Treasure Island Wedding {Part One}

So I would like to share with you my

Treasure Island Wedding
This lovely wedding took place in the very beautiful Casa De la Vista on Treasure Island in
San Francisco, CA.

Here is the happy couple, J&R, enjoying the blue skies and gorgeous bridge views on Treasure Island, in beautiful San Francisco. All the vendors were FABO: Chris from Chern Loong, Dorothy from Dorothy Hatchel Photography, Sunset Bakery, Kevin from Denon and Boyle and I bought the flowers and Jonathon arranged them! Lynne and the staff at Casa were so nice and I would love to work with them all again. Thanks to Alison and Brandon for coming through to help. :)

We crossed our fingers for good weather and I assured Julie that I would employ my skills as a weather changer...ok, ok...really, I stalked weather.com and hit up my almanac for last years weather. But I could tell her it wasn't going to rain and that we would be ok *cross my fingers*.

And guess what?? It worked, I'm magic. No rain.

Moving right along..... :)
So we proceeded to set up shop. First we made sure the aisle was big enough for Julie to walk down the aisle with both parents, ommitted an extra row from the front aisle so Dorothy(Dorothy Hatchel Photography) would have enough space to do her magic up there and then it was on to the place cards.


Ok brides out there, can I please ask a bug favor? Could you maybe alphabetize the place cards before packing them away? I will tell you why: when I opened this bag I could see that they meant well by placing them in the order that the guests would sit at the tables, however, it's way too hard for a guest to try to look at each table number in hopes of finding their name. So make sure they are alphabetized so that we can lay out the placecards and have the guests just look for their last name.
I laughed because I was saying out loud
"...ok, wait I have 12 Go's and like3 12 Wu's....so I need to start on their last names ok A,B,C,D...." yes, arranging Dave, Dan and Donna in order somethimes throws me off, hehe.

Then it was off to check on the ceremony site, the cocktail area, the reception room.
I loved how they used this hurricane glass to swirl in the napkins!I'm easily impressed :P


The view from Casa de la Vista was GORGEOUS!
I love San Francisco and to see it from this view was magical....

Here is the setting for the sweetheart table.

Look at this this ceremony site...is it not to die for? I fell in love with the tree as soon as I saw it.

Then it was time to get the tea ceremony going.

So I will continue with the tea ceremony, the western ceremony, and the lion dancers!

Bouquets to Art 2009 Part {3} The Work

I already told you about the Gala night, so you already saw the end result.
So let me backtrack a bit.

The process of making this dress was a combination of a lot of research and product testing and mock ups along with last minute changes and divine intervention, hehe.
I told you a few weeks ago that the Universe Blessed me right?
So we were set to receive our product via FedEx Wednesday morning and were unsure as to what to expect. San Marcos Wholesale Flowers donated silver tree to us and basically made it possible for us to make this dress and we are eternally grateful to them for their generous contribution.
When we received the box it was a single box and as Brandon walked toward me he had this scared look on his face and said I hope my email said 23 not 2-3 as two to three stems!!!
My stomach dropped and he carefully opened the box.

Whew! Looks are deceiving, that box contained 40 stems!

I made sure to lay it out and count because this product was no longer available at the flower market and so if we didn't have enough, our dress would not be made.

Once we stopped jumping up and down we got to work.

We set out our line, started stripping the leaves and stared gluing. For the next 12 hours

Then finally, finally Sunday afternoon we stopped gluing and were able to see the benefits of our work! We were finally able to start imagining the dress as a whole instead of the pieces we had practiced over the course of the last two months.


Our model Jess came over Sunday night to try the bottom on and then the we worked on the top. See how the two layers together look like it's one whole dress?
That is exactly what we wanted.
Actually I couldn't see it in my head because I am a visual person but Brandon my partner made me a believer. :)


Monday morning we started in on the top of the dress.
I sewed in the flax swirls because I just didn't trust glue to hold it in.

Then I zoned out and made and glued close to 200 cones that would be the detail in the back of the dress.

We had divided our tasks so while I did the coning, Brandon worked on the shoes. All we knew was we were going to cover them but how, we weren't too sure. So he let his creative juices flow and pretty soon he rocked out these banging shoes!

While he worked on the gluing I started to glue the clutch purse and handcraft the birdcage veil. It was the longest single thing I have ever worked on because making perfect diamonds out of vines are not at easy as you would think. Some of the branches kept snapping in half and then I would have to un-wire the section and start all over again and towards the ends I almost chucked the whole project out the window. I originally had the most beautiful anthurium to go on top but I felt it didn't work with the full dress so in the end I too, had to trust my creative juices and made a last minute design for the bird gace veil by adding in orchid and the leaves.
I used my sons basketball so that it would start to take on a shape to frame my models face.

Next up we had to start on Jessica's makeup about 1 hour before it was time to take off on Monday and our makeup artist, Rosana Vares, came over to do Jessica's makeup. Let me tell you what a pro she was. All we told her to do was make her look good, here are the colors. She then analyzed her face and told us that she would bring out her eyes with silver and tie in both green and burgundy to make her eyes look bright and evening appropriate and that she would use a dark lip to tie in the orchids that would accent our dress. We trusted her and she did not let us down. Our model looked stunning and she even had time to give me a quick make over too! I am so grateful to her for coming over and doing a fabulous job!

So here we are, almost ready to go. The bathrooms were full so we went to the mens rooms and I could not help but take a picture of the cutest bathroom flowers ever! Tomato cans with gerberas and coke bottles with craspedia(aka Billy Balls). What a great centerpeice they would make!!

One last look and we were off to the Gala!

Blog love

Lotushaus
and
SFCitizen
blogged about our dress, so thank you for the love!

Bouquets to Art 2009 Part {2} The Gala

We turned this beautiful product from San Marcos Wholesalers

Into this!

Isn't it crazy? Silver tree is a branch with about 80 petals on it that are a deliciously gorgiffic(yes, that is a word) silver. We individually glued close to 2500 petals on our dress by hand.
I made the birdcage out of melveccia vine and orchids by hand and we glued the functional clutch and shoes as well. Brandon is the man.

The. Shoes. Were.Fierce.

This was the back. Mad detailing.

So let me take you through our fabulous night!
We arrived backstage to the De Young Museum in San Francisco and were whisked backstage where all the models were getting dressed. There we began to see the dresses in the competition.
Here is Margret's beautiful dress. The rose petal detail is flawless!

We all had to do some last minute primping and here is someone gluing in her petals.

This was a creation by Joanne, Naomi , and Jenny.

This beauty was a stunning play on the famous Yves Saint Laurent dress.

This one was Rubie and Macs and they blew our socks off and we were not upset that they won first place because the dress is the EXACTLY replica of the famous bird dress by YSL.

Here I am with my friend and model Jessica. Isn't she gorgeous???

SO then they lined up at about 6pm and were waiting to take the elevator down to the stairs where they would be judged.

My partner Brandon helped her up the stairs and then we left her there to do her thang!

The judges were there asking her about the dress and even after wards a few judges came by to comment that the dress was impeccable and that they were amazed we were not fashion students!B&B Floral Design Team at your service!

This is team B&D, hehe, my honey, Durojaiye :P

So then the judging was over and we made our way to the tents and we had to stop every ten feet to let people touch our dress and take pictures! I have 200 pictures and in all the pictures there's someone always looking at her!!! We were thrilled. She looked soo damn good.....

My birdcage was made with vines and orchids by hand! I love the whole birdcage veil look and knew I wanted to make one. Maybe someone will let me do one for there wedding.....?

Then it was time to have a drink and let people come up to our model and take a closer look.

Here's my friend Maribel's Dress.

The collar is bananas! Those anthurium are real!

Here is Jess with her husband taking in the scene.
The flowers the lighting the FOOD! It was grand.

We were standing here when I ran up to Nancy Liu Chin and told her I'm a blog stalker....I still don't care that I bum rushed her, I was too thrilled to be in her presence because I think she is just the best. Well that wasn't the word I wanted to use but my daughter reads my blog! lol

By the end of the night, we had our first meal of the day and of course I had to commemorate with a plate shot. :P


Next up will be how we got this bad girl together :P