Lavender Ikebana Bride

Sneak Peak Part 1

This wedding had me stalking 511.org(traffic information website in California)
for traffic conditions for a week before the wedding. Why you ask? They decided to close the Bay Bridge on labor Day weekend so they could tear down one part of the bridge and rebuild another section. What a nightmare....
My normal 20 minute trip to U.C. Berkeley turned into a potentially 2 hour trip according to the news. I had to be there by 9:30 am so it was way early when I started loading the flowers.

{Lavender Ikebana Bride}

How early was it?

BUTT CRACK OF DAWN early.
The sun was literally rising as I was packing up to get all the flowers across the Bay in time as evidenced by the shadows. :)

I like it when the ivy bush had the flowering "jacks" on them.

These were a few of the centerpiece that were pre-made that morning. They had lily grass loops, variegated ivy bush, white wax flowers, white lilies, and lavender roses.

Our destination was the U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley CA.

We waited outside and took some pictures of the bridal bouquets as the bride was just getting into her GORGEOUS dress.

The bridal bouquet was an all calla lily bouquet made out of green goddess callas, white mini callas, lavender calla lilies and a green ivy collar tied off with a white satin corset ribbon.

Her bridal hair flowers were a compose of lavender and white spray roses with touches of green.


The Redwood Grove is where the ceremony was taking place.

I mean look at the view, beautiful tall trees covered the ceremony area.....I almost expected bambi to come out. Oh wait, it did. Just as we were walking into the ceremony location a deer came prancing out of no where to say hello! I was scared for my assistant Mary since it was between us, except she was outside 15 feet form it and I was safe in my SUV. : P

I love the theater style seating.*swoon* It was just perfect.

The flowers out there were a simple arrangement of scabiosa, green goddess callas, white callas, curly willow, lily grass and some ivy bush.

Next it was onto the reception.
Here we made two different types of centerpiece.
The first was a simple off center arrangement. The ikebana label for it is simply
"To be viewed from all around". yep. short and sweet.
The second one was two tsutsu's joined by willow.

Finally, my favorite part, the escort card table.


I fenced together equisetum(horsetail) to make a structure that I really liked.

I sliced the equisetum to hold up the place cards and elevated the whole thing by making a mat that sat on top of three vases that were also lined with horsetail.

Kinda cool huh? toot toot, I know. I'm horrible...

The day was perfect, there was ZERO traffic, the bride was gorgeous...what else could I ask for?

{They lived happily ever after....}