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....}

Lavender Ikebana Bride

Sneak Peak Part 1

This wedding had me stalking 511.org(traffic information website in California)
for traffic conditions for a week before the wedding. Why you ask? They decided to close the Bay Bridge on labor Day weekend so they could tear down one part of the bridge and rebuild another section. What a nightmare....
My normal 20 minute trip to U.C. Berkeley turned into a potentially 2 hour trip according to the news. I had to be there by 9:30 am so it was way early when I started loading the flowers.

{Lavender Ikebana Bride}

How early was it?

BUTT CRACK OF DAWN early.
The sun was literally rising as I was packing up to get all the flowers across the Bay in time as evidenced by the shadows. :)

I like it when the ivy bush had the flowering "jacks" on them.

These were a few of the centerpiece that were pre-made that morning. They had lily grass loops, variegated ivy bush, white wax flowers, white lilies, and lavender roses.

Our destination was the U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley CA.

We waited outside and took some pictures of the bridal bouquets as the bride was just getting into her GORGEOUS dress.

The bridal bouquet was an all calla lily bouquet made out of green goddess callas, white mini callas, lavender calla lilies and a green ivy collar tied off with a white satin corset ribbon.

Her bridal hair flowers were a compose of lavender and white spray roses with touches of green.


The Redwood Grove is where the ceremony was taking place.

I mean look at the view, beautiful tall trees covered the ceremony area.....I almost expected bambi to come out. Oh wait, it did. Just as we were walking into the ceremony location a deer came prancing out of no where to say hello! I was scared for my assistant Mary since it was between us, except she was outside 15 feet form it and I was safe in my SUV. : P

I love the theater style seating.*swoon* It was just perfect.

The flowers out there were a simple arrangement of scabiosa, green goddess callas, white callas, curly willow, lily grass and some ivy bush.

Next it was onto the reception.
Here we made two different types of centerpiece.
The first was a simple off center arrangement. The ikebana label for it is simply
"To be viewed from all around". yep. short and sweet.
The second one was two tsutsu's joined by willow.

Finally, my favorite part, the escort card table.


I fenced together equisetum(horsetail) to make a structure that I really liked.

I sliced the equisetum to hold up the place cards and elevated the whole thing by making a mat that sat on top of three vases that were also lined with horsetail.

Kinda cool huh? toot toot, I know. I'm horrible...

The day was perfect, there was ZERO traffic, the bride was gorgeous...what else could I ask for?

{They lived happily ever after....}

Sneak Peak at a Lavender Ikebana Bride

Here's a tiny peak at my Ikebana Wedding today.
I'm super tired! I had to get up at 4:30 am to travel across the Bay to Berkley today.
Now I know that it's nothing to a Bay Area person since I am at the very edge of San Francisco, and with no traffic I'm about 20 minutes away. But this Labor Day weekend, they closed the Bay Bridge so I had to get across the water going about 57 miles out of my way....fun stuff.

So I will share pictures tomorrow :)
I made some double Tsustu arrangements as well as some simple low arrangements along with this place card mat made out of horsetail that I love and can't wait to share!

Lavender Bride{ The Ceremony}

{Lavender Bride}

The venue was in Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California.


The campus is gorgeous and I was pulling in to the driveway I noticed 3 large dogs on the side of the road and I thought rather cynically to myself,
What the..? Moraga has dough, why would they have random dogs out? Furthermore, who's cleaning their poop?
So San Francisco of me I know.
Imagine my surprise(and delight) when I rolled up three deer(doe?) and my Ughh. turned into Awwww...Bambi!
I had to commemorate with a picture,naturally.

I arrived before the wedding party so while I waited I chatted with the videographer, who's name escapes me(sorry!) and we both took pictures of the flowers while we waited.

The flower girls had a beautiful color purple dress so I made these flower baskets for them using lavender sweet peas, mauve spray roses, mauve statice, lavender roses, white spray roses, purple stock, and seeded eucalyptus.

Here is one of the Reader and singer corsages.
Mojika Cream Spray Roses with seeded euc.


Here is the usher boutonnieres.
A single Ocean Song rose with a little bit of the seeded Eucalyptus.

This color purple always seems to give me a bit of grief.
Color really is subjective to the interpretation of the beholder.
I order Blue Curiosas, for this wedding, and the grower told me not available, we can get Blue Bird roses telling me it was scary close to it in color. So I was happy with it, well the day before he called and said we were sent Cool Waters so when I got there my stomach sank as I realized the color was way to Mauve for me. So I ran around the market and finally got my hands on these Ocean Songs which were the perfect color. A true lavender.
So all you purple brides out there that want to have purple or lavender flowers for your wedding, remember: Ocean Song roses are your best bet.

The bridal bouquet was composed of lavender Ocean Song roses, lavender sweet peas, and white stephanotis with peal head accents.

As the bride made her way into the bridal waiting room, I set up the flowers for the wedding party. I love to see the flowers all lined up ready to go.
I always feel like a proud mother knowing that these flowers that I worked hard and lovingly on will go out and accent the beautiful bridesmaids and bride on a very special day.


While they got ready, I went outside to pin on corsages and boutonnieres.

Are these not the cutest Ring bearers ever?
Waiting diligently in the same spot right in front of the church doors.

I came back in to catch one of the bridesmaids taking a picture of flower girl baskets. :)

DIVAS!

I thought it was so appropriate that the Bride would have a chalk board in her waiting room because she is a school teacher!

Last but not least was the bride just before it was time for me to go and her time to step into her gorgeous dress.

The last thing she said to me was that she knew she wanted stephanotis and rose but that when she imagined her wedding day flowers it was nothing like this.
My heart did a flip flop.
She said it was better and so much more than she could have imagined and she hugged me and said Thank you I'm so glad you made my flowers!

oh god.
I almost cried.
The only floral designer in town that even thinks of crying when she gets a compliment.
I was on a high and i felt incredibly lucky to have helped C&E out on their big day.
She was so happy and he was so excited to see her that I left thinking to myself.
What a nice couple, I bet they will have a ton of babies and have great big parties with a lot of family and friends always. *sigh* I couldn't wait to get home to see my husband suddenly.

{ They lived happily ever after...}

Lavender Bride

Last week I tweeted *rolling eyes* that I got stuck in my car meeting up with a bride.
Well, it was because it was drizzling and overcast, of course, in San Francisco and I left my lights on. I chatted with her more than I planned as we sat in my car because she is just the sweetest gal.
She was freaking adorable and I couldn't wait to design her lavender wedding flowers.
Sadly, my camera died Friday :(
AGAIN.
It's the second camera I have gone through this year, I just got my new Cannon around Mothers day....
So I don't have that many pictures to share but I will go though them in a nit but I did want to shout out my Lavender Bride. She looked blissfully happy and calm on her big day.

Bright Floral Arrangments!

Here is a crescent arrangement I made today. Included are:

Fresh Green Apples, Yellow Lilies, Green and Orange Mums, Yellow Daisies, Lily Grass, Green Melaleuca, Luecadendron, lemon leaf, Yellow Iris, Variegated Boxwood, and Ming Fern.

Here's the side one of the arrangement.

Here's the side 2.

I love how Maribel detailed her apple with the bullion wire!

Here is a beautiful floral arrangement that Jen made that I think would look fabulous at
a tea party or at an outdoor barn style wedding.
I think that it's feminine and all it needs is tufts of ribbon worked in and out of the overall arrangement. It's not really something I would have put together because I would not normally think: Peach and Lavender. Awesome.
lol! But when she did it I really liked it! =)
The picture does not to do it justice, it really was beautiful in "person" and I wish I had better
camera skills. :(