Purple Bride {The Set Up}

{Purple Bride}

I really enjoyed this wedding.
The colors were great, the bride was totally kick back.
We actually planned this all on email! She's out in New Jersey and so she trusted me with her colors based on email so I have to thank her for her faith in me. :)
The Argonaut Hotel was reeeaaallly nice.
Check out this lobby area.

How cool is that concierge desk?
This fireplace is pretty sweet too.

If you don't know by now the hotel has a nautical theme. It sits right at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco and it's located in the cannery. It's a pretty spectacular hotel and the rooms are bananas.

The tall centerpiece looked really nice underneath all the compass chandeliers(there is a name for these but I can't remember)

It was super romantic in there with the dim lighting but let me tell you, it made taking pictures quite a task for me.

I just could not capture the purples, like Sprout said, it comes out red. :(

The crew that came to set up the chair covers were so sweet!
I commented on how much I actually loved the chair covers because they were not the typical polyester chair covers, they were fitted damask and they felt spectacular.
I will have to find that business card to give her a little shout out!

Here are the brides maids bouquets and the flower girl halo before they were delivered.

My friend Stella, helped me out for this wedding, and not only is she am Orchid genius( knows all the names, care and handling) but she is also a calligrapher. I always write out my own cards and silly me forgot she was coming and forgot to ask her to bring hers pens. So naturally I handed her the shi***st pen, probably a cheap papermate or something, and asked her to label the corsage boxes.

Her is the lucky grooms boutonniere, a black magic rose, a purple calla and a black calla.

The mothers and fathers had matching lavender and white corsage and boutonnieres.

The groomsmen had the black magic roses, with ivy.

Then it was time to deliver the bouquet to the bride. How I wish I could have caught her in her dress. It was gorgeous. I hope to God I get a picture of her in her dress because I was so smitten with it.

One of the bridesmaids was ready so I got a bit of her dress in the picture with the bouquet.

So all in all, I had a blast :)
The bride was super nice on email and in person. She totally trusted me and she gave me the biggest compliment ever.
When I delivered her flowers she said
"Brenda, oh my God, they are exactly as I pictured them in my head. They are perfect!!!"
In my head I pictured myself running and hugging her to the ground, but in real life I was cool , like "oh good, I'm so happy!" so you know, I kept it professional, lol.

{ And they lived happily ever after...in New Jersey....}

Purple Bride {The work}

{Purple Bride}
My purple wedding was a fun experience for me because I love when I get to work with darker colors that most brides stay away from. How happy was I when she emailed me her wedding colors; Deep purple, plum, reds, black and cream?!Score.

These Black Beauty and Black Bacara Rose were gorgeous.

These Hydrangeas were something else.
My camera does not do them justice.
They were wine with a purple center and the other hydrangea bunch were deep purple with a blue center. Crazy.

Buddleia or "Butterfly Bush" was the perfect other element that I wanted to make the centerpiece a little crazy and off balance. I was looking for a sort of unstructured round.
They were the perfect shade of purple and again, my camera can't capture the deep rich purple with magenta highlights that this flower has.

So pretty soon we were ankle deep in centerpieces

We packed up and headed out to the Argonaut Hotel.
Here's a quick shot of the bridal bouquet.

The brides bouquet was composed of black callas, purple callas, black magic and bacarra roses, purple hydrangea, and wine colored hydrangea.
We did a black satin corset handle with a few white pearl head pins.

Then it was off to the ceremony and reception area.

Yellow Wedding Flowers(Part Two: The Set up}

{Yellow Wedding}

We set up at the Church in Concord California at St. Francis of Assisi on Saturday afternoon and let me tell you, that Caldecott Tunnel was no joke! It took us forever to get there and we arrived just in time to see the event before us loading and getting ready to leave.
We had 30 minutes to set up two large arrangements, one check in floral arrangement and fourteen pew decorations and pin on a slew of corsages and boutonnieres.
yeah.bananas.


The men arrived first and here are the boutonnieres.
The soft yellow rose with the variegated ivy and myrtle was the grooms boutonniere and the yellow with salal and myrtle was the groomsmen boutonniere.

By then the bride had arrived with the bridesmaids and the flower girls so I was happy to race over to give her the bouquet and snap some pictures.

This is the Brides yellow bridal bouquet.
We had played around with orange and yellow and then finally settled on Pale yellow with some pops of bright yellow and a soft white. The roses are Polar Stars, Latinas, Creme dela Creme, and Skylines. There is a little bit of pale yellow stock in there too.

The bridesmaids bouquet were four different types of roses, pale yellow stock, white tansy, and pale yellow and saffron carnations. Slightly brighter than the brides bouquet and the yellow bouquets popped beautifully against the creamy yellow dresses they wore.

So pretty!


But the flowers girls...they were ADORABLE!
I told them they were the most beautiful flowers girls EVER and they beamed. :)
Before I knew it it was time to line up!
Here are the bridesmaids checking out their bouquets.

I just loved the color of the dress they chose!

As soon as they made their way out, here came the bride.

One last picture, and I hopped in the car to make it out to the reception venue.
The Bridges Golf Club is a really beautiful place. I really should have taken better pictures of the high ceilings and scenic views but I was way busy.
We set up two different centerpiece.
One was a garden style floral arrangement in a clear glass vase and the other was a hurricane vase filled with river rock a candle and 5 roses. We sprinkled rose petals around the tables.
Every wedding I do the flowers for I take a picture of table 15 because it's my lucky number.
Is that weird?

The head table was a long table that seated the entire wedding party. We were simple in the approach. I lined the edge with rose petals, small bud vases with single roses were staggered across the length of the table and in between would sit the vases with the yellow bridal and bridesmaids bouquet.

Look at these Skyline roses, aren't they gorgeous!!!???

I added the finishing touches and then here came the bride and groom.
They were kind enough to let me snap up a picture and I thanked them for letting me help them with the flowers and we were off!

The bride and groom had been planning this during her pregnancy and the I never got a chance to see their baby boy! He is two months old, can you imagine trying to plan a wedding?!?!
Brave, brave people....they did an awesome job thought. The dress, the venue, the paper products, everything was really, really nice.
Guys, I thank you for letting me be a part of your day, I hope you much love and success in your marriage! : )


They lived happily ever after....

Yellow Wedding Flowers(Part One: The Work}

I am soooo bad, I haven't posted in a week!

Jeez...what a lazy bum am. What have I been up to?
Preparing for my next wedding this Saturday, practicing for symposium in three weeks, meeting with brides and planning a trip to Seattle with the fam.
No excuses though...I really need to keep up with my pictures. I have so many that I haven't shared. *sigh* why am I such a procrastinator?
But this week I am back on my game. :)
Here are some pictures to kick off my Yellow Wedding this weekend.

{Yellow Bride}

I met my yellow bride online about 9 months ago and she contacted me via my blog and asked if I would be willing available to help her with flowers for her wedding. She was around with orange and yellow and then finally narrowed it down to yellows, creams, and whites.
I was all for it and pretty soon we had a floral concept for her.

So the big day finally arrived and I had the pleasure of working with a lot of different types of flowers that were locally grown.


The only things we had shipped were Ecuadorian roses.
They were gorgeous!
I took my time and researched all the yellow flowers because I had never really worked a yellow wedding before so I did my homework and settled on four:
Creme de la Creme, Skylines, Latinas, and and white Polar Stars.

For a yellow wedding I would highly recommend these choices.
For a more butter color, the Cremes de la Creme were perfect, and for a true yellow, the Skyline and Latinas are awesome. The reason I like the Polar stars are because they open up like Garden Roses but they are much more cost effective.

These carnations came in pale yellow and in a saffron.

We used pale stock, and white tansy,

Yellow alstromeria, solidago, kermit mums, variegated lily grass, green lily grass, bluperum

White and bright yellow chrysanthemums, yellow buttons mums, gold Asiatic lilies, yellow gladiolas, salal, and bush ivy.

Pretty soon, we started working on the centerpiece and check in arrangements.
Here is one of them. The colors blend well don't they?

This is the Virgin Mary Bouquet.

Here is one of the centerpiece.
The skyline roses open up beautifully.....

Here are the other twelve ready to get loaded.
My floral bed.
Kinda makes me want to lay on top of them, hehe.

The other 12 centerpiece would be constructed on site.
Stay tuned for the set up!

Baby Shower for a Baby Boy!

Yes, another shower!
Told ya. Last week everyone rushed out to get pregnant.

Haha, just kidding, C &A have been planning this shower for a minute now. It was actually bigger than some weddings I have had this year!!!!! Can you believe it? 200+ people at a shower!

Holy Moly. My wedding wasn't that big...well almost, but still. They have a lot of family and friends and a lot of love going on. :)

{Baby Boys}

I had the task of dying some of the most beautiful white Akito Roses I have had to a baby blue color. These roses were so white I couldn't figure out what setting to put my camera on so it could capture the detail!
Locally grown geranium smells SO GOOD to me.....

The flowers were dyed so that they could be dropped into varying heights glass cylinder vases, submerged in water and placed in the table as centerpiece. We set out forty of these glass vases.


I made the mothers a corsage to wear for the day. The first corsage is more modern,I decorated with some aqua bouillon and some baby blue decorative wire. The corsage is made out of lime dendrobiums, some white spray roses, and a little bit of wax flower.

That wax flower kills me when the little buds are pearlescent like that.
They are perfectly white buds that add great detail to corsages I think. :)

This is a more traditional corsage for the mother of the...mother...to..be..wait. The grandmother! lol, omg. I was kind at a blank there. I am so used to saying Mother of the Bride! :)

Anyhow! This corsage is blue and white with a touch of lime. I used an Akito Rose, some kermit mums, white spray roses and some white wax flower.

We places a small check-in arrangement at the sign in table.
This little guys has baby blue hydrangea, white Akito roses, white spray roses, myrtle, fern, geranium, lemon Leaf, lime dendrobium, and some wax flower.

The parents to be were so cute! They put a picture of the baby's sonogram up for everyone to see. If you look closely you can see the baby is sucking his thumb. I told her that my son, did that in his sonogram picture too, and that he unfortunately, uses a pacifier and is addicted to that thing. :(

One of her girlfriends made a diaper cake. Isn't it cute? Perfect for a Baby Boy.

I let her use my candy bar containers and scoops for her shower.
You cannot go wrong with a candy bar! I tell ya, guests *love* it.
It also makes for awesome pictures.

This are the labels she made.
For all you DIY-ers her how to make the labels for a candy bar bag.
Super easy.
All it takes is plastics bags that you can get at a party store or a dollar store.
You can but the labels at an Office supply store or if you have access to a Paper Source you can get super cute colors there.
GO to this link that Paper Source offers and download a free template.
Print form home in a few minutes and Voila!
Super Cute labels to attach to anything.

Girls after my own heart. Her girlfriends made cupcakes. Super Cute Cupcakes!

After all, what's a baby shower without cupcakes?

The buffet was being placed as I was heading out. I wish I could have stayed!

They are too cute with their matching outfits.
LOVE them!
That baby is going to be the cutest thing ever and it's going to be so loved once he gets here in August. Thanks for letting me be a part guys. Wish I could have stayed and enjoyed the lumpias but the boy was ill and duty called. You will soon enter the Parent Zone :P