Baby Kenzie has arrived!

One day after her due date the little angel arrived.

Kenzie Lorraine Reynolds

9/21/09

10:11am

7lbs 4oz

20 in long

We came home Wednesday and are happily settling in.  

I'll be getting back in touch with brides by early next week!  Thanks so much for your support and patience!

Follow Up to Delightful Dahlias

Val, the photographer from the Delightful Dahlias wedding, was so generous in sharing these pictures with me and giving me permission to post them on my site.  It's always so nice to see the professionals pictures of the bride and bridesmaids with their bouquets.  They really know how to use their fancy camera's (Unlike me who is just learning!).  

If you'd like contact Val for your own wedding you can see more of his work and reach him through the link below.

Red Umbrella Studio

A Wedding in the Poconos

A Breathtaking View

This was part two of the sister act, part 1 being the peacock wedding, and it has the most beautiful view and location.  Everything here was self contained from lodging, to bridal salon, to spa, to restaurant, to cafe, to ceremony, to reception...you didn't have to leave for a thing.  What a nice way to spend your wedding weekend with family and friends...and actually have some time to enjoy their company!

Here's a link to their site....Stroudsmoor Country Inn.    

It totally reminded me of the place outside of Yosemite where one of my best friends was married...it was like we were all camping together for the weekend...just a little posher;)

Here's their link if you're ever headed out that way....The Evergreen Lodge

Joan and Sean, the bride and groom, were so generous in asking us to stay for the wedding.  Unfortunately it was down to the wire finishing the very involved, but in the end very cool, centerpieces and missed the ceremony.  I did sneak out later though to take some pictures before it got dark.

The Brides bouquet stayed towards the traditional in shape, nice and round, and was made up of Red Cherry Roses, and red and green Hypericum Berries.  In her toss bouquet the berries framed the roses.

If you've been keeping up with the blog you know that I am well into my 9th month of pregnancy and over did it about two weeks ago,  strained a ligament in my belly and was on bed rest for two days.  I had one day of feeling good, when I woke up on the Wednesday before this wedding with a pounding headache.  I never get headaches and I couldn't move without shooting pain in my head.  Turns out I had a fever...which kept creeping up to 101...which in pregnancy land means you need to go to the hospital.  Fortunately I was able to keep it down with Tylenol, but there was no way when Thursday morning came I could go into NYC to pick up my flower order.  

So my husband and my mother-in-law came to the rescue, he took off work and went to the flower district.  I needed to pick up a few things and he texted me and took pictures...I seriously am thankful everyday for him.  He even conditioned all the flowers for me and made sure everything that he could do was done.  

Friday I was feeling better and got more of the prep work done, but needless to say it was a rough weekend.  On Saturday (the day of the wedding) I woke up, no fever....but that night when we got home it shot up to 101.9...thankfully though again I took tylenol and it went back down.  

So back to the wedding.  The bridesmaids carried bouquets that had a little more of a wild look to them.

The boutonnieres, and corsages mirrored the bouquets.  

We had a boutonniere meltdown.  I've never had to fix so many broken boutonnieres as I did at this wedding.  I didn't see the groom/groomsmen before the ceremony so they were on their own putting the boutonnieres on.  And sometimes guys can be a little rough with the flowers, holding on to the head of the flower while trying to pin them on...which can break the stem.  I think in all I had to re-make 5 of the 11 boutonnieres.  Note to self...I should always pin on the bouts...or I need to find a way...maybe a toothpick up the back...to give them some more support.  And I also need to label them better since some of the grandfathers and groomsmen were wearing the pin on corsages for the grandmothers.  Don't know if this happened because the guys took them after theirs broke or my instructions for who was to get what was lost along the way.  So another note to self...better labeling of the bouts/corsages.  

Pin on Corsage

Boutonniere for the groom and fathers

Boutonniere for the groomsmen, no leaves and no fancy curly cue at the bottom.

The centerpieces were the most involved that I've done to date.  There were 8 steps to putting these together....8!  And with 22 centerpieces it was down to the wire for me and my husband since we weren't permitted into the reception site until 12:30...and I knew we had hours of work ahead of us...I would have liked to get there and start working earlier, but everything worked out.  Here's what needed to be done.  

Step 1:  wiring the hanging candles (done before hand)

Step 2:  putting the river rocks in the vases and filling them with water (placing the rocks in the vases done before hand)

Step 3:  hot gluing the ring of flowers to the top of the vase

Step 4:  cutting and placing the branches in the vase (cutting was done before hand)

Step 5:  wiring the hanging votives onto branches 

Step 6:  wiring flowers on to branches

Step 7: placing the ivy on the branches

Step 8:  Placing them on the tables and putting lose moss and rose petals on the table

And here's how they came out...Dahlias, Roses, Green Hanging Amaranthus, and ivy were used to create the design.

And that's it until my next wedding on October 10th.  I've been spending my time preparing for baby girls arrival and enjoying this time with my almost 2 year old son.  Dr. says that she should be here within the week, so we are all very excited!  

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.

Delightful Dahlias

August 28th, 2009

The weather was touch n' go as the remnants of Hurricane Danny scooted by, but the early morning rain stopped and things dried up. 

This bride was very laid back and such a pleasure to work with... And it was the first wedding I used my new fancy Canon Rebel...which I have a lot to learn about...as the photographer at the wedding pointed out when I was taking pictures with my hand in front of the flash!  

At first our plan was to use fuchsia Calla Lilies for her bouquet, but she saw a picture of some Calla's that actually faded from the dark fuchsia color to a cream and I was able to get them for her.  

The Groom's boutonniere matched the brides bouquet

Now for the Dahlias!

The bridesmaids carried bouquets of Dahlias in three shades, dark pink, bright pink, and lavender.  Dahlias love their water and were more difficult to work with than I had anticipated.  While I've used them before they've never been as much as a focal flower as they were at this wedding and there were a few lost petals along the way.  But nothing that anyone else would probably notice.

And the groomsmen matched the Bridesmaids

Me getting fancy with the new camera!

We arrived on site pretty early after dropping off the bouquets and boutonnieres to give ourselves time to set up for the ceremony and the reception.  The idea for the ceremony was to create arrangements that would serve double duty and be moved into the reception room after the reception was over.

The bride wanted two arrangements for the ceremony to be displayed on pillars that I have for rent, but she gave me full creative licence.  The cuteness of the Dahlia blooms and the brides desire for pomanders for the first two rows of seats helped me come up with this idea.  

And here is everything after it's been moved to the fireplace in the reception room.

I know the professional photographers pics came out much better, once he sends them to me I'll share them with you.  

The aisle was lined with bright pink and lavender rose petals.

And last but not least are the centerpieces.  Early on the bride had mentioned to me that she liked Bells of Ireland...so I incorperated them into the centerpiece.

And my preggy self felt great, even though I had been on my feet all day.  I even planned to surprise my husband and take him to a Yankees game the next day, we went and they won.  Maybe a little too ambitious for being 9 months pregnant....I feel great when I'm pregnant (I have a 21 month old too) which puts me in denial how pregnant I am.  I ended up with a strained ligament in my poor belly and was off my feet for two days while it healed!

A very Pregnant me

It was seriously touch or go whether I was going to make it through the last two weddings.

For those of you who don't know, which is probably most of you...unless we've recently worked together...I've worked the past two weddings 9 months pregnant!

Here is a pic of me and my big belly, and my wonderful husband, at my Sept. 5th Wedding in the Poconos.  The bride was soooo nice and invited us to stay.  I am willing to travel for weddings up to 1 1/2 hrs away from my home base in Colonia, NJ and this was exactly that far.  You'll see in the post about the Wedding in the Poconos why it was totally worth it.

Of course it wasn't planned this way, being so rolly polly trying to get arrangements together, these are weddings that I had contracts signed for even before I was pregnant.  I did get lucky though that everything worked out.  And although I could have had a wedding booked every weekend in September, knowing I was pregnant at that point and due September 20th, I decided to make Sept. 5th my cut off.  My next wedding after the baby, a little girl, is born is October 10th...which was supposed to be the 17th, but was moved up a week.  No worries though, as always I take it one wedding at a time.  So if you were wondering why I disappear for while ( it looks like baby will be arriving early next week) now you know!