeji & enoki mushrooms throughout the rest of the displays. Rustic & woodland themed weddings and events

Rustic & woodland themed weddings and events

Where to find the most stylish hire equipment

Posted on March 4, 2019March 4, 2019 by TND

Where do I find the most stylish hire equipment.

Who’s looking?

Are you looking for the best furniture hire around. Are you a bride and this is all new to you? Or are you an event planner with little time on your hands to research the hot new Furniture Hire places? Either way I can guide you with some tips. The good news is that there has been an explosion in luxury hire furniture in London (& I’m sure the rest of the country) with great companies literally springing up.

What sort of equipment.

I’m not talking about the standard stuff that we’ve all seen before. There’s really no excuse for generic looking event furniture now. We are talking the sort of swoony sofa’s that we dream of lounging on at home. The real deal. And those oh-so-on-trend gold wire pieces to go with them.

Ok there’s no point in me just talking about it: let me show you my top faves in no particular order…

My top contemporary furniture hire companies.

Hire it. This is a stunning wedding or intimate dinner set up. They have some bang up to date pieces. Work well for out of town events too as they have lots of uber-cool garden furniture for marquees and country garden parties.

Contemporary event furniture

2) Granger Hertzog. Ok these guys have one off pieces ideal for photoshoots and the lobbies of venues for example. But you won’t find huge quantity of any one thing so don’t go looking for your wedding breakfast seating here. They do have artwork, ornate mirrors, art deco vases & lamps and rugs. This does mean you need to go & physically pick out the pieces here to style you event/shoot. You get given a trolly and whizz (ok not whizz – as there’s some mighty pricy artefacts in some of those aisles) around.

Contemporary Event furniture

3) Juno hire. These guys slammed into my radar only this week and again I have to say “wow!” Just look at this set up (for Plain Jane Events I imagine). I mean this is what dreams are made of right? Pink velvet AND gold geometric. Five stars for these folks. Contemporary Event furniture

4) Furniture on the Move. I’ve always thought of this company as being suppliers of heavy, almost industrial equipment like metal chairs and wood pallet bars. My view has changed now as I saw their range this week and it turns out they have all sorts of yummy soft furnishings too. Add them to your list.

Contemporary Event furniture

How nice would this tray work with the above look. We have 2 available for hire here. Which we’ve had adapted. They have mirrors on both sides to work either way up – one way as risers for that stunning looking buffet and also they can be carried as drinks or canapé trays. Geometric gold mirror tray riser

Here’s the links to my top four from above.

Hire it

Granger Hertzog

Juno Hire

Furniture on the move

The best ways to style your own wedding.

Posted on September 21, 2018September 21, 2018 by TND

Styling your own wedding

Where do you start?

I’m often asked what’s the best way to style a wedding. Many people say they don’t want an actual theme as such but want it all to coordinate. There are a few different ways to come up with your unique wedding design.

I’ll list a few ‘ins’ to help you get started. See if you have any of these criteria.

In no particular order :-

The dress – Perhaps you have your heart set on a particular style of dress – vintage for example. All styling will build from here.

2. Colour – You may have a favourite colour. You may have chosen your bridesmaids colours or you & your future husband may have seen a tie / suit colour that he loves.

The best way to style your wedding — Pick a colour – any colour!

3. Location – Where you choose to get married. If you would like to get married abroad somewhere hot then the style can & will be determined from this.

4. Season – If you choose to get married at Christmas you have chosen this for a reason and will want to be sympathetic to that time of year.

The best way to style your wedding

5. Theme -Some choose an actual theme like a festival theme – a really popular one for summer of 2018 or perhaps choosing something with even more styling like Great Gatsby or Art Deco. This is much less subtle but it’s a way for brides & grooms to really go to town on the design if that’s what they are looking for.

Got a design. What’s next?

So now you have the nuts and bolts of a basic design to embellish & take to the next level..Adding that key element to the rest of the big day is the next step.

Lets set the scene. If you have found your dress first. Say it’s a boho style. – Another hot one for for summer 2018 . It’s lace so to tie in you would probably go for soft florals throughout your arrangement and try and incorporate lace in somewhere else. Table decor for example. Favours wrapped in lace and so on.

Best way to style your own wedding

Whichever is your starting point you then have many ways to tie in the theme..Table centres, Stationary, Favours, Ceremony backdrop & Flowers. Then as you are getting braver you can keep going further with finer and finer details.

If you would like further design assistance have a look at the website here

Wedding arches – why have one?

Posted on September 14, 2018September 12, 2018 by TND

What are they?

Wedding arches basically create a perfect backdrop for your ‘I do’ moment. A lovely bride has contacted me to design her a fabulous one. Her ceremony is on top of a hill (with a knock-out sea view) so the arch will have pride of place. A wedding arch can be shaped however you like & made from pretty much anything. Ideally use whatever material features most in your wedding styling.

Why have one?

Quite simply put, they frame you & your partner perfectly when you are saying your vows. That’s the all-time memorable photo opportunity with your loved one. The one time all eyes are on you. While a traditional church gives you a wooden framework around the altar that your florist can work with, anywhere else you have the exciting option of building something totally unique.

Top choices

I love the ones below. The first one is made from copper which I’ve become a dab hand at working with, creating all sorts of food stations & even clients cook book stands! Scroll through the carousel images at the bottom of my website here or check out a previous blog post.

Since writing that blog post in 2015 copper has gradually not only filled events in every way possible, it has worked it’s way into almost every home and now of course naturally into weddings & it looks great. The other two are gold and work perfectly too.

Wedding arches

modern wedding arch gold wedding arch wedding backdrop

Here’s a sassy boho one. Floaty lace wedding dress essential with this style.

contemporary wedding arch

It doesn’t actually need to be an arch. You could make something like this.

wedding arch

There is a lovely backdrop using balloons on my wedding design page too. So whether it’s a back drop or traditional wedding arch you can have fun here and it’s such a great opportunity to get more of your personality into your celebration. Finally it can help tie the whole theme together.

Head to my wedding arch Pinterest page for more inspiration.

We won’t sink the pink..

Posted on March 21, 2018September 12, 2018 by TND

We won’t sink the pink

The bright fluffy candy floss pink may have had a really good run. For 3 years or more it’s taken the limelight especially at weddings, well actually there will always be pink in wedding design. It’s the colour of love. However we have a new and exciting tone of pink busting it’s way in & I love it’s sophistication.

Inspiration

A setting plaster type of pink. As so perfectly named by farrow & ball. This is a muted powdery colour & has a mild hint of peach. As always it looks stunning with gold. But it also looks great with wood if you want to add gravitas. Add these chairs & you’ve got a strong look. And you don’t even have to mention dusty or Blush pink to your future husband. If you are wedding planning this year and want some inspiration take a look. I believe we won’t be able to avoid it this spring & summer. We’ll tell you one thing Tina Nisson Design door is getting a fresh lick of paint in our new fave!

Hell why not go all out…

Pink Blush setting plaster

Event design trends 2018

Posted on January 29, 2018January 31, 2018 by TND

The great thing about event design is being able to keep bang up to date with fashion trends because most of our event furniture is hired in & thanks to some amazing hire companies we can change our style at every whim. Interior design is a bit slower to move on to the next best thing purely because not many of us have the disposable income to throw out last years millennial pink sofa in favour of this years gold velvet 70’s one.

So let’s start from the top. Pantone choose a colour of the year & a few back up colours based on various factors (apparently) and then we have a colour. This year if you haven’t by a slim chance heard, it’s Pantone 18-3838 Ultra Violet. I’m personally pleased it has a small part to do with Prince & as well as it’s mystical & spiritual properties. I’m assuming it also goes hand in hand with a bit of a growing interest in Agate & other crystals. My family are hoping they also chose it because my nan, ‘Violet’ reached the ‘ultra’ ripe old age of 103 in November before she went to sleep forever a couple of week later. All very poignant for us. Yay to the Ultra Violet..

Experiential & immersive events aren’t news but add in augmented reality, artificial intelligence & this mystical Pantone colour of the year to the fantasy mix & we have one hell of a talked about party. You also won’t be able to avoid Iridescent colours either. From cocktail shakers to cutlery for your table. These can nestle in nicely with a soft dreamy tablescape or transform themselves & step up to work with quite a strong colour palette.

One of the colour palettes I’m excited about is camel, rust, tobacco & mustard. Tone on tone colours. Outsized glass pieces in amber hues look ravishing bathed in soft golden event lighting, Think 70’s with a bucket load of glamour.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the gorgeous rich peacock blue & teal, again particularly in velvet. These colours look fabulous on events & as always a total winner with gold accents. Check out my A/W 2017 forecast last year for Toast life . the online directory for the events world.

Naturally gold & brass are still the metallics of choice although rose gold & copper are finally bowing out. Still total respect for them though. One thing events can’t be without is dark wood furniture with brass or gold legs. This will add to an overall powerful look, be it a corporate event or an intimate dinner party.

All we need now is to persuade our hire companies to buy these in for us…

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Sophisticated Halloween events

Posted on October 25, 2016November 23, 2018 by TND

Sophisticated Halloween events

Look at these little beauties.. Totally perfect for your sophisticated halloween events.

Halloween trays

Inspiration

Add a few autumnal leaves and you have a bowl food tray that will glide through this season until the dreaded Christmas season! After some research we found these sophisticated trays at Notre Monde

Halloween doesn’t have to be black and orange!

…And we don’t all have to be able to carve a face in a pumpkin. I’ve gone a different route this year.

Black skull pumpkin

Top tips for a sophisticated halloween event

Here’s 3 of my top style tips :

1) Matt black is an all time winner

2) Gold adds sophistication

3) Using just two colours keeps it slick

Add your ghoulish desserts on to one of these burnt dressers and you are literally laughing (in a witches cackle)

Halloween dessert bar

We have dressers to hire that can be adapted & painted to suit the perfect halloween party.

Jones hire stock this athena range, which is couldn’t be more suited for Halloween. But I did say sophisticated so you may want to loose Dracula’s teeth. Although we can have a little fun sometimes and I’m certainly not averse to that…

halloween dinner party

Food Styling credit : Maggie Ruggiero & Prop Styling credit : Elizabeth MacLennan. Image saved from Food Network .

Check out some more fab images from some creative people all saved to my Halloween Pinterest page.

Top picks added to my moodboard.

Black Halloween moodpboard

We want plates

Posted on June 9, 2016November 22, 2018 by TND

Oh gawd! I’ve had to face up to that Twitter page that everyone keeps tagging me in conversations about it in as it’s not going to go away.

109k followers type of not going to go away…

(https://twitter.com/WeWantPlates FYI)

Here’s my problem. 1/3 of my working week is made up of trying to find unique ways of serving food in fact if you include building food stations for food to go on that sends it to 2/3’s

SO I’m doomed.

: C’mon, everyone loves to forage for their Magic mushroom macaron in an enchanted forest..

However I totally agree. I hate eating any food from scratchy slate or my cherry tomatoes rolling off an olive board. Ok I know you’ve heard all this before it’s my biggest industry moan (except of course for big companies who don’t pay up for 3 months..Yawn) and that goes for eating your baked beans directly from a mini victorian bathtub.

The mouth feel of cutlery is very important for completing any delicious mouthful. I don’t like those white clunky spoons with the deep base for that reason.

SO WE HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT.

My pinterest page is full of Creative Plating , Canapé presentation & Unique Plates These creators have covered food styling with effortless class and finesse. Or my moto created “a perfect stage for their food & drink”

But we are in events and so it’s quite different, number one we are mainly talking about standing receptions which takes the mess away from the diner consuming straight from a plate . Number two we, have to go one step further, mostly because it’s expected of us now to push the boundaries. It’s all about miniature theatre surrounding the food they pick up from Canapé trays or whatever serving vessel not while we are sitting a at a table eating from a slate oozing with gravy on a white crisp table cloth… So I think we are off the hook …Phew.

But we still push it.

: Ahem..

When I worked on the Great British Menu we were pushed to the limit of creating inventive ways of serving food to make good viewing. Which is why I was brought in, in the first place.

: Before..

: After ..Same dish but with a bit of TND sparkle.

: Dessert Larder cupboard. Sorry Not sorry.

We set the bar in Events way before Restaurants and then hotels got hold of it. When I first started working at Alison Price in 2005 we were all over it.

: Edible garden 2010

Hotels Are way behind .. And restaurants are in second place but frankly making a mess of it with the creation of such a massive following from we want plates in the first place.

I’ve got a file of over 250 photos dedicated to ways I’ve presented food and that’s only the ones I’ve go around to taking a snap of here’s some from my archives …

Science…

Science themed trays P1000285

Apothecary …

Apothecary

Asian..

Sugar Cane Prawns with Mango and Coriander Dip Bamboo fish & Chips

Woodland..

woodland dry ice canapé tray

Food Credit: Moving Venue, Bubble food & Alison Price.

I’ll let you decide do we want to see plates or carry on how we were before the restaurants & hotels stepped in.

lets just get one thing clear no one wants to see this. It’s just plain wrong : Source @wewantplates Twitter

we want plates

A few of my favourite things 2016 – Concrete & Marble

Posted on March 1, 2016November 23, 2018 by TND

So 2015 flew by in a haze of copper for me .. But mid year I had time for a spot of Terrarium action. After a trip to Japan in April I had a vision of a minimalist dessert station of hanging globes full of succulents. This went well with a gentle persuasion for my husband to design a green tea sprayed dessert. One of my other fascinations. Well any effect created with a chocolate spray gun. (green & red being the current faves!) This is one all ready for the desserts by Bubble food.

terrarium

Succulents & Terrariums with green tea partfait under a min cloche. (Did I ever mention Cloches were my other fave of 2015)

Green ta parfait

Here is the same perspex food station design full of desserts at Kensington Palace. terrarium

Now this year I’m obsessed with concrete & marble & I’m adding those materials to more succulents… The only thing is the first two are just a tad heavy..and anyone in events will know that puts me to the bottom of the Christmas card list with the warehouse packing and loading vans for events.

Now what’s just perfect is how well copper goes with the above two medium too. Here a mixture of Copper with Succulents thrown in with marble & lovely cool matt grey concrete to whet your appetite. Doesn’t it just feel calming..

I created a food station with fresh white Marble and geometric copper bowls with tea light holders like the last picture here and it looked gorgeous. Sadly no photos allowed from this one. So the above moodboard will help you to imagine.

So look out for my food stations of 2016 to include of course – Marble, concrete, succulents to add contrast & life & lastly just a touch of shiny copper for a bit of warmth not too much this year or people will think I have a copper mine..