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!

Nanina's in the Park

Orchids and more Orchids.  

I love working with them for weddings.

They make fabulous boutonnieres and hold up great in the summer heat.

This wedding took place on June 10th at Nanina's in the Park, Bloomfield NJ.  

It was a beautiful location and the bride was looking to save money on the flowers but wanted something that would stand up to the grandure of the location

Here's what we came up with.

The colors for the wedding were Green, Yellow, and White.

The Brides Bouquet was very labor intensive, as each cymbidium orchid needed to have a stem created for it.  They grow on a stalk, with about 8-12 flowers per stalk.  It took close to 5 stalks to create this bouquet and it was by far the heaviest one I have ever created.

I think that all the time and effort was worth it though.

(In the picture you can also see scratch from the fight I lost with a rose as I was putting them in water for the backyard wedding I posted a few days ago!)

The Bridesmaids also had cymbidium orchids in their bouquets, theirs were yellow, with white hydrangea.  

Here are all the bridesmaids bouquets together.  There were 8!

Because of their size the Centerpieces had to be made on location.

The room had cathedral ceilings and the bride wanted to make sure they filled out the space.  After going through a few ideas and trying to work them into the budget here is what we came up with.

These arrangements are made of oncidium orchids with green hydrangea in the fishbowl.  I would have loved to use hydrangea the same color as the brides bouquet, a bright vivid green, but it just wasn't in the budget.  A lighter shade of green was chosen instead because it was grown domestically, the brighter green would had to have been flown in from Holland at twice the cost!

Here is the arrangement on the patio where we were making them.

Here they are placed on their pedestals inside the location.

Great tip...many reception sites have stands like these, but they usually charge a fee to use them...sometimes up to $300 extra! Ask them when you are booking if you can use them, if that's your vision, and many times..to secure your business, they'll throw the use of them in for free.

I always order a little more than I'll need.  You have to take into account that some of the flowers just won't make it to the big day.   The extra that do make it always come with me on site.  I look to see what needs a little something.

This was a sad card table with just the cards...I added some of the extra hydrangea to brighten it up.  

And I love this idea, at the guest book the bride included old photos from weddings in her family. 

So tomorrow I am off to invest in a nice camera.  Right now I've been using my little canon elf.  And while the pics aren't bad I know how much better they would be if I had a professional camera.  So we'll see if you can tell the difference in the photo's from the next wedding on August 29th.