Rooms That Look Like They Were Always That Way — Event Design in Miami, FL
We design from the venue outward — light first, then structure, then flowers. Ten years, 260 events and an in-house fabrication studio that builds what cannot be rented.
What the Studio Does
The whole design, or the piece your planner needs built.
Roughly half our work comes in through planners who keep the logistics and hand us the design. We are entirely comfortable with that split.
A Decade of Rooms
Private celebrations, weddings and brand events across South Florida.
We Design From the Venue Outward
Most event styling starts with a mood board and tries to impose it on a room. We think that is backwards, and it is why so many beautiful boards produce disappointing evenings.
Ondine starts with the space — its proportions, its light at the hour your event happens, its sightlines and its awkward corner. The design is drawn to that. By the time florals are chosen, the hard decisions about structure and light are already made.
The studio is eight people including two fabricators, which means when the design needs something that does not exist, we draw it and build it rather than compromising to what a rental catalogue holds.
- ✓Design begins with the venue, not a mood board
- ✓Lighting specified before florals are chosen
- ✓In-house fabrication — two full-time makers
- ✓Published in six design and wedding titles
Four Principles Behind Every Room
Light before flowers
Warm, layered, directional light is the single biggest determinant of how a room feels and how it photographs. It is also the thing most stylists leave to the venue. We specify it first.
Design at conversation height
A centrepiece people cannot see past is a beautiful object that ruins a table. Everything on a surface is designed to sit below eye line or well above it — never in between.
Build what cannot be rented
A design constrained to a rental catalogue looks like every other event that used the same catalogue. Our fabricators exist so the drawing does not have to bend.
Design the sequence, not the photo
Guests move through arrival, ceremony, dinner and late evening. Each should feel like a different room. A design that only works in one photograph fails the other three hours.
If It Does Not Exist, We Draw It and Build It
Two full-time fabricators, a workshop behind the studio, and a CNC router that has produced everything from a nine-metre curved backdrop to a bar clad in hand-cut ceramic.
This is the part that changes what a design can be. When the drawing calls for an arbour of a specific proportion, or a plinth run that matches a brand's radius exactly, we do not go looking for the nearest rentable approximation. We make it, we install it, and afterwards we either store it for you or break it down.
It also means our costs are more predictable than they look. A built piece is frequently cheaper than three seasons of renting a compromise.
- ✓Two full-time fabricators and an in-house workshop
- ✓CAD drawings your other vendors can build against
- ✓Overnight install and same-night strike where the venue requires
- ✓Pieces stored for reuse or broken down, your choice
Concept to Install
Venue walk
We visit the space at the hour your event happens, and photograph the light. Everything else follows from that.
Concept and drawings
A design concept with elevations, a lighting plot and a specification — documents your vendors can build from.
Fabrication and sourcing
Bespoke pieces built in studio; everything else sourced and confirmed against the drawing.
Install and styling
We install, light, style and walk the room before guests arrive — then strike it afterwards.
Deliverables, Not Just a Look
Every design engagement produces documents, not only a finished room.
A design concept
The idea in one page — the argument for why this room, this event and this evening should look the way we are proposing.
Elevations and floor plans
Scaled drawings of every designed surface and structure, dimensioned so anyone can build from them.
A lighting plot
Fixture positions, colour temperature and levels by moment — arrival, dinner, speeches, late evening.
A full specification
Every linen, glass, ceramic, candle and stem listed with quantities, so nothing is decided in a rush on install day.
Fabrication drawings
For anything we build, the shop drawings — which stay with you if you ever want the piece rebuilt.
Install supervision
We are in the room for the build, whether the crew is ours or yours, until it matches the drawing.
What People Say About the Work
We came to Ondine with a mood board of things we liked and left with something none of us had thought of. They design from the venue outward rather than pasting a Pinterest board onto a room, and the difference is that the space looked like it had always been that way.
The fabrication studio is the real advantage. Our brand launch needed a nine-metre curved backdrop that did not exist anywhere. They drew it, built it in-house and installed it overnight. No rental house could have solved that.
I have worked with a lot of stylists and most of them are florists with ambition. Ondine thinks about lighting first, which nobody does, and it is why their rooms photograph the way they do. Our images ran in two magazines.
We only needed the design, not the planning — we had that covered. They were completely comfortable being handed a slice of the job, delivered drawings our own vendors could execute from, and were on site for the install to make sure it landed.
Tell Us About the Room
Send us the venue, the date and roughly what the evening needs to be. We'll come back within three business days with an honest view of whether we're the right studio for it.
Before You Enquire
Do you plan events as well as design them?
No, deliberately. We are a design studio. About half our work comes through planners who keep the logistics, the vendors and the timeline, and hand us the design. If you don't have a planner and need one, we'll happily recommend two or three in Miami we like working with.
What does event design cost?
It scales with the number of designed surfaces and how much has to be built rather than sourced. A styled dinner for thirty is a very different figure from a wedding with a fabricated arbour and three distinct rooms. Tell us the venue and the guest count and we'll give you a range on the first call.
Can you work to a mood board we already have?
We'll read it closely — it tells us a great deal about your taste. But we'll design from the venue outward rather than reproducing the board, and we'll explain why wherever we depart from it. Clients almost always prefer the result.
Do you only do weddings?
Weddings are roughly half. The rest is private celebrations, brand launches, showroom openings and foundation galas. Brand work is where the fabrication studio gets used hardest.
How far ahead should we come to you?
Six to nine months for a full design with fabrication — build time is the constraint, not design time. Styling-only and tablescape work can be turned around in six to eight weeks.
Do you travel?
Regularly, across South Florida and to the Caribbean. Travel and freight are quoted separately and shown as their own lines.
Tell Us About Your Event
The venue, the date and what the evening needs to be. We reply within three business days.