Windows on the Water at Frogbridge, Millstone NJ, May 25th

I did a wedding at this location back in October of 2012, and while I was working a bride and her family were checking out the venue...I gave her my card and that's how I ended up back at Windows on the Water.  This venue is beautiful and the staff there is professional and fantastic to work with.  

In fact when the venue revamped their website they included the wedding I designed the flowers for as one of the featured weddings of 2012...take a look!

Over the winter by husband and father renovated our basement...I finally have a proper work room!  And here it is in the midst of making the centerpieces.  

I want to eat these peonies....they look so delicious!

Boutonierres of Orange Spray Roses...

Bouquets ready for transport....

The bridesmaids carried bright bouquets of mint, orange spray roses, pink spray roses, juliet garden roses, yellow craspedia, orange freesia, and succulents.  

The Bride carried a bouquet of pink scabiosa flowers, garden roses, orange protea, succulents, orange freesia, coral pink peonies, pink hypericum berries.

There was debate about if we should make the centerpieces in square boxes or rectangular...I'm glad the final decision was the rectangular boxes...and they were perfect on the table runners that the bride provided...the table numbers were also a DIY endevor taken on by the bride.  She had the most amazing run of the day spreadsheet that she provided.  She plans events for a living, and it clearly showed in how relaxed she was on the day of the wedding and how smoothly everything went.  
Crazily enough there was an unfinished bridal gown she was to wear...it never got finished...the day of the wedding...day of...her bridesmaids ran to David's Bridal picked out 3 dresses...she tried them on about 3 hrs before the ceremony and made her choice.   And through all this...completely relaxed!  I loved it!

There were 4 different color peonies, each centerpiece focused on one color (yellow, coral, light pink, dark pink).....my favorite, the yellow. The blooms were huge!  The unifying elements in each were the mint, garden roses, succulents, and babies breath.

 Dark Pink Peonies...

Coral Pink Peonies...

 The Bridal party sat at a long rectangular table...with each of the different colored centerpieces.  The mason jars were for the bridal party to place their bouquets in when they sat down.

Macaluso's Hawthorne, NJ

I am obsessed with succulents after doing this wedding.  I use 45 of them to complete all these looks and one of the best things about them is that all you need to do is give them a bed of soil afterwards and they will grow...sometimes they'll even be around for years.  So you'll see in the base of the vase I provided a rock covering, with soil and bark so the guests could simply take out the little vase of flowers and let their succulents continue to grow.  

The bride also had one large succulent and 6 small succulents in her bouquet, along with garden roses, spray roses, brunia, cafe latte dahlia's, seeded eucalyptus and dusty miller.  

The bridesmaids had a smaller succulent with sedum, dahlias, and spray roses.  

This wedding had the whole family involved....I made 21 boutonnieres and 14 corsages!  That's a record for me!

Pew bows for the church...

When first discussing ideas with the bride I came across an image online, that I maybe looked at for 2 seconds....then I couldn't find it again, but that was enough...I was inspired.  I love how the driftwood looks across the top with the succulent and cymbidium orchid.  For half I put the driftwood across the top, for the other half I had a dish with a floating candle and the driftwood was placed on the table next to the vase.  

I created my test run for this idea for a wedding show a few weeks earlier and I was able to get little trios of potted succulents to use inside the vase.  I ordered 22 more for this wedding only to have the supplier call me the day before the wedding to tell me he couldn't get them...really!  Ugh, this is why I pick up all my flowers myself.  In the flower district there are always alternatives.  I was able to get more large succulents when I picked up the rest of my order.  

These cylinder vases drove me crazy.....when I first unpacked them at home they were filthly...so I had to wash them with soap and water....and they smelled like fish inside!?   So weird....then when I took them out for the wedding they still didn't look clean so I cleaned them again with windex...so much work.  I won't be buying vases from there anymore!  

My next event is October 13th....and it's going to be a beauty!  I'm going to get the flower order together today and place it at the end of next week.  It's going to be so beautiful and I am using the chuppah again...but this time it's not a chuppah....just an arbor for the ceremony.  

The Stone House, Warren NJ

First I know I've been slow in posting. I can't even believe how swamped I've been over the past month and I even had a point where I was embarrassingly behind on emailing brides and even had to put out an automatic response apologizing! But hopefully the wait was worth it because it was so much fun creating everything for this wedding which was on November 6th.

Sometimes when I am in the thick of a wedding I don't realize how beautiful something is that I have created. My husband always gives me a raised eyebrow look when I emerge from the basement with a bouquet and ask him what he thinks. The flowers I was working with here were not the typical white, pink fluffy flowers. It was a ton of fun working with them and I was really pleased with how things turned out, especially now looking back on the pictures.

The reception was held at an amazing Frank Lloyd Wright inspired venue called The Stone House, owned by the same people who own the Liberty House in Jersey City. It's about 1/2 hour from my home but I feel like I'm transported to the mountains in California every time I go there. Seriously, you have to stop by here for dinner, the food is innovative, original, and amazing!

The Bridal Bouquet was white roses, patience garden roses, scabiosa pods (these are so cool), ligustrum berries, and seeded eucalyptus.

The Bridesmaids carried a bouquet of white roses and seeded eucalyptus.

The Boutonnieres are probably my favorite of all the boutonnieres I've made so far. Fiddlehead fern, with scabiosa pods, seeded eucalyptus, and these really funky ball things with furry 'leaves' if you can even call them that.

The centerpieces were completely different and were almost edible! With purple artichoke, succulents, pink sedum, green kale, green hydrangea, scabiosa pods, seeded eucalyptus, and dusty miller I was worried they looked like salads! In the end though I really loved how they turned out.

Hopefully I'll be able to post my wedding from November 13th tonight too! Happy Flower Hunting!