My Pink City Hall Bride{the Bouquets}

I was such a blogging roll till July came and it was all about these crazy big weddings that nearly gave me ulcers. Seriously, all I could do was focus on flowers, vases, fire permits, ribbons, colors swatches, and such. I went to NYC for the 4th of July again and when I got back it was on!!!
I did manage to lose one of my memory cards that contain a beautiful white wedding, a garden style wedding, and some simple mock ups that I planned to share but what-evs...what can I do?

I can share with you my biggest wedding to date, that's what! : )
I ordered 2000 roses, 250 phalaenopsis, 200 hydrangeas, 300 spray roses, and almost $1400 worth of vases. DEAR GOD. It was humongous but I now have the experience to run a big production like that.

I will start with a few pictures of the personal flowers for now. I wish I had taken pics of the 44 sets of corsages and bouts but there was no time. I worked 70 hours in 4 days. 19 on the day of...it was madness. Pink madness.


The Bridal Bouquet smelled *HEAVENLY*. Garden roses smell the best! Like real roses are supposed to smell like. They engineered thorns out of the commercial roses we all use, but along with getting rid of the thorns, they also got rid of that delicious scent. The only true rose that smells divine outside of garden roses are the Sterling rose, well, any purple rose really. Try it next time you go by a shop; smell a purple rose in comparison to the other ones and you will smell the difference.


The compose of this bouquet was Patience Garden Roses, cream garden roses, Pink Sweet Akito Roses, and Bridal Akito Roses.

The Maid of Honor Bouquet was a mixture of hot pink and blush pink to match the gorgeous dresses they wore.
In this bouquet I used Pavoratti roses, Rosita Vendellas, hot pink spray rose, and Lydia spray roses.

This is a shot of the Bridesmaids bouquet, the Bridal bouquet, and the Maid of honor bouquet.

This is a top shot of the pink and cream bouquet for the MOH and the Bride.

The bouquets were all tied off with pink satin and ivory satin and pinned with some clear crystal.

I just received some pics in the mail so I will be posting the crazy(19 hour) set up and reception pictures in the next two days. Thanks for taking a look!

Succulent Bride {Part Two: The Centerpiece}

Succulent Bride Part 1

My lovely bride wanted her bridal bouquet to have green succulents, greens and pops of yellow.
So we built up form the green succulents and used cream roses and spray roses, yellow oncidiums orchids, lotus pods and china berries.


For the reception we went back to Marin and Arts Garden in Ross, CA. The couple knew they wanted to incorporate the succulents again and liked the idea of fruit in centerpeice. So when we got together to discuss the colors which were burgundy and gold, immediately I knew we would have to go for those dark succulents, some magnolia leaves, the rust colored pompoms that the bride liked and then I suggested pomegranates and she loved the idea, so we were set.

When we got to the rose color I assumed she would have picked a dark burgundy or a cream and so when I asked her to picture what we had sketched in her mind and then to tell me what color she envisioned in the roses,
she said Peach. It was quite unexpected. But it worked! :)
So here is what we came up with.

For the check in table we had a simple arrangement set up of the nice big burgundy succulent, the caramel roses, magnolia, mums and china berries.

We also had one sitting on the bar that fit perfectly in a little tiny platform.

This has been my favorite wedding combo yet!
I loved working with the succulents and I was happy with the result. It was super important to the bride that she be able to replant her flowers in her garden and I hope that she does. :)

The groom's mother met me in the parking lot and she looked at the centerpiece and then said Oh my God, give me a hug!

haha! I loved it and she totally made my day! :)

Thanks Y&T! You two are the best and I wish you much love and success!

{and they lived happily ever after....}

Succulent Bride {Part One: the Bouquet}

My succulent Bride and Groom contacted me about 7 weeks before their wedding with a fabulous request; Can you make a bouquet with succulents? YEP!

So we met one Sunday after noon and sketched out a bouquet and after the easiest hour of my life, we came up with a gorgeous bouquet and centerpiece we were all excited about. :)

The bridal bouquet was composed of three types of succulents, lotus pods, cream spray roses, Blizzard roses, china berries, yellow oncidium orchids finished off with an ivory satin ribbon.

I have a lot of pictures to share but I will be MIA this weekend with an event that requires almost 100 different pieces!!!

Have a great weekend!

Pretty in Pink Baptism-Christening

The Christening was today and as I was setting up the floral arrangements I had to take a picture of the cutest little stuffed doll on the face of the earth! Check her out:

I love this little angel! She was placed on the gift table.

This lady was placed on the cake table.

These were placed near the bar.


Now here is a great tip:

Placing a floral arrangement in front of a mirror does wonders for the room.
It opens it up, gives it depth and makes the arrangement appear bigger than it is.
Like magic. :)
I was pleased to see the rest of the decor was pink and white and cream so I think I chose right with my colors....I think I will name them Blush and Champagne. Or should I just stick to good ol' Pink and Ivory? Anyhow, they were happy with the floral arrangements so that made me happy!

Baptism Floral Arrangements (the WORK)

Ya know.....I had a little how shall I say it? "moment" in class this week.
So this woman is in our class, and I overhear her telling the teacher that she is only signing up to figure out why her florist is charging her so much for her wedding flowers. Why is it so expensive?

Good question right?
I walked by the desk right as she was asking our instructor this and my outside voice turned on by itself and said "labor" as I walked back. I was thinking about how sore my fingers were from wiring all the orchids in this wedding, about lugging my sleepy butt to the flower market at 4am to pick flowers, packing everything in a car to taken to the site, about how many times I have burned myself hot gluing ribbon to handles or boutonnières and really about how much time is spent the days before the event.
Yes, this was all in a matter of the 1.3 seconds before I could rein in my outside voice, hehe.

But really, now that I am in this industry, all I can say is I'm lucky I love it! Why else would I spend so much time pouring through weddings blogs, sites, photographer blogs and site, and wedding books galore? Hours driving to and then walking around the flower market, hours stemming, cleaning, cutting processing flowers, and finally designing the days before. The nights before an event I average 3 hours of sleep. It's nuts, then I work to load up, deliver and set up, sometimes breakdown only to come back to my studio to clean up the mess I have made and put all my supplies away.

Why do this?

Only because I adore it, I love being around flowers, I love seeing my flowers come to life and I love the look on a brides face when I hand her the bouquet.
I truly love weddings! That's why I do it. Right now as a freelance floral designer it's a lot of work. I am doing most things WELL BELOW retail costs....but you know what? I love it. I know that I will some day be able to live off of my work and I feel like I am working towards sharing my gift with the world.
So people if you are wondering, yes it's expensive, some more than others, but it's a service and the person on the other end is working their butts off to make sure your flowers look flawless and that you are happy! It's a lot of work :)

OK, vent session over.....

Lets start from the beginning. Check out my flowers drinking water

I put my cream Alstromerias in this tall container just to give me an idea of how high the flowers would sit.
I'm kinda diggin it.

From this shot it looks like a brides maids bouquet for a brown wedding doesn't it?

I started to think that maybe lining these down the center of a long table at a wedding would look really gorgeous.

Here are the two arrangements that I made for tomorrow's baby shower.

This one will go on the cake table or gift table.

This one will go on the bar.

And NO that is not babies breath...it's rice flower....I was just thinking in the pictures it LOOKS kinda like babies breath...or it it just me?