Black Calla's and Red Roses = DRAMA!

I was playing around with some red roses I had and the black calla's left over from my last wedding....and some of the other flowers. I really like the idea of keeping the flowers in groupings likes this...and I love how this bouquet looks....will some one please ask me to do this for their wedding!

Brooklake Country Club, Florham Park NJ

I am still exhausted from this one and it's been two days.....probably because I was also a guest at the wedding, so two nights with less than 5 hrs of sleep and one night staying up late = a very tired me.

The bride is a friend, and I was honored that she let me do the flowers for this very special day. We were going all out and going big, so the church was decorated with two large manzanita branch arrangements, each with a large ball of white roses and then roses circling the bottom of the branch and crystals...real crystals that I bought from someone on ebay who pilfered a old chandelier. And seriously, I made these the day before the wedding (Friday...wedding was Saturday..) and today is Monday and they still look amazing...it's kind of a shame that they are sitting all alone down in my basement. (Maybe if I have time tomorrow I will do a little photo shoot with them so you can see how well they held up).

At the end of every other pew (and there were 25 rows, so down the aisle that means 50 ends to decorate!) there were either a single stem of monstrously large hydrangea with tulle, or just tulle.

Here's me getting all artsy on ya!

The colors were white, purple and green, nice and fresh for a summer wedding. The bride carried an all white bouquet of roses and the flower I get asked the most for....peonies. If you want peonies you better plan your wedding for late April through June...otherwise no peonies for you!

The Maid of Honor carried a bouquet of super green roses..they are frilly on the ends..love it! And the darkest purple calla's (they are called Schwartz). And these could be used for a black flower if you wanted to go that route...it all depends on the other flowers you pair it with. With lighter flowers it definitely looks purple, but with a red rose it looks more black.

Bridesmaids had white roses, white calla's with purple toward the center (called Picasso), and this funky little flower called cinch....they have flowers all the way up that are white, but I wanted the green so I kept them wrapped up tight so they wouldn't bloom.

Boutonnieres and Corsages

There were two centerpieces....one huge...with the monstrously large white hydrangea, purple lysianthus, lemon leaves, purple dendrobium orchids, steel grass, and willow branches. In the stem of the vase was a white floralyte covered by marbles....these had to be made in two stages. Stage one was the night before the wedding when I put in the hydrangea, lysianthus, and 1/2 the orchids....stage two was at the reception site where I put in the other 1/2 of the dendrobiums, the lemon leaves, the branches, and bear grass. They would have been just way to difficult to transport and carry...and I wouldn't have been able to put them on a flat surface to transport them.

The centerpieces were also giving me a heart attack because some of the hydrangea were wilting...I am sooo happy there was a little extra room in the van and I made a last minute decision to bring the extra along, just in case!...totally saved me...by the time we arrived on site some of the centerpieces looked absolutely a mess...I was able to save them though with the extra flowers I brought along...whew!

The other was smaller and more artistic, 5 stems of calla's wrapped around the inside of a fish bowl vase with bear grass.

So today I finally got around to cleaning up my mess in the basement...my "work space" which hopefully by the end of the summer will not just be a basement workspace but an official studio. (My dad is helping us finish the basement....so lucky to have a handy dad...he built the kiddies a sandbox too....when my son saw that Pop-Pop's truck was in the driveway he said, "Oh...My....Hell" (he's 3 1/2). I wanted to crack up laughing...but that is not the appropriate parent adult thing to do. So I had to explain to him that it is not nice to say "Oh my hell"....so now he keeps coming up to me saying "Mommy...I will not say "Oh my hell" it is not nice...I will say "Oh my gosh"...I think he is totally playing me here and getting in his "Oh my hell's" in a way it's hard to get in trouble for....smart boy...I am going to be in trouble when he gets older.

My lesson learned from this wedding....no matter how tight the van is packed, find room for the extra flowers!

Next up...a baby shower...July 9th.

East Hanover Part II

My Mac is free! And all my pics are not lost...only moved to my external hard drive, which gave me the room to finally get these pics off my camera and on my blog.

I was in the city especially early to pick up these flowers. The idea behind the flowers was that each of the 5 bridesmaids would carry a bouquet of a single type of flower and that would match the boutonniere of their groomsmen. All would have white stephanotis in them to tie everything together. The bride would have all five flowers plus a blue flower (that was supposed to be anemone..but no blue...I'll explain later) and that blue flower would be the grooms boutonniere as well to tie the two of them together. The colors were to be bright and tropical.

So when I arrive to pick up the flowers I find it a little strange that they don't have anything at all together for me yet. Usually they have everything ready for me to view before they pack it all up. So yes, there was a problem. Some of the shipment coming from California was missing...not in the store, hadn't been at the airport....it was just missing. And a few crucial things from my order were also not there....

No white stephanotis to tie everything together

No Yellow gerber daisies, supposed to be one of the bridesmaids flowers, and grooms, and in the centerpieces...most importantly the brides bouquet.

No Red Snap Dragons, also supposed to be for one of the bridesmaids, a groomsmen, and the centerpieces.....and the brides bouquet.

No Blue Anemone

Panic! I ran across to one of the other wholesalers while they put the rest of my order together.....I spot stephanotis....plenty...so I take the two boxes I need. I'm scanning.....I see a woman walking holding yellow gerber daisies....I need three bunches....are there anymore?! I find them...only two bunches....that lady got my third bunch!....two more things on my list...the snapdragons...found....the blue anemone....nope... Sigh.....

Ok so all in all, it could have been much worse....some of the centerpieces had yellow sunflowers in them instead of the gerbers....as you'll see in the pics below. I ended up subbing this really cool looking blue flower for the anemone...But everything else was perfect....and the bouquets were so bright, and the stephanotis remind me of the little flowers a baker will create for a cake, I wanted to eat them up!

I didn't have time to take a matchy matchy pic for each of the bouquets....but here are the ones I did get.

Yellow Gerbers

Coral Peonies

Purple Tulips

I didn't get individual pics of the red snap dragons or green roses, but you can see them in the 'group' photo towards the end.

All the bouts and the corsages

The Brides Bouquet...Green Roses, Coral Peonies, Purple Tulips, Red Snap Dragons, White Stephanotis, and Yellow Gerbera Daisies...

The Centerpieces looked different from every angle and had a tropical feel to them with the big green leaves...

And some had Sunflowers instead of Daisies, because of the lost shipment....

Next wedding is in two weeks...25 tables....lots of hydrangea, calla lilies, and roses!

East Hanover NJ

I have many more pics and some stories to post about doing this wedding, but have been having a bit of a battle with my Mac. I love my mac, but because I take so many high resolution photos (of flowers and my babies) I have jammed up my hard drive.



I bought a free standing hard drive (excuse my lack of technical names) and have transferred most of the pics over, but for some reason am very afraid to delete them off my Mac...so the pictures from this wedding are still on my camera, because my hardrive is bloated with photos...now mostly of my children..since I did take the plung and delete the weddings off my Mac... And knowing how untechnical I am my very technical husband is reluctant to trust my copy and transfer technique...so he is also requesting that I do not yet delete any of the pictures of when the kiddies were born, took their first steps and such...totally understandable.
But I recieved a very nice email with pics from the bride from her photographer. So here is the shout out to the photographer, Jeff Tisman Photography and his work. I will promise to get my photos up soon!