Unlikely pairing, I know.

Sooooo here's the thing. I really don't like carnations. I think it has to do with the fact that when I was going through floral classes, I had to use them in everything. I really hated them, but there are two exceptions for me.

1. When they are in unusual colors or if they are bi-color.
Like these- what color would you say=> white and purple?
White and deep wine? I don't even know what color these carnations are but me likes.


2. In mass, as in my hot pink pomander wedding earlier this year.

Some will shun me for this bouquet, but I really loved these purple bi color carnations and the imported peonies in December were dying for me to buy them. I bought the peonies, $5 a stem(wholesale) and since I had some leftover statice, some roses, lisianthus, and spray roses- I threw together a bouquet for a friend of mine.

I kinda dug it.;)

Sadly these peonies never opened passed this{BOOOO!} but that's what I get for buying imported Peonies out of season. Too good to be true I suppose, like eggnog for the Fourth of July; it's just not right.

Pink City Hall Wedding {the Reception}

Long overdue but life and wedding season has been crazy busy. Kids are back in school, I'm back in school this week, I still have about 12 more big weddings to get through before finals and the Holidays and then I'm off for a month between mid December and January..it's going to be awesome. This summer went by super fast.

Here is the final post on the Pink City Hall Wedding In San Francisco.

Part 3 Let Them Eat Cake
Part 2 The Set up
Part 1 The Bouquets

Here is one of the two centerpiece we used for the tables. The centerpiece was an all orchid arrangement of a combination of light pink to fuchsia Phalaenopsis orchids surrounded by clear cylinder vases with floating candles in them.

The table linens and gold accents on the napkin ring holders and the plates were so pretty.


Here is centerpiece two, a rose pave in a clear cube vase. On top of the flowers sit three vases in varying heights with water and floating candles.



These pave centerpiece took me about an hour each.
Here's the design I played with to start. I took a picture with my camera phone when I realized I would be sitting there for the next 8 hours or so pave-ing my little heart out.

Here is a last minute Buffet piece we made for the Antipasto table.

The Dessert buffet looked delectable once it was set up! Wish I had taken a picture of it afterward.

The Ice Bar was sweet. I think I need one of these at my next wedding. :)

A few random pics of the room and details.

The staircase to the upper level in City hall was lit with Bao and Crystals name :)

The ceremony pieces had to be taken down from the staircase and re-purposed around the room in various areas. The room was filled with flowers and orchids everywhere.

This is a mini version of the bridal bouquet to place on the head table for the bride to toss and it just glowed in the lighting there.

So all in all, it was very successful and beautiful event. I am very lucky that Crystal is just the sweetest person, she made it really easy to work with and she was just gorgeous on the day of! All of her gowns were beautiful and she looked stunning in them. Bao hi five'd me like 4 times at the end of the night, lol, the only thing I wish I could have shared with you was the crazy grooms cake of him sitting at his computer with 9 screens!
So I thank C&B for allowing me to share in your special day.
I wish you much love and success in your marriage! : )

{And they lived happily ever after...}

Silver+ White+Yellow

Bride: Do you do "Handpicked" looks?
Moi: Why, yes I do. Step into my garden.....
I do it with a twist. I hope you like it ; )

Mock up for a silver, white, and yellow wedding.

These white and silver floral arrangements will be the bouquets/re-purposed centerpiece.
Feverfew flowers, lambs ear, scabiosa, dahlias, and sweetpeas.

The Bridal Bouquet will have the blue and the centerpiece will be a multi vase flowers that I will post Sunday. Happy Friday the 13th!

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!

Yarrow, Scabiosa Pods, Dahlias...These are a few of my favorite things.

I love the Farmers Market.
Unfortunately due to most of my weddings always landing on Saturdays, I can't go. :(
But if you truly want to see what flowers are in season,
the true seasonal flowers are always showcased there.
Most flowers you can get year round...if you are willing to pay a price that is.
But at the farmers market you can get a reasonably priced flowers without a badge, super fresh, and from a local farm. All pluses in my book.

This bouquet reminds me of a farmers market...I actually wish I could do a photo shoot there and am working on making that happen in the next 6 weeks.
This bouquet has dahlias, scabiosa pods, bunny tails, tulips, and yarrow.
This reminds me of Country Time Lemonade for some reason,
but who names their flowers that...right?

I made a little boutonniere( still can't spell that right on the first try) made out of a scabiosa pod, a fuzzy bunny tail(that's what I call it) and the white and yellow yarrow that makes me want to scream, it's so damn cute. I finished off the wrap with a little gold bouillion.

Blue and yellow together ROCK.

The bouquet can later be dropped into a tall container
and in the words of a wise sage named Emeril:
BAM! its a friggin centerpiece.

This ceramic cream container I bought at Goodwill for $3.99. HOLLA!

I love a great deal almost as much as I love it when I get a bunch of roses and there are no duds....has this ever happened to you? You go home and open up the roses and 1 or 2 rose heads are broken...I hate that. So when nothing falls out I give my roses a pretend hi five for being good gals. : )

Something Blue...

Something Old

Something New

Something Borrowed,

Something Blue.

This one started with Mrs. M emailing me to see if I could help with flowers for her son and DIL (Daughter in Law...
I have a friend who reads my blog and always asks me what the heck MIL or FH mean exactly? )
Anyhow, she was going to host the wedding at her house and it was going to be blues whites and silver. The happy couple live out of state so the planning was a little tricky because of the time difference and we were swamped with events, weddings, the dress for the museum, ect. But we finally found something that worked.
Her bridal bouquet was a compose of dahlias, white lisianthus, roses and spray roses, lime cymbidiums, green and white hydrangea, snow on the mountain, and blue tweedia for that something blue accent.

The matching boutonniere( you know I always have to spell check boutonniere?)
was a single white avalanche rose with blue tweedia accent wrapped in white satin.

The bridesmaids bouquets pictured here are unwrapped since I was going to use some fabric from the dress that the bride provided for me once I got to the house.
The bridesmaids bouquets were white, blue, and green hydrangea, white roses, white lisianthus, lime cymbidiums, blue delphinium, and white spray roses.

When I arrived to the house Mrs. M had set up shop in her garage with the flowers for the tables, so I made self a little station. My portable workstation consisted of hasami's(Japanese shears) newspaper, and a towel.


Here they are with the fabric from the dress on the handles of the bouquet. The color is what I would call "Lake".

Mrs M decided she would make the reception flowers herself.

Now that's love right there because it's A LOT of work.
I mean the processing, the vases, the cutting, the foam, the cleaning, the design, the set up, ect.....and then you have to get dressed and get your nails/hands decent to shake hands and take pictures for the wedding that you are hosting in your house???

She's a rock star.

Check it out...she made blue hydrangea terrariums. A woman after my own heart.
Doctor by day; Florist by night.

She found a local grower to get her blue and white hydrangeas and she then picked out some amaranthus and kangaroo paws along with some phalaenopsis orchids.

Look at these colors! My camera could not capture the shocking blue of these gorgeous hydrangea heads.

Blue popcorn hydrangea in all its glory.

Look at the backyard...I only wish I could see it lit up at night.
The tent had hanging lanterns of all sizes that would make it look like mars at night under the moon. The weather was at 82 when I left so the night would be perfect for them.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your big day!
I wish you much love and success. : )
Mrs. M...if you ever want to make floral arrangements...you know who to call! ; P

{And they lived happily ever after...}

My favorite flower...the Sunflower.

My Sunflower Bride was the sweetest bride.ever.
She contacted me to help her out with her wedding and I knew I wanted to work with her right away because she was just so sweet and I love sunflowers.

Her bouquet was a compose of blue hydrangea and sunflowers.
You can't see the variegated lily grass loops but they are there as the collar to the bouquet.

I made her a hair piece to match her bouquet.
It was yellow chrysanthemums that look like mini sunflowers, blue hydrangea florets and lily grass loops all glued onto a salal leaf that was glued onto a clear comb.

I always make two so that the bride can freshen up her hair piece as the day goes on.
Especially if it's something as fickle as hydrangea.
She's so pretty!
Her bridesmaids were all so helpful and her groomsmen help set up the ceremony site like it was nobody's business.

Here is the grooms boutonniere.


They had so many cute details in her wedding it wasn't even funny.
I did not capture them all, but I made sure to capture my favs.
The couple had a tree on a piece of paper and this little note that read please leaf your thumbprint. The guests were to place their thumbprint on the trees to look like leaves.
SUPER CUTE!




After all the guests had checked in it looked like this.

They made 1000 cranes and they sprinkled a few here and there and a few of them made it on to the sweetheart table where they placed this lovely wooden block.

The rest of the cranes made it on to a family crest that Momma Sunflower made for the happy couple. How awesome is this?

The cookies with the stickers were killer.
Jealous much? Yes. I was.

This was an awesome couple and I wish the couple much love and happiness!

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