Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween!!!!


May your chocolate be plentiful

Raspberry and Navy Blue {Part Three: Reception number 2 }

Part One
Part Two

Hello there! Here is the last post on my Raspberry and Navy Blue Wedding.

So what happened to my car? Who knows, but it didn't start and thank goodness a good Samaritan from the church where we were setting up heard that awful clicking that happens when a car doesn't start and came over to give me jump. He told me it was my alternator and I thought-no, it sounded the same as when I got stuck waiting for my Lavender Bride, and thankfully when he gave the car a jump start, my car started! Turns out I didn't have to sell orchids to make it to the next reception, hehe, but can you imagine your florist getting STRANDED on your wedding day with your flowers?????

knock on wood I have a wedding this Saturday.: ( Jinx! just kidding universe....

We finally made it to the Hillsborough Racquet Club in Hillsborough California where we would be setting up a second reception for the friends and family of the bride and groom. We had a combination of high and low centerpiece. I used local seasonal flowers for the low centerpieces which included the gorgeous hot pink dahlias, some magenta phalaenopsis, super green roses hot lady roses, some fuchia stock, some lime and fuschia cockscomb, a bit of the hot pink vanda orchids and few pieces of myrtle. They sat low on the tables in a ti leaf wrapped glass cylinder vase to match the taller centerpiece.


Now I don't know where you live, but in the San Francisco flower market there was a shortage of cut Phalaenopsis Orchid stems. Normally they are everywhere and they are readily available, but the week of this particular wedding there was a shortage and NO ONE was able to fill orders for the magenta phals. My own guy who's always has them called me Monday(5 days before the wedding) and apologized that for the first time in years he was not able to fill it. They said the greenhouses were out and that I might have to buy plants at 12-16 per stem. Umm...$15 x's 20 stems =$300 x's 7 centerpeices wholesale???
No way.
Sure enough I walked around in circles and asked everyone and finally brokered(read:begged) a deal with a guy in the market that had 9 bunches left and promised to get me 15 more in the next few days. I trusted him and showed up in two days to these lovely ladies.

Not uniform in color but hey, they were all mine! He explained that he had the most difficult time filling this order and when they finally came in he had a hard time saying no to people who were willing to pay him TRIPLE what I had paid him.
All because the greenhouses were depleted.
So we made it but let me tell you it was scary...

The taller centerpiece were tall 30 inch cylinder vases that were filled with dendrobium orchids submerged in water and bunches of phalaenopsis stems in pinks, magenta's, and a variegated pink and fuchsia.

These were spread around the room and in that white room they really popped!
I wish I had better photos but I have not been able to get my camera to properly work for me and my photoshop is also compressing my pictures down. Sorry!

This was a 16 foot garland that was draped along the edge of the HUMONGOUS fireplace.

Outside of the venue there were these cool horse heads that greet you as you walk up the stairs to the reception area so we decorated this area with two simple hand held bouquets that we secured to the horse mouth using the navy blue satin ribbon.

The stairs were lined up with simple cylinder vases with gorgeous dahlia heads in deep burgundy, magenta, fuchsia, and hot pink.


Ok I saved the best for last.
The dessert table that made me stop in my tracks and say to the gals setting up
Goddamn that's a great spread!
The cake? So cute I wanted to scream. Something told me this might go over well so instead I snapped pictures to share. Check out the orchids on this cake! I gave them a few blossoms of the dendrobiums, the vandas, and the phalaenopsis and they did there thang!

The cake stand and decor werein the wedding colors of Raspberry and Navy Blue of course and would ya look at the tiers on that cupcake holder? The polka dot ribbon, the cheesecake pops, the f*&^ing caramel apple bites????stop it! I was so jealous.

But no time to relax just yet we had to make it back to the other reception to move stuff around.

Except the car wouldn't start again. :(
I was so stressed I jumped into one of the other SUV's we brought with one of my assistants and I left two other members of my crew to deal with whatever was going on with my Pacifica...(nodding head)all bad.
But luckily I was able to reach the DOC by phone, she moved some stuff for us and we got there in time to snag one picture of the wedding party and double check the centerpieces in the main reception room.

As we were leaving the reception, the rest of my crew was pulling up and were literally jumping out of the car to attack the centerpieces, but we told them that everything was already done and it was time to go. :) They sure are awesome. Allison, Mary and Debbie~you rock! :D

So my couple went on their honeymoon and I wish them the best of luck! The wedding(s) were beautiful! I wish you much love and success in your marriage, thank you for letting me be a part of it.

{They lived happily ever after...}

Raspberry and Navy Blue {Part Two:The Personal Flowers}

Raspberry and Navy Blue {Part One: The set up}

{Raspberry and Navy Blue Bride}

The personal flowers were my favorite part.

The bridal bouquet was a compose of Green Hypericum berries, deep fuchsia spray roses. hot pink roses, super green roses, magenta Vanda Orchids, the gorgeous Phalaenopsis Orchid, and finally some deep pink cockscomb.
Texture city huh?


The bridesmaids bouquets included lime green cockscomb, deep fuchsia stock, green hypericum berries, hot pink roses, and super green roses.
All the bouquets were ribbon wrapped with Navy Blue Satin.


The Lucky Groom's Boutonniere used most of the same flowers in the bridal bouquet.
The bout was a single raspberry Phalaenopsis, a deep fuchsia spray rose, a tiny piece of the deep hot pink cockscomb and hypericum berries.

I always make two for the groom when I use orchids in case the bout becomes a little sad, that way the groom has a back up. :)

The fathers boutonnieres were single Phalaenopsis Orchids ribbon wrapped in navy blue satin like the groom and groomsmen, to match the super simple mother corsages.
That was a basic corsage that was a double pink Orchid with a navy blue satin bow.

The other corsages were simple fuchsia spray rose, myrtle and salal corsages with satin navy blue bow.

The rest of the wedding party had simple Hot Lady roses with a few hypericum berries and a super simple ribbon wrap in that navy blue.

I forgot to take pictures of the two Presentation Bouquets that I made for the mothers,
but when your running around and barely have time to take pictures, well, what can you do right?

I took one final picture of the waiting room before it was time to tackle reception number two.

So I walked out (quite happy with our time!) to my Pacifica, and as my crew walked to the other SUV I got in my car and it wouldn't start.
oh sh**!

Stay tuned to hear about how I had to sell orchids to hitch a ride to the next set up.....



Next up is reception number 2!

Raspberry and Navy Blue {Part One:The Church and First Reception}

{Raspberry and Navy Blue Bride}

This wedding was a pretty big one for me so I will break it into three sections: The set up of the Church ceremony and reception number one, then the personal flowers, then set up of reception number two later that same day.

So basically we met up a few months ago to plan the flowers for the big day and we had to brainstorm on how to make the most out of the flowers considering that the couple had to decorate three separate areas that day.
They definitely wanted to decorate the church with two large ceremony pieces and then also decorate the pews. We also had the task of decorating 28 tables(!) in the first location, then 17 tables in the next location. Whoa is right.

{cue the violins}

I got up super early to get things going, think I'm exaggerating, check out the view.

People think its so much fun to work with flowers, and it is; but it's labor people! I get up at 4am, I wash buckets, I pick bundles of greens and flowers, and strip roses down, and drag everything around carefully so that it looks perfect, and then at the end of the day I get to go back to my studio and clean up!

Ok, ok! I really do love my job so I will stop. :)

The first location is pretty open but a little sterile so the color of the raspberry hydrangea was very much needed to liven things up.

So we got to work in our little station putting together the raspberry colored hydrangeas together with the navy blue ribbon to hang on the pews. Since we had so much to set up we had access to the church at 10:00am which was awesome but the ceremony didn't start till 3pm so we made sure to water tube the hydrangeas to prevent them from wilting.

I'm quite proud to say I personally harvested these beautiful pink hydrangeas for the wedding myself!

Once we water tubed them and slipped on the Navy Blue Satin off they were to decorate all 28 pews.

I really hoped that she was happy with the aisle decoration, I personally loved the colors!

The idea was that the pew flowers would be brought over from the pews after the ceremony and dropped into a pre-greened vase that was waiting on the tables so that they could be reused.

I loved the personalized favor boxes that they made!
Aren't they cute?!


The room was starting to come alive with color.

These two large arrangements would be placed in the front of the tall alter. The short one was for the check in table.

Here's a close up of the smaller arrangement.
Hot Lady Roses, pink dahlias, fuchsia dahlias, hot pink cockscomb,lime green cockscomb, super green roses, and the raspberry hydrangea.

Next up are the personal flowers.

Love/Hate

Love working with flowers. :)
Hate waking up at the butt crack of dawn on event days. :(

Love making flowers come together and having people oooh and ahhh...:D
Hate washing buckets after the event is over.:(

*love* delivering bridal bouquets. :)
*hate*the feeling that there is not enough time to set up an event even though most times there's plenty, it's just that I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the tables, so I feel like I'm running all over the place to get it tight.. :(

*love* my life right now. :)
*hate* that I feel so busy right now!!!!

I need to slow down and smell the sunflowers.
yes, I know they don't smell but they are my fave and they make me happy so just role with my metaphor. :)

Can someone give me a blog budge when I haven't posted in like a week? I'm getting so behind with flowers, events, mock ups, school, homework, and *GULP* high school shopping for my 13 year old.....that is the scariest right now..... Seriously though, I need to get back on my blog game and visit other parts of the web for inspiration because I think it's important to be up on what's out there ya know?

Anyhow, let me give you a peek at the backed up pictures I have that I hope to post soon.

A Raspberry and Navy Blue Wedding

The tall centerpiece were Phalaenopsis Orchids on top of 30 inch cylinder vases.

Pink, Fuchsia, and Burgundy Dahlia Bouquet for a pink, silver, and black wedding.

Yellow sunflower and green centerpiece with wooden "vases" for an outdoor wedding.

Thanks for stopping by!
I'll be posting soon :)

Yellow and Purple Bride

Eh? eh? see two post this week.....I'm pretty back aren't I?
***************************************************Blogger: Kuga Designs - Edit Post "Yellow and Purple Bride"

I like simple things. Simple flowers, nothing too crazy, I don't have a complicated cell phone, I can't program a DVR, I like my stuff pretty darn easy and functional....you know what I mean?simply simple.
This wedding was perfectly simple and I adored it. :)
It took place across the Bay Area in Berkeley. Yep folks, back to UC Berkeley the following weekend, except this time our destination was the UC Berkeley Faculty Club.

{Yellow and Purple Bride}
Dont'cha just wanna lay in the bed of roses?

These babies are 24 cube centerpieces lined ready to go into the back of the Pacifica.

When we got to the faculty club we had to go down a stairs or walk down a rather steep tiny hill with the centerpiece in hand. Yikes!
Thank God they let us borrow this cart to carefully roll down the hill on the side of the house.

This is the inside of the Faculty club and as you can see, we needed those bright colors to bring some warmth into this place. The room itself has incredible light coming in from the windows and the incredibly high ceilings were fabulous. The couple didn't want too many flowers, but they did want color, something low that wouldn't obstruct the flow of conversation and something that would work on long tables.

We came up with low cube glass vases with ti leaves, yellow Latina and Skyline roses, purple Cool Water roses,and some variegated pittosporum. The bud vases were also line with ti leaves and a single purple rose as well as some yellow and purple rose petals.

The round tables had the same yellow and purple centerpiece with rose petals sprinkled all around. I totally loved their personalized table number pictures.

I loved their paper products all around. The escort cards were simple white card stock with a leaf pattern that matched the cake. Super cute!

I adore3d this cake!

So simple with a soft yellow and cream print as well as that cute leaf pattern. *sigh* I want a cake like this for my bday!!!!

As we hurried to get everything done, and perfect and get outta there I glanced over and saw the first kiss as a married couple going on! So I commemorated with a picture of course and then it was off to the Bay Bridge.

This wedding was super chill. No personal flowers, did you notice? It was great, although I did miss making the bridal bouquet, but the corsages? -not so much, hehe. This bride was seriously laid back and so nice, as was her cousin from the week before {my Ikebana Bride}, so I felt really lucky to have met them both and really enjoyed working with both of them. :)


And Guess what?

{they lived happily ever after....}