Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl production designer Loren Weeks (left) and art director Malchus Janocko in the penthouse at the Palace Hotel, one of the show's frequent locations.

For the Snowflake Ball, Weeks filled the alcoves at the Foundry in Long Island City, Queens, with parachute fabric and backlit them, then bathed the space—and actors Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick—in blue light.

The Kiss on the Lips Dance during the first season had a Marie Antoinette theme, and Weeks used pink and blue touches, including acrylic candelabra, to decorate the Foundry. Floral designer Sung Jung of Doro's Annex filled one of the venue's alcoves with strung crystals and orchids lit by LEDs.

The '50s-inspired looks of the Eleanor Waldorf fashion collection led Weeks to Shop America, a picture book about midcentury retail design, for ideas for the set at Capitale.

Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) modeled in the Eleanor Waldorf fashion show.

Weeks' 1940s Hollywood design for the show's senior prom originally called for fake fur on the lamp shades, but the team didn't like the finished look. The fix: boas ordered for overnight delivery.

For the prom set, floral designer Sung Jung used $10,000 worth of flowers.

Executive producer Stephanie Savage requested an outdoor ceremony for Lily and Bart Bass's wedding in the style of The Great Gatsby—and then it rained the morning of the shoot. The weather cleared in time for dry nuptials at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, with a trellis covered with wisteria.

When the director saw the vinyl dance floor printed with a rug pattern at the wedding reception in the Madison Room at the Palace Hotel, he decided to end the episode—and the first season—with an overhead shot of several characters dancing.

The rehearsal dinner at the Palace used Vera Wang plates, but set decorator Christina Tonkin often pulls inventory from event rental houses.