Eventi Hotel, NYC July 12th

Yes, that is the answer to your question.  If you saw my post below, and that my daughter was born on June 28th, and this wedding was July 12th...and your question being "Is she crazy?!", the answer is yes.  I booked this wedding (before I was pregnant) through a wonderful wedding planner, whom I've worked with before,  Christina Whitehurst and here is a link to her site.

The couple was from Norway and getting married at the Norwegian Seaman's Church in NYC.   Since it was a smaller event I figured, of course I can handle it.  And with the help of my husband, and my moby wrap (this crazy long piece of fabric that you origami around yourself and stuff the baby in...sounds terrible, but babies love it!) it went off without a hitch.

The bride and groom brought their photographer with them from Norway...I love this cute and quirky shot she took of them.

And for the flowers

Bridal Bouquet:  White hydrangea, patience garden rose, white lysianthus.

Boutonnieres:  We were going to do the garden roses, but with the heat I made a back up of white calla, which are sturdier, and what they decided to go with.



Centerpieces:  In the brides words "overflowing" with white hydrangea, on the table were 20 votive candles that were to be laid out on the table in an unorganized manner.  I'm hoping the Norwegian photographer got a shot of these all set up.

I do have an event in early August, but it's only bouquets....so I am getting a little break..and July is always a slow month for me.  Probably because no one wants to be wearing a wedding dress in this heat, and everyone is enjoying the start of the summer.  Starting August 25th though it will be go, go, go, with a wedding almost every weekend until November 17th.

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.

The Peacock Wedding

The Peacock Wedding

I worked on a wedding for Sept. 5th and started reminiscing on a wedding I did back in March.  This was a sister, sister act.  I worked with the one sister in March for what was dubbed the "Peacock Wedding" and more recently with the other sister.  Both sisters were great to work with and had fun and creative ideas for their floral designs.  And both weddings rank up at the top of my favorite designs.  

So before I post about Joan's wedding (Sept. 5, 2009) I'm going to post the peacock pictures from her sisters wedding back in March.   Jen wanted purple, especially darker purples, which can actually be a difficult flower to find in abundance.  Roses come in shades of lavender but don't ever really go into dark purple.  So instead I used black magic roses, which are a very, very, dark red...rather than go towards the more pastel color roses.  They actually show up a little brighter in the pictures than they are in person.

These are the centerpieces....and yes the peacock feathers were in everything...so much fun!

Roses, Lysianthus, Dendrobium Orchids, and a purple filler flower

The brides ceremony was at the same location as the wedding...a beautiful old home in New York State.  So of course peacock feathers had to make an appearance here.

Bridesmaids Bouquets

The boutonnieres

And last but not least the bridal bouquet, which also had purple Iris's and Tulips

I loved this bouquet...I just thought it turned out so cool.

Hydrangea Mania

If you are planning a mid to late summer wedding you cannot go wrong with hydrangea.  This is the height of their season and because their blooms are so full you get much more bang for the buck.

The Bride was very clear that she wanted blue hydrangea.  And I have found that the color shades between blues and purples can be very close.  So I waited until I picked up the blue hydrangea that I ordered to get the blue accent flowers that would complement the Anastasia Roses that would be used for the boutonnieres. I wanted to make sure the flowers were definitely blue!

And a corsage for the Mother of the Groom

As usual I will pick up the flowers two days in advance to let them swim and get plenty of water before I start working with them.

In this case I put the hydrangea in water and left them overnight....to my horror the next morning about 20 of the stems wilted...

Now these flowers had been delayed in shipping, so they were already a little weak.

I tried a trick my supplier told me about to save them...and it actually worked.

So here it is, if you have wilted hydrangea put them in warm water up to their heads and wait....can you believe that all but one of the stems made a full recovery.  

And here they are in the centerpieces.

This was a very cool idea...the bride asked the maker of her cake to create a hydrangea bunch for the top of the cake.  They look so real, but taking the picture I was overwhelmed by the butter cream frosting smell....mmmm I wanted a piece!

The bridesmaids bouquets were kept simple with only blue hydrangea.

So the near hydrangea emergency wasn't the only trouble I ran into....try rediculous traffic on the NJ turnpike....it was supposed to take 1 1/2 hours to get there....it took us 2 1/2.  We arrived 45 minutes late, but got there just as the bridal party was getting ready to take their pictures outside.  Sorry Jenn for the extra stress!

The brides visably let out a sigh of relief when she saw me coming around the corner with the bouquets.  Hers combined the roses in the boutonnieres with hydrangea and stems of cream lysianthus.  It was so big and full!

And a slightly blurry picture of the relieved bride with her bouquet....As soon as I get my new fancy camera I won't have to deal with blur anymore!