Rutgers Gardens

H-O-T....yes very H-O-T. It was so hot that I waited in the truck with my air conditioner running full blast because I was afraid the hydrangeas in the bouquets and centerpieces would freak out and immediately wilt once they hit the hot and humid air. And the ceremony, reception...everything was outdoors...hence my concern about the flowers. I emailed the bride today just to see how everything held up. Because, of course, I was worrying about them all day yesterday. Here is what she said,

"The flowers were all gorgeous and we got so many compliments on them. They held up great in the heat. My bouquet is in a vase here at home still looking great, and my mom said she took a few centerpieces and they all look great today. Thank you so much for all you did. I will definitely recommend you to anyone else I know who is getting married!"

~The Beautiful Bride

I am so happy to help a bride fufill her vision of what she wants for her wedding day. And I am honored when a bride choses me to be part of it. I know it sounds corny, but it's true.

So back to Rutgers I went. While I went to school there I had no idea these gardens even existed. But now, thanks to a neighbor who told me about their Mother's Day plant sale, its become a family tradition that we visit the gardens on Mother's Day. The ceremony took place in the gazebo next to the little store there. The store is tended to by a sweet woman named Pat, who will be happy to answer any questions you have about the gardens and about planning a wedding there.

And there was some green hydrangea in bloom right by the ceremony site.

And to help the guest keep cool in the summer sun the programs for the wedding had little handles on the bottom so they doubled as fans.

The star of yesterdays show was hydrangeas, and the bride picked out such beautiful summer colors peach, blue, yellow, and green. I was excited about using these colors together, but I guess it must be hard to picture it...I had a few friends that looked at me with question marks over their heads when I told them the colors. As you can see from the fan/program pic above they are beautiful and so refreshing.

It's nice to be able to get pics of the flowers before I leave the house and then to get pics of the flowers hard at work. I normally don't get to see the bridal party go down the aisle, but in this case the centerpieces were sitting in the cool AC of my car, so I waited until the bride walked down the aisle before I went to the reception site down the road to set up.

The woman standing in the background of the pic above is Debbie Page owner of Simply Creative Weddings she was very nice and takes care of everything from day of coordination, to the entire wedding planning process.

The reception took place in a covered area a short walk down the road. It was dressed up all nice and fancy for the wedding. And a cute idea for a summer outdoor wedding....water bottle seating 'cards'.

The centerpieces were simply hydrangea...

All of these hydrangea reminded me of something....

For the DIY brides I have a little story about hydrangea...you can play Dr. Frankenstien and bring them back from what you may think is 'the dead'. Last year I did a wedding that was all hydrangea, I had 70 stems of hydrangea in my basement. I had cut them, put them in water, given them their flower food...everything your supposed to do....to my horror, when I went to check on them the next morning almost all of them had wilted...wilted hydrangea are not a pretty sight...they look kind of like a wet hairy dog. I frantically called my supplier (in my head freaking out..."what I am supposed to do the wedding is tomorrow maybe I can run back into the city super early to buy more and still make it to the wedding in PA"...and on, I left out any commas because this is what it sounds like in my head when I start to freak out.). His advice...put those babies in warm water all the way up to the head of the flower...he promised they would be resurrected. I was very doubtful, but when I check on them the next morning out of the 60ish that were wilted only 5 where still goners...the other 55 had risen from 'the dead'.

This time around out of the 80 stems I purchased for this wedding only a few wilted, but I brought them all back to life too...bhua ha ha!

Next wedding...a small wedding at the shore August 14th.

The Heldrich, New Brunswick Part III

Here are my favorite professional pic's from my last wedding. To see a sampling of the photographers photos from the wedding click on the link in the post below. Thanks Kay for letting me use your pics!

The Heldrich, New Brunswick Part II

http://kayenglish.blogspot.com/2010/07/elizabeth-deidrich-married.html#comments

Please, you must check out these pictures. Kay English was the photographer at the wedding I worked on last weekend at The Heldrich and she just posted the photos on her blog. I love the photos of the bride and groom. I really enjoyed designing the flowers for this wedding and it's so nice to see how everything came together...and to see it through the eyes of a professional photographer!

The Heldrich, New Brunswick

It has been a very slow start to the summer and as I was in my studio making the brides bouquet (listening to my 2 1/2 year old stomping around like an elephant upstairs) I was happy to be preparing for a wedding, spending some quiet time with my flowers.

As a graduate of Rutgers University it was back to my old stomping grounds. Although, from all the work that's been done there, especially in that zone between Rutgers College and Cook that none of us would dare venture, I actually got a little turned around trying to find the hotel.

The Boutonnieres were made of green mini chrysanthemums, green hypericum berries, and mint leaves (which were fresh out of my own herb garden). The groom's stood out with the addition of a green rose.

Grandma had a corsage of mint leaves, hypericum berries, a green rose and a calla lily (The name of this beautiful dark purple calla is Naomi... and no I don't name my flowers...it's the color name ;)

The Mothers each carried an bouquet of a single XXL White Calla Lily.

The Maid of Honor carried a bouquet of green roses (Green Tea and Super Green, these are the ones with the frilly looking petals), purple roses (Cool Water), and white roses (Tibet).

The Bridal Bouquet was so much fun to make. The Bride had sent me a picture to base it off of and I think I nailed it...toot toot! (...that's me being a cornball and tooting my own horn!) Included in the bouquet was green, purple, and white roses, fiddle head fern (the funky curly thing sticking up out of it), green cymbidium orchids, dark purple callas, and white and purple bi-color calla's (named Picasso). I had to include a close up picture.

The centerpieces competed for the largest ones I have ever made...I loved how they turned out. And some of them played double duty at the alter. I'm hoping the photographer, Kay English, (click on her name to check out her work...it's seriously some beautiful photography, she is very talented, and very friendly) got some better shots, it was really dark in the ballroom.

There were 20 tables...1/2 had the tall centerpieces and 1/2 had submerged dendrobium orchids with a light in the bottom and floating candle on top.

(And of course I had some fun with the little amount of flowers I had leftover....

And as a reward for our hard work my assistant (aka my husband..who I met at RU...and who lets me call him my assistant on jobs so I look more professional...very cute) and I went right over to the Greece Trucks and got ourselves a Chicken Gyro with hot sauce "extra juicy". My husbands exact words were "hello my old friend". Now that I think of it I should have gotten a Fat Koko!...they used to call me "station wagon" at the trucks because I drove an old '78 dodge aspen station wagon....ahh I could go on and on....well at least I can get that Fat Koko in two weeks. My next wedding is at the end of July at Rutgers Gardens.