Mango Wedding {The flowers}

My fabulous Menlo Park couple re-tied the knot today and I dropped off a few goodies for them.

Confession time:

I wanted to eat the brides bouquet.
Seriously.
I have this weird habit when I'm extremely happy or visually stimulated by something outrageously fantabulous, I tend to express my thoughts in extreme ways that don't make sense to most people......like if an arrangement somewhere stops me in my tracks I say:

"They are so gorgeous I want to eat them."
or
"Ugh. They're so fabulous I want to puke."
or
"OMG, the color is so ridiculous , I CAN"T STAND IT!!!"

My husband is used to this but when I say it out loud to some people, they look at me all strange....what they don't know is that sadly that's practically the best thing my brain can come up with when its on beauty overload! hehe.
I have issues :P
ALSO!
I got a new camera for mother's day and I just want to show off my pictures to you.

I love my camera so much, I want to eat it!
See? Now you get me.



Milva Roses and Coral Hypericum.

Scotch broom is growing wild right now and I adore it! :)

Mango Callas.


I mean look at these GORGEOUS yellow spray roses

Don't they make you sick???
Or is it just me?
oh.

So then it was off to work.

I loved making this bouquet so much because I truly love Milva roses and Mango Callas.

Stay tuned........

Cream of Tomato Soup Flowers

She wanted Kitsch, I gave her copper bundt cake pans in her kitchen and cream of tomato soups cans on her mantle.

I love it when people say do what you want, here are my colors!
I got a call to dress up a home for a woman's dinner. The only instructions I got was to make it fun, bright and hopefully something that could be taken home at the end of the night.

So I kicked around a few ideas and asked Brandon for some help and here is what we came up with.
We kept a food and drink theme for all the flowers and started with the kitchen pieces.
The first was a bright red and orange floral arrangement made out of Tulips, freesia, seeded eucalyptus, safflower, carnations,red and orange gerbera daisies, mauve cymbidiums, and orange roses. I designed the flowers into copper bundt pans so they could sit on her kitchen counter.


The second was designed in a copper "le saucier" pot that I absolutley adored and hated to part with!

For her piano I made these flower cocktails in margarita and wine glasses with that colored foam I talked about a while back.

She was thrilled with how well they matched all her home decor and was happy she would be able to give everyone a floral arrangement when they left for the night.

Ok. So here's the deal with these flowers. Remember when I said I thought that the coke bottles in the bathroom at the De Young were kinda cool and that I thought they would make great centerpiece? Well I wasn't playing around! I was dying to make them and then out of the blue someone asked me for them!

I thought they looked great on her mantle.
I used billy balls and tulips in the coke bottles and safflower, orange roses, red carnations, orange and red gerbera daisies, and some seeded eucalyptus.

Orange and Burgundy Wedding

Here's a recap of my wedding this past weekend.
I ended up finishing the bouquets at like 1 am and then took a quick nap and then it was back to work at 5am to finish the details and start loading up for the drive out to Vallejo.

It's that deep dark light in the am. I used Leonidas roses, burgundy carnations, lemon leaf, and hypericum berries in red, green and peach.


What a difference morning light makes huh? These are packed up and ready to go in the car.

I got there at about 8:30 am, it was a quick 45 minute drive across the Bay Area, and I met her family members who helped me unload and set up an assembly line of bouquets, corsages and boutonnières.


6 ushers, 8 groomsmen, 2 best men, 2 grandfathers,2 fathers, and an officiant.
Whew! That's a lot of floral tape and twirling :)

Then it was time to deliver the bridal bouquet to the bride.
I was really nervous because we went over a bunch of time the colors for the flowers and I even posted about the different color roses we were considering and I knew that the leonidas weren't really yellow and orange but in the end she made the decision to use them anyway.
*sigh*
I walked up the stairs hoping she was ok with our decision.
The verdict?

She loved them!

I told her I threw in some white and bright orange to balance the rust colors of the Leonidas, and she seemed really pleased and her future mother came over and gave me a great big hug so I was able to breathe again.
So it was back downstairs to take some bridesmaids pictures.

Flowers girls are so fast! I took about five pictures and I couldn't capture her still, lol!

Here are two bridesmaids waiting their turn to take pictures with the bride.
Check out the pew flowers.
FAKE,FAKE, FAKE!
But you can't really tell right?????

One last shot of half of the bridal party.

Then it was time for me to go.
Congrats guys!
Thanks for letting me be a part of your day :)

{They Lived Happily Ever After........}

Orange and Yellow Wedding

I have a last minute wedding that I'm taking on this month. They are a young Thanksgiving weekend couple and I'm pretty excited to work with them! :) I met with the bride and MIL today and I think we have everything hammered out.

With the exception, that is, of the name of the rose she wants to use.

See folks, this is why it's so important to meet with your floral designer and either have mock ups done or be able to find the exact flowers you want to use so that you can get the color you are after.
We all know that in the eye of your wedding mind(?) you have a SPECIFIC look and color you want. But! The color is subject to interpretation because what I consider pink some might say is hot pink and a light pink might be a mauve and still others might say its peachy pink. Or red might be a light burgundy or brick red or ox blood red....pretty much, it can mean anything!

So instead of being disappointed on your wedding day that your flowers weren't purple enough or the red wasn't vibrant. Take the time, and in some cases the extra money, to get that mock up done.

Here is what I'm working with...
We originally were going with the Leonidas

But then she saw this Circus Rose today!

I like the Bibi.

We talked about the Sunset Rose.



But she did mention the terracotta rose.....

I love Milvas, but if you are going to order will you opt for the

Milva creamy orange

or the Dark Orange Milva which in fact looks a bit pink to me, no?

So the next time you think, "Oh, they know what orange is"....guess again my friend, our minds spin as soon as you say a color. :)

Decisions, decisions.....I will let you know how it goes at the end of the month!

Daisy / Rust Wedding- First Pro pics in!!!!

Vincent Au shot the beautiful couple in Berkeley August 2, 2008.
What an incredibly nice and super stealth guy! I swear he was every where and he was soooo patient with all the family and friends clamoring to get a shot of the bride and groom alongside him. I have personally had photographers get snippy with the family for crowding them.
I totally understand they are at work and they are the pros but can't they just be nice and cuddly? LOL!

This wedding was a beautiful Daisy wedding.
Her colors were Chocolate Brown, Rust Orange, and Cream.
Here are some of the pictures that I received. There are hundred of fabulous preliminary shots so I just picked the ones that I really liked the most.

Here I am in action. I was pinning on a fake corsage for the Grooms mother. She is allergic to flowers, I think? Maybe it was the Daisy? Anyhow, she needed a fake one made so I made it out of Daisies from Michaels and a little bit of glue from a glue gun and floral tape and viola, in pictures you can't really tell they are fake. This was a first for me :)

He got the shot that I couldn't take of the monogram and the front of the ceremony "altar".

This never gets old.
I *LOVE* the look on the grooms face as he waits for the Bride to make her entrance....so romantic.

I am really pleased with the bouquets.
The MOH and Matron of Honor had different dresses so I made the bouquets different for each as well.
Yay! Cake shots :)

The cutest little favors contained chocolates inside the boxes and were topped off with a Daisy.

This is a picture of bliss defined....

They are so cute and the weather as you can see was GORGEOUS!

Fabulous Rings shot

A cute back shot of the couple's sweetheart table.

Ahhh....good times. I loved the colors: Chocolate Brown, Rust, Orange, Pops of Yellow, Deep Reds and a touch of Burgundy to make the brighter colors standout.The Daisy wedding went down without a hitch and I am so happy for them!

They lived happily ever after.....

Daisy/Rust Wedding {the details}

Here's a peek at my girls.
My Bride and my bouquet of course!

So let's see, I suppose I should try and start at the beginning.
Here's a shot of the bride with her Maid and Matron of honor.
I loved that they both wore different dresses and see their sash?
Well the bride bought the fabric and afterwards she gave it to me since she didn't need it anymore and I figured I would be able to maybe wrap the bouqet handles or do something with them. It's a gorgeous Rust color to go with the Chocolate/ Mocha Brown dresses. You'll see it make an appearance later on in the wedding.



Fast forward to the adorable flower girl in her cute rust/ orange dress. The dress had a soft mesh? Organza? Tulle like "shell" over it and at the bottom were rose petals. I matched the rose petals she threw as she walked down the aisle and she was just beaming.
See the "T" monogram on the floor right in front of the minister? I did it at the last minute and didn't snap a picture so this will have to do.



Right before they pronounced them married, she looked over at her family and smiled.
Awwww....


I hung up those clear squirly hanging candle holders that CB2 Sells that I bought in NYC

I hung them with clear fish line and put in a yellow billy button and a gerbera daisy head so they look like they are floating above the "alter".
People were fascinated with them , I had like 6 people ask me where I got them?!
They cost about $2 each. The link above directs you to the page.


I found out that a toss bouquet was needed when I picked up a program for the day and was admiring the font.
I read ohhh she's doing the garter and bouquet toss.
Wait! What?!? A bouquet toss wasn't ordered! EEEKKKK!
Of course it was all in my head, on the outside I was calm and walked over to my flower bucket and back out to my car to get ribbon and pins to make an on the spot bouquet.
THANK GOD I carry around supplies in my trunk and that I always take extra flowers with me just in case.
So there she is in all her glory.



I couldn't bear to leave these broken flowers at home so I brought them to pretty up the table.


Ok, so you all know that if a bride ask me to use my card box I will lend it to her, right?
It's really perfect, sturdy, has a slot for cards, cute, decorative and FREE! haha!
But wait, look at the money tree or plant or flowers with butterflies- whatever it is! Isn't it just the cutest thing ever? They were made out of money!!!

Big Brick wall.
Big tall arrangement.
Perfect :)

The cake person dropped off the cake and it was my task to decorate it. Well in this case, Jen, my friend, came with me to help set up since we had one and a half hours to get EVERYTHING in the room, and she decorated the cake. But when the cake person came she pulled out this big white wire stand and I just couldn't use it or fix it up with what I had and then I remembered the extra fabric that my bride had given me.

It was the perfect length and so when she was setting up I just started draping.
Mind you, I had not planned this, it was a spur of the moment type of thing but I think it looks good, right?

The cute flower girl and ring bearer making their grand entrance.



Here's a close up of the arch arrangement in action.
Perfect for an Orange or Rust wedding.
Red Alert Lilies, Billy Buttons, Gerbera Daisy,Bear Grass and Dahlias.
I used the bear grass to create dimension and echo the Billy Buttons.

Clsoe up of the Bride anbd Groom at the sweetheart table along with her bouquet.

The three vase centerpiece with three types of Gerbera Daisies sat on a Rust colored square that I made for her.
I told my bride that if she gave me the table numbers I would get them on the vases.
So we used raffia and double stick tape to get them to stick and stay in place. I'll show a little how to when I share my other tutorials.

Here are her favors!
Boxes with Daisies glued to the top and chocolate inside along with a custom CD of the songs they used throughout the ceremony and wedding reception.
The graphics were freaking awesome.

The MOH with her bouquet. She's so cute!

This is from the night before. A close up the rehearsal bouquet.
Killer weather makes for beautiful outdoor pictures.

Flowers Pictured:
Billy buttons, gerber daisy, lily, roses, bear grass, dahlia, curly willow, celosia, bells of ireland.