Turtle Back Zoo, West Orange NJ

Yes, they do have weddings at the Zoo....And since the major renovations at Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange they now rent out the zoo after hours for events. The couple was actually already married, before her then fiance was shipped out to Iraq. So this was the wedding they wanted but never had. Since they are both big fans of Zoos, they thought this would be the perfect place.

My job here was simple, since the centerpieces were going to consist of live butterflies, to be released at the end of the night. I wish I could have gotten some pictures, but the event staff was waiting until the last minute to put them on the tables...seems they were having a problem with them getting out of their little cages and flying away! I did create a few small rose centerpieces to be place around the reception site, which was outside under a covered patio.

The bride asked to create a letter D out of carnations...but I thought the D might look sad on it's own so I created their entire monogram.

And the brides bouquet....I ordered all the flowers from California since it was a smaller wedding...I thought no problem....well problem. The roses that I ordered for the brides bouquet were so small. Small roses and bridal bouquets do not work. Now, the roses usually need two days to open so when they arrived I immediately knew they were not acceptable. After sending out an email with pictures to the supplier I ran to a small supplier in NJ, close to my house. (I usually don't use them because the owners are always yelling at each other, cursing, yelling at their employees....Seriously, I feel so awkward being there)

I must have good karma or something because they had one bunch of roses in the same exact color as the ones I had ordered from Cali.

As a little side note... I had already placed an order for roses for a Wedding Shower this weekend. I'll keep you posted on how the quality of the roses are. This is a new supplier I am trying out...the Ikebana Bat Mitzvah flowers were from them, and all the other flowers they sent me were fine...so we'll see.

So Back to the Bouquet....

I love when brides want to do something fun and the fun here was hot pink Ostrich feathers. To get some pics of it I actually went to the Ostrich enclosure and tried to get some pics with the Ostrich's in the background. Can you see them? Thanks for the feathers guys!

And as I walked to the Ostrich's I passed this bird...who said "Hello" to me as I walked by...at first I thought I might be hearing things until the bird said "Hello" again as I walked back.

And then as I was leaving I passed this peacock. I have only seen one open up its feathers on TV...as I got closer to take a picture he started shaking them all around..hmm was he flirting with me or about to attack!

Ikebana Bat Mitzvah

Yes...today I delivered arrangements for my first ever Bat Mitzvah. While I was working on my wedding at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens I received and email from a mother, who after planning all of the necessary details for a party, realized she did have money in the budget for the flowers. After having a wonderful conversation on the phone, exchanging a few emails, and talking to my suppliers to make sure I could get the flowers in time, I was able to create some pretty fun arrangements. While I love, love doing weddings this was a great chance for me to work with some more linear structured designs and just do something a little different. In my design I tried to imitate the ancient Japanese art of floral design called Ikebana, which was appropriate since the party was held at Japonais, a Japanese restaurant in NYC.

Ok so I am no expert, have only recently been introduced to, and don't even know if what I created can really be called...Ikebana. From what I've read Ikebana is about balance in an arrangement, but doesn't focus on symmetry..it's all about the shape of the of the flowers and materials in an arrangement. And from what I've read there seems to be a bunch of rules...I'll need to take a class!....ok I'm back I just stopped blogging to do a search for Ikebana classes in NYC and found an organization called Ikebana International and found a list of Ikebana schools and teachers in the NY area. I guess I really could take a class!

Here are the pictures of my attempt. I used all tropical flowers; Bird of Paradise, Protea, Heliconia, and Ginger.