Wedding 7-12-08

Liz came to me in mid February to help her plan the flowers for her wedding in mid July. She knew rite off that bat that she wanted Peonies to be her main flower in her bouquet. She mentioned that she had gone to a commercial florist and they had told her there was no way to get peonies in July, which I do admit is sort of true, depends on how the season is progressing though. They also quoted her a fairly steep price. I expressed that I could do her design for less and that we should set up a time to talk.

At our first meeting she brought a picture of what she had in mind, which was of course full of deep pink and light pink peonies. I told her I would do what I could to get the peonies but also worked out a few other scenarios for her in the chance that they would be unavailable at the time.

The color's for the wedding where in hues of deep deep pink/almost plum color and she wanted shades ranging form that deep pink all the way to cream for her flowers. We worked it out that she was looking for an "english garden" meets modern romance feel!

We wanted to use both Pink and Cream Calla's, three shades of roses, Deep pink, light and cream, she liked the paper thinness of the Lisianthus and she also noted that she wanted very little if any greenery in her bouquet.

The wedding was in July so I had the prime opportunity to work with local growers as well as using both the Dutch and South American markets (the south american market is how we get roses for Valentines day and other such events in the bitter cold!, I.e. thats where most of the commercial roses come from). This year has been a particularly rough growing season, flower growers where ever they are not immune to crazy weather!

For this wedding I actually had better luck with a local grower then I did with my wholesale vendor, We were able to use roses, cream calla's and the lisianthus from the wholesaler and Much to the brides pleasure I was able to find Amazing deep and light pink Peonies from a local grower, along with some of the most beautiful pink Calla Lillie's I have ever seen! We also used snapdragons and Yarrow from our local supplier.

On a side note, I love when I can use a local grower because it gives me a chance to help the "little man" in our small area! It's a comfort to know I can 9 out of 10 times get it from a major wholesaler, but if I have the option to know that my flowers are coming fresh, just picked from a field that's 7-8 miles from my home and i can SEE them being picked, I'm going to use them! It's all about quality!

Here are a few pictures that I took before the our order was delivered, I will post more once the couple gets back their photo's, I'm not the greatest photographer~


These are the Bouquets, they are in the Hand Tied style. When a bride wants a hand tied bouquet I send them in cylinder vases. There are many reasons behind this, one the vases can be displayed on the head table, if you want, and they stay hydrated, and look fresh, often times there is a lapse of time from 1-4 hours between time your flowers are delivered and when you actually take that walk down the aisle, even more often then that there isn't a place to keep them cool, so making sure they are well hydrated keeps them looking great! Last but not least, then your bridesmaids can take their bouquet home and have a lovely reminder of the event for the next few days to a week!


This was the grooms Boutonniere
I used a pink Calla and did two hoops of bear grass to sort of represent the two of them and it also gave it a "modern" feel which is something the bride liked


A picture of the groomsman's and grooms and ring bearer's Boutonniere


A head on view of the bridesmaids bouquets getting ready to go, the small one in the middle is the toss bouquet, also the floral wand is on top.


Liz mentioned to me that she wanted a Floral wand for her Junior Bridesmaid. I honestly drew a blank. SO she explained it and I was still like hmmm on how to make it and how to construct it out of fresh flowers, have it be 24 inches long and have it so she hand wave it around, so we googled it, (last resort!) I realized that this wasn't something out of fresh it was done with silks, so this was our first attempt and I think it worked out pretty well!! (this was actually the test run that i made for my daughter before I did the final one, but they look the same, although the one for the wedding had a few more flowers on top)

This wedding was a lot of fun. I had a lot of creative freedom with in her color palate. We also used the pins in the center of the rose, it seems to be fairly popular~
I also did the criss crossing "bodice" work as I call it on the MOH bouquet to make it stand out just a bit!

I will post more when the get their professional pictures done~