So here I am, sitting in Barnes and Nobles,  finalizing flower counts, reviewing upcoming weddings, reviewing old emails to make sure I haven't missed a thing.  (With a 21 month old running around at home it helps to go someplace where I can focus..and get double chocolate chip cookies ;)

 It has been a relaxing past two weekends with no weddings on my plate which has given me plenty of time to focus on the new brides I have been communicating with.  

And the focus is of course on keeping things within budget by using in season flowers.  

I've been speaking with a bride who is getting married on October 10, 2010.  She is going for a vintage feel and wants green (more towards sage) and white flowers.

Once we start to get into the fall months there are less and less local and domestically grown flowers.  But one of my favorite flowers comes into season, and it fits right in with a more romantic vintagy feel, Ranunculus.

I love Ranunculus....try doing a google image search on them in bouquets and centerpieces...they come in so many colors and if your are getting married in October they'll probably fit within your budget.  

Just a little note

Right now I have a little time to re-group since my next two weddings are August 28th and September 5th.  I'll be posting here and there throughout August, in between figuring out supply and flower orders.  

I am really looking forward to these next two since both will be using Dahlia's which are coming into season now.

For the one the centerpieces will be tall and whimsical...the other will have pomanders of Dahlia's for the ceremony and Dahlia centerpieces.

Don't forget to take a look at my website to check out some of the other weddings I've created designs for!

Peonies, Peonies

Peonies are probably one of the most requested wedding flowers, but if you are trying to get them out of season you'll end up paying a ton...and getting flowers that just aren't as big as they are when in season...All in all you'll probably be let down.

When is in season?  Mid-April is the start and I've seen them in the flower district 

up until mid-June.

I love working with them and this past May I created floral designs for a wedding in which the bride only needed flowers for the ceremony.

The Brides Bouquet consisted of white peonies...with fuchsia specs towards the center, snap dragons, and light pink Peonies.

This bouquet smelled amazing!

The Bridesmaids carried bouquets of fuchsia peonies

A cute pomander for the flower girl..a great alternative when the ceremony site will not allow petals to be thrown on the aisle.

Carnations and Antique Pink Roses

And Cream Spray Roses for the boutonnieres and corsages

The Bride was going for an English Garden feel for the ceremony and her pictures were taken in Rutgers Gardens...I'm sure they were amazing...I'll have to contact her and see if she can send me some!

A Great Way to Save on Flowers...two weddings from May

I just never got around to posting the first of these two weddings on my website so finally after a few months here they are.

One of the most affordable arrangements you can chose for your wedding is submerged flowers.

You don't need many flowers and the water magnifies the flowers you do have.

When the light from the candles on the table hits the arrangement it's actually very elegant.

I've done this arrangement several times with dendrobium orchids, most recently for a wedding in May that I just never got around to adding to my website. 

This is the arrangement on my dining room table...

And at the reception before the tables were set.

The bride said she was getting compliments on them the entire night.  Pictures on my little canon elf though never seem to do them justice...maybe once my fancy camera  (I ordered it today!) gets here I can get some pictures that truly capture how nice this affordable arrangement looks.

Here are pictures of the arch decorations, bouquet and such from the same wedding.

The vine is called passion vine...it gets these really crazy purple flowers on it...I removed them for this wedding since the color was pink.  

The flowers were Peonies (in season mid-late April through mid June...otherwise they are crazy expensive), Ranunculus, and Roses.

The Boutonnieres and Corsages were made from white dendrobium orchids.

And the brides bouquet consisted of Peonies with XXL White Calla's

I've also submerged Gardenia's for a beach themed wedding. Those are starfish and shells in the bottom of the bowl.  

And here is how they would look at night

This wedding in on my website but I loved how the brides bouquet turned out so I'm posting it here too!

White Roses, Hydrangea, and Peonies

And a simple boutonniere of a white rose and seeded eucalyptus

A Seaside Ceremony

July 25th Wedding

This bride was fantastic with providing me with exactly what she was looking for.

From pictures to little notes.

And creative finishing touches...

like asking me to use the material that had been hemmed from her dress to wrap her bouquet.

Her Bouquet was made up of Casablanca Lily's, which required me to create stems for the flowers.  So the wrap of the bouquet had to be traditional...which means no stem showing, because in this case it would have been wire!

The ceremony was held at the Pavilion in Long Branch right along the water.   I'd never been here before The benches were decorated simply with tulle and white hydrangea.

The Bridesmaids had bouquets of Roses, Stephanotis, and some of the most gorgeous roses I have ever seen.  The white roses are called Tibet and the cream...Creme de la Creme.  The bouquet was framed with small blue wildflowers.

The maid of honor also had starfish pins in her bouquet.  If you are interested in what is called bouquet jewelry do a search on line...I wish I had gotten a better picture of them, but if you look closely you'll see them in the picture above a little off center and down to the left a little.

This was the mother's bouquet, simply white roses.

There were 11 groomsmen in the party who wore cream colored tuxes.  The bride wanted several variations of boutonnieres for the men and the ring bearer.

The goal for the centerpieces was to keep them inexpensive, but still tying in with the beach theme of the wedding.

So carnations were used, I know people like to steer clear of them for weddings because they can look cheap.  But when clustered together they don't look half bad. (My husband said they looked like puffs of whipped cream)  I added sea shells and star fish and rose petals to the table as finishing touches.

The bride included little notes on the tables letting the guests know that the money she saved on centerpieces was being donated to breast cancer research.

Fun with Flowers

I love going into the flower district in NYC to buy supplies and pick up flowers.  

It's early in the morning, the city is just waking up, and the gorgeous flowers are such a contrast to the hard edge the city can sometimes have.

And I love to play around with designs.

So here is some of my fun.

I used hydrangea (which was a light green with some spots of hot pink) Hot Lady and Hot Princess Roses with loops of bear grass to create these designs.

First a bouquet

And a possible matching centerpiece

I also had some yellow roses, which I can't remember their actual name.  But I thought they looked great with the small green chrysanthemums and a mix of a few types of pink roses.

(Bugatti, Purple Cezanne, Hot Lady and Hot Princess)

Here was my vision for the bridal bouquet, with green cymbidium orchids

The Bridesmaids would carry similar bouquets

Add Yellow Roses

Minus Green Cymbidiums

And for the mothers...

And all three together

This is just a little something I made with some red roses I picked up.

Hope all of your wedding planning is going smoothly!  Remember to have fun with flowers too;)

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!