AIFD Symposium{The Wedding Bouquets}

Oh sweet Jesus, when they came on stage I just about started crying a little because I thought they were so beautiful and I was waiting to see them up close. Luckily they set them all out for display for me to drool over these lovely bouquets.

As a result of this, I am determined to make it to the Green Academy Belgium.
I talked to Isabel Gilbert Palmer at symposium before the show and after the show and would love to go for their ten day workshop in Paris and Belgium. My instructor, Holly, who
is a past AIFD president, introduced my friends and I to Thomas De Bruyne, who happens to be one of the instructors at the Green Academy and a part of Life3, and he was marvelous.
He makes stuff like this:

{via humanflowerproject.com}

That rocks my world.
One way or another, I'm going to get myself there. : )

*****************

Some of the following bouquets were made and presented by Ania Norwood, Moniek Vanden Berghe, Isabel Gilbert Palmer, and Bruce Wright.
Enjoy!

Keep in mind these are freeze dried flowers form Avalane, that were made months ago overseas, packaged and shown at a couple different shows! Check out the site, it's got great information and pictures on there.

{Above} Ania Norwood's Lily Sphere

{Above} Moniek Vanden Berghe's Bouquet

For the bride that loves drama on her big day! Baccara roses and feathers.
{Ania Norwood's Feather Bouquet}

This is a Moniek Vanden Berghe Bouquet.

Simply gorgeous! I learned how to make the mechanic for this in school and it's pretty cool I must say. I will look for the picture and post.

This heart shaped bridal bouquet with miniature roses was stunning.

Geert Pattyn made these two beauties, the heart bouquet and the round bouquet below.

This is the Queen of the composite rose. The Dutchess Glamelia I would say :P

Pink Baubles should be the name of this beauty.
Or pink pearls?
Either way the pink peonies and silver pearl accents are GORGEOUS. Just the type of bouquet I want for my wedding.
{below} Fluer

These next three were from Colby Neal and Beth O'Reilly.

AIFD Symposium{the show flowers}

You guys must be tired of seeing AIFD posts, but guess what? I have one, more!

Well, aside from this one. I just couldn't fit them all in. I still get excited about flowers and take a gazillion pictures:)

Enjoy!

All fresh fruit. I get "fancy" with melon balls once in a while but this is madness!
They actually carved a rose out of melons.

Fruit, but in a different way. This is part of Lisa and Jenny's, one of my instructors at school, presentation on being Green. They used this paper product from home depot that looks like burlap or something and fresh apples, succulents and moss. Total organic, green feel.

If this looks familiar, it's because Jenny made the urn in March for Bouquet to Arts and it has been living as a succulent urn at school since then.

You know I *love* this structure of PVC pipes and flowers, right?

This floral door looked big on stage but in real life the bird they made out of Flowers was enormous! The birds(swan/goose?) beak was made out hypericum berries, its feathers were made out lily petals, and the head out of white button mums.

This was a pillar of calla lillies and anthurium.
The structure was quite fascinating and made me think of Daniel Ost.

Holy Epergne!

Lime and Lavender flowers looks so wonderful and unexpected to me for the holidays and I love the Holiday decor for the door. An updated take on the wreath.

What can I say, I love pave?
This was a huge floral arrangement made out of Phalaenopsis orchids, super green roses, jade roses, and green dianthus. Loved it and can totally see it being used at a wedding ceremony.
The little pink and coral number next to it is pretty hot too.

This is the one that took my heart.
It was a wall piece that was made with folded ti leaves
(everyone who has been around me when I get ti leaves knows I love to twirl then and fold them to different shapes, so this made my heart smile).
They used the bunched ti leaves to hide the water tubes that held up the orchids.
GORGEOUS!

AIFD Symposium{Floral Vendors and Displays}

Why go to symposium when you have me to share all my pictures you are wondering? Hehe.

Although I have about 500 pictures, I only took pictures of stuff that really got ideas in my head going or that I thought were super inspiring. The other stuff, I had seen before or maybe I didn't get, so really don't trust my judgement 100%. You gotta get to a floral show, convention, symposium, competition - whenever you get a chance. it's pretty awesome.

So before I share the Euro designers I would like to share with you some great shots I got of the meet and greet mixer with sponsors and vendors that happened on day one of the AIFD symposium.

This vendor was selling glass containers and I fell in love with how simple the arrangements were but how much of an impact they made.
I think Anthuriums are so beautifully elegant.
Damn near handsome they are.

I needed to buy some of these but sadly, they weren't for sale.
They did have a catalog that I perused and they have interesting containers.

This vendor had the brightest exotic flowers EVER!
I needed to take a shot of these babies.

I especially took note at this table because the multi-colored blooms are the theme of a wedding I have in two weeks!
I had to invoke the God of self control so that I wouldn't remove the stamen of the lilies and risk offending the vendor.

I heart sunflowers in my personal life.

In my floral life, I don't really like to use them unless it's the day after Halloween and they are gone by Thanksgiving. It's just not natural to me.....
So when I saw this I was conflicted:
One the one hand" Hello! look at how great this huge piece is" WOW.
Fall Wedding or what??Hi, Indian summer Autumn in San Francisco wedding!
( ya gotta be a local to know what I'm talking about)
Then they coupled it with submerged succulents in a tall Pilsner vase? Be still my beating heart.
*love it*
On the other hand it wasn't Thanksgiving.....
In the end, beauty was the victor and I snapped a few shots :)

I adore Manzanita trees, and this huge mammoth of a floral installation took my breath away. I was all up in their mechanics trying to figure out how they suspended the floral disk in between all the branches.

Sacrilegious.
I could never cut down a lily this low, but isn't this kinda cool looking?

This Modern Purple Ikebana inspired table killed me. I wanted to scream with delight but was scared to upset the vendor.They wouldn't understand that I am unable to express happiness in words so I have to be violent and primal about it...yes. issues.

This last one caught my eye because it was a silk...oh sorry...PERMANENT BOTANICAL....(ooh I'm snarky today!)...and normally I will walk past it but I had to touch them to make sure they were fake, and then I had to confirm it in a hush hush whisper to my friend" is this...fake?" She nodded knowingly.
So a picture I took to remind myself not to be a floral snob.

Love the apothecary jars with the Flowers inside.

AIFD Symposium{Student Competition}

It was a cold and stormy day.......

Haha! This is how I felt every time I looked out the window at the Hyatt we were staying at.

It was overcast, but hot as h*&# everyday! It rained on the day of our competition. :(
Notice how long the streets were but that there are no cars on them?
It was strange, the city had no life. But we didn't care! Everywhere we looked we saw flowers :)
Our day started out early. 7am is early on a non market day for me.
We arrived to the room where all the participants had to process all their flowers and greens and has to to check to make sure we had the same amount of supplies and accessories.

As soon as we were done at 8am they started the first category. The dreaded Buffet piece.

Personally I hated it. It was designed in a martini glass and everything I practiced flew out the window. 25 minutes into my piece and my mechanics fell apart. It was like the cake and candy competition on the food network, where the judges walk around, you are timed, and there is a collective sigh if a piece breaks off. Except when my mechanics broke apart I wanted to drop an F-bomb and chuck my martini glass across the room. :P classy, I know.
So they call time at 30 minutes, then at 15, then at 10, then at 5, then 4, 3, 2, 1, TIME!!!!
Ugh. Talk about stress!
I started over again and she called 30 minutes, so then I had thirty minutes to start a new design.
All bad.
BUT!
I will take a low score than no score at all. If you do not walk across the room to place your piece on a table, you are disqualified and you and your team gets NADA.
So here was my piece.

moving right along.
They were looking for this.

The sail looking thing is pretty cool I must say.

Areum, my team mate made this. *love* her leaf work.

So the designs were all over the place. It ranged from simple to WHOA!

Then they said, ok, you got 15 minutes to break and then the next category started.
The bouquets. This was the one category I flip flopped on.
I knew what I wanted to make, but when the time came, I needed my equiseteum for the sweetheart table design so I switched and did a basic Bouquet.*hanging and shaking head*
I gave them this.
They wanted this:

{This was one of the winning pieces in this category}

Then they called time and we started on the sweetheart table.
I made this:
They wanted this:


Areum made this.


Mac made this:
Holy crap. Some dude, made this bag!!! I loved it.

This was the winning piece.

Then the final category came and I finally did something that I had sketched and practiced the night before I left to Missouri.
Out of all the things I practiced, I finally stuck to the plan and made my napkin ring design.
I placed in the top ten(7th) I'll take it. :)

Here were the other designs.
Rubie made this one.

This one I would rock!

Then it was time to leave the room while the judges scored.
Here we are trying to take a peek at other stuff.

We came back at 3:30 and they had us place all of our designs together for the People's Choice award. The guy that made both the sail and the purse won. He totally deserved it!

Then it was time to unwind, hehe.

We all pulled out our "lucky" charms. Mine is a glass heart I got from a perfect stranger two years ago. :) (No, the cosmo was not mine, I needed a beer)

Then we had to wait 2 whole days to find out how we placed!!!
They brought us to the front of the stage and stood us in a room full of at least 1000 people and announce the winners.
On the scream flashed:
"CCSF"!

Sadly it was not me, it was Nixon.

He is such a great designer and he has mad skills so we were all super stoked for him.

Then it was time to "unwind again".
I learned a lot! How to work under pressure, what other people in other parts of the country are doing, what the competition is really about and what they look for. What to do next year to place higher...ok, ok, so I shouldn't be so competitive, lol. But I like to do well, ya know?
It ws a great experience and I did have fun so Iencourage anyone who has the opportunity to compete to do so.

Now the good stuff comes:
European bouquets.