Florals Back in Session!

I am taking a floral events course at CCSF and am quickly falling in *lUv* with my instructors. I absolutely adore Holly and think I may have a girl crush on her!? I thought it was only me and then three other gals in my class commented on how smitten they were with her as well so I thought, well see that? She's just a great soul and damn can she make a floral arrangement!

So here I am back in class( same background as my Ikebana), watching her whip up an arrangement as she is explaining the whole Flemish look. She brought out these still life paintings so we could start to learn how to stage still life's, compliment with florals and start to understand the different styles of design.

Umm....is it just me or does THIS look like a painting????
I swear I just added my little logo to this pic, I promise you I didn't photoshop.

Whew! She's got skills and I sure can take a picture, no? haha :)
My friend Maribel made this and I absolutely love it.
Purple, lavender, and deep red is GORGEOUS!
Can't you see this arrangement at a wedding in the wine country???

Here is my little ararngement, it's got so many different types of flowers, foliage, and textures and I love it. :)

Here's a closeup: bluperum, broomscorn, myrtle, tulips, yarrow, dahlias, brunia, and dusty miller.

Green Cymbidium Orchid Wedding Pictures

I just want to thank My Orchid couple for allowing me to share in their day. The day was filled with love and happiness and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Thank you for the opportunity to let me be of service to you , it was truly my pleasure.
The family was wonderful and the bridesmaids were absolute dolls.

I'm still on a wedding high from Saturday. They are so damn cute! So let me start off the:

{Orchid wedding}


Here are the bouquets and one of the grooms boutonnières.
The bride wanted to use the fabulous green Cymbidium Orchid and nothing else.
No filler or leaves.

I added a ribbon collar at the base of each bouquet so that there would be transition from the flowers to the handle since an Orchid bouquets has to be individually wired.

Here are the boutonnières.


Here is the Mother of the Bride and Groom corsage.
Simple and Beautiful.

I went in to visit with the Bride and give her the bouquets and I was pleased to see that it looked beautiful against her dress~the perfect size!
If you look closely you can see her bouquet charms honoring relatives.



The bridesmaids were in there picking up their bouquets as well.
Originally they weren't going to carry bouquets, but we added them in at the last minute and they were happy. :)
The green mini orchid bouquets popped beautifully against their deep red dresses!

So as soon as that was squared away I went to finish the ceremony site.
The vases (which I think are now pretty much retired from "aisle duty") were filled with curly willow and green Cymbidium orchids and the smaller vases were filled with river rocks and rose petals. Both submerged in water to amplify.
The Curly willow in tall vases marked the center where the couple would be married.
I strung and wired orchids into them and they looked really good.
The carpet was literally rolled out, a plush white runner that looked *GREAT* with the chairs.

I tied off the white aisle with a ribbon so no one would walk onto the aisle runner.

Once that was done it was onto the reception room. Here are the fabulous centerpeice.
Wheat grass was grown in these boxes that the bride's mother stained. I adore them!

The whole place looked crisp, clean, modern, and beautiful.
I giggled to myself while I was setting up because I got the biggest kick off of me humming Outkast "So Fresh and So Clean" as I was working to set up the boxes of wheat grass and the horsetail table numbers. They gave the centerpeice a bit of height, kept with the green look and provided a clean line doubling as a table number holder.
After the ceremony I took the floating orchids from outside and placed them in the wheat grass boxes and I broke down the vases and made an arrangement that was placed in the room. Sadly I didn't get an opportunity to take a pictures of those :(

So then they played the waiting game.

First the lucky groom in the front hall.
I asked him if he had seen the bride before I took this picture and he said no, and I told him she looked stunning and he smiled like a kid at Christmas!

Then the Wedding Party.

Finally the Bride.

So while I was at it I took a picture of the Manzanita Tree at the guest check in table.

Here's a shot of the wedding party as they went by the reception room.
I stole a picture from the cake area.

Here she is with her father. She's so gorgeous! Doesn't dad look dapper?

Look!
An amateur photographer taking a picture of a pro photog taking a picture of another pro photog. I tickle myself with this one :)
Okay but seriously, Blueberry Photography ROCKS!
They are so nice and they are everywhere at once....I swear they are magic.
Nicest people :) I can't wait to see their work!

Oh God this picture kills me!!! If that is not love I don't know what is............

There was a lot of laughter and smiles all the way around!

They jumped the broom with style, hehe!

And then a couple after my own heart, they danced down the aisle.
*I fell in love with them*

{And they lived happily ever, after...}

MY Orchid Wedding was GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

I have been sooooooooooo busy with meetings and wedding prep and weddings and SCHOOL, that I haven't been posting up my wedding like I have.

My Orchid Bride got married to the love of her life today and I was witness to pure love and I was honored to be a part of the day.

I have been to MANY weddings this year, both personal and professionally, and I have teared up once and it was at my OWN wedding! NEVER at a clients weddings. But today I was really inspired and touched not by the words, they were beautiful, but by the gazing into his eyes, and the smiles, and secret words they said to each other during the ceremony that only they could here. Weddings like this make me happy that I have gone into the wedding worlds. I really love weddings! I love my job!!!!

Here are the beginning details.

Okay, so I show up at the flower market the butt crack of dawn and they get my orchids and they are THE WRONG COLOR.

Enter heart attack on the inside, on the outside:
WTF?!?!?!
( ok it's the same reaction, but still)
They gave me some bologna about how they missed their flights.
Again:
WT*?
I finally received them Friday morning. Any other flower and that would be a disaster, but the Orchids come ready to go so I was not too worried.

Here is the Wheatgrass resting and getting ready to shine as centerpieces.

Right after the ceremony I am going to re-use the Orchids from the vases and place them on top of the wheat grass. The brides mom stained the boxes, aren't they wonderful?

These vases with submerged rose petals and curly Willow and Orchids will line her aisle.

Here's the Manzanita Branch with the ribbon and Orchids.
I anchored it down with black river rocks and limes.
There are only two orchids on there in this picture just so I could see what it looks like.

Finally the curly willow.

I wish I could have found my other brown vase like this one but I could only find one in my inventory. Something tells me I let a bride borrow one and I never got it back. :(

Fresh Floral Wreath for a Wedding Tutorial

So you wanna make a wreath, huh? Well you're in luck! I made a little DIY tutorial on how to make a floral wreath made out of fresh flowers for a wedding or event.
It's pretty easy to make and you can use just about any flower your little heart desires as long as you properly process your foam and flowers.


First you need to figure out what you want your wreath to look like. You'll need between 30 to 40 flowers depending on the size of the head of the flower. Gerbera Daisies take up more space than say regular white daisies. You only need about a dozen peonies to make a nice wreath. So keep in mind the design you are after when choosing flowers.

I used Carnations, gerbera daisies, orange tiger Lilies, a few billy buttons, and a couple kermit mums and a few yellow alstromerias.

Step 1.

Buy a foam floral wreath from a floral store or flower market. I used the one with a tray glued on because it's easier to place an object in between without having to get a separate tray or worry about water possible dripping onto the linen.



If you want to make a hanging wreath for a door then you would buy one of these foam wreaths
without that center tray. Sav on Crafts has them but a local flower market always has them cheaper. I think I bought mine for about $7.

Step 2

You must submerge and saturate the floral foam in water and like all foam you must let it sink on its own. You MUST NOT push it down or else you may inadvertently create air pockets and when you go to stick your stem in , your flower will have no water source. You might end up with mysterious sections of your wreaths that are wilting fast. So since I have a tray attached, I flip it upside down and let it sink on its own and keep it there for about 5 minutes.
*Note* The water that I use I treat with floral food following the instructions on the package.


Step 3
I then pull it out and let the excess water drain and then let it rest for a few minutes before I get started.


Ok, I stopped to take the time to give you a tip. See how the carnation has a little "knub" for a lack of better word? Its like a knot that appears in carnations every 2 inches or so? Well if you cut it right at the knot, the flower will not get any water. You need to cut about that nub( or a bit below, in order for the stem to drink water)



Step 4
So start to cut the stems about 2 inches from the head. I start with a few so that I get the length right. Once you poke a stem into the foam, that's it. You can not pull it out and re-insert because it's not a sponge, it doesn't spring back. There will be a huge gaping hole that you cannot fill unless you stick in a bigger longer stem, but even then it's not right, so take your time. The idea is to start designing a pattern that you are happy with. I started with the darker carnations and spaced them out.

Then I filled in with more flowers.

Sorry about the flash, but here's a closeup of the spacing between each stem.

Here's a top view to show you how the inside will look, I always leave a space to be filled in later once I have the final piece that will be used and I can fill in the holes so that you can't see my mechanic(the method I use to construct my floral design). You never know what angle the photog will be taking pictures from so make sure you face flowers up and in leaving a space for whatever will go in the center. Here I used a small vase to stand in.

Here's the final picture before transport. I'm not feeling the mums too much in this one so for the wedding I pulled them out.

Here she is in action with the bride and grooms memorial candle on the sweetheart table.

This is another floral wreath I made for the wedding, for the sign in table. I used red spider daisies. About 35 of them went into this wreath. People kept asking me if they were real, haha, I got some "yeah right' looks about them. :)


I placed a vase with submerged daisies in them and used black rocks to weight the vase down so it wouldn't tip over in case someone bumped into the table. They were transported separately.

Here he is in action!

You can make these about two days before the event and then just shower them with water in the sink and drain a little water out. They should be fine and can last beautifully in this wreath for about a week as long as you continue to water every other day.

I hope you found this helpful! If you have any questions, ask away!