The Land of Wedding: Highlights from July

I worked with some incredible brides this past month at some spectacular venues. Jenni & Chris got married at Kiana Lodge in Poulsbo. Her bouquet was pink and white while her bridesmaids carried bouquets of hydrangeas ranging from green to purple to blue. It was a gorgeous day!

Brides bouquet of pink hydrangea, white freesia and stephanotis.
The bridesmaid bouquets: hydrangea, freesia, and white lisianthus.

Ivy bowl hung from shepherds hooks down the aisle and were later transferred to the reception tables.

I then got to work at Laurel Creek Manor in Sumner for Jessi & Nate’s wedding. The color palette of white and purple popped against the natural setting. Nate is a football player so I created an arrangement for the head table in a football. It was so fun to be a part of this wedding!

Brides bouquet: white hydrangea, garden roses, white mini calla lilies, and purple freesia. Hand-tied with plaid ribbon.

Bridesmaid bouquets: lavender hydrangea, roses, and purple stock. Hand-tied with plaid ribbon.

The head table arrangement in a football!

To end the month I worked with Amy & John! It was such a joy to work with Amy. The day was beautiful. She chose bright colors for her flowers and it was perfect for the setting on Bainbridge Island.

Brides bouquet: green hydrangea, orange roses, yellow freesia, and pink gerbera daisies.

The centerpieces were 6 inch glass cubes lined with limes and topped with green hydrangea, orange roses, purple lisianthus, yellow freesia, and pink gerbera daisies.

Congratulations to my July Brides & Grooms! I wish you much happiness. Thank you for allowing me to share in part of you special day!

The Land of Weddings: Where the heck did June go?

It is amazing to me how quickly time is passing. Already into July, working on events, and meeting with brides for next summer…yikes! I seriously am wondering what happened to June. The month seemed to fly by.

I did work on some pretty special events in June. The first was a memorial service for a friend’s mother-in-law. I used shades of purple for the flowers and incorporated a beautiful hand-made paper from Paper Zone as vase wraps. The hand-made paper was also used on the programs for the service.

(click above to enlarge)

Next came an event at the Chapel on Echo Bay on Fox Island. The bride, Heidi, chose a color palette of blue and green and we brought in pale pink, yellow, and white for the flowers. The primary flower used was the gerbera daisy but I also used dahlias, stephanotis, hydrangea and tulips. In addition to the custom ribbon wrap on Heidi’s bouquet I also added a necklace to to design. The necklace was a gift to the bride from her groom and it has very special meaning for both of them.
(click above to enlarge)

The end of the month brought a large Grand Opening event at the new retirement/assisted living facility in Gig Harbor; The Lodge @ Mallard’s Landing. For the event I worked onsite to create an ice sculpture design and brought in several additonal arrangments to decorate the facility. It is a gorgeous building with incredible amenities. I wish the staff at The Lodge congratulations on a great event and much success!
(click above to enlarge)

Overall, June was a great month. I promise to fill you in on July before the month is over…there are some fun events ahead!

Happy Summer!

The Land of Weddings: Events from May

I am having a hard time believing that we are almost done with June…yikes! I didn’t get a chance to posted for May so I thought I would take the opportunity to look back at a couple of events that filled that month.

The first was for Kristin and Dave. What a great couple to work with. In a previous post I shared their inspiration board. Below you will find the designs I did for their wedding.

(click to enlarge)

I also had the opportunity to work with Alisa on her wedding to Enriko. A color palette of purple, white and hints of silver served as the inspiration for this event. Alisa’s bouquet was made of white roses and purple tulips while the bridesmaids carried bouquets of varying purple flowers (stock, lisianthus, tulips) and white ranunculus. The bridesmaids bouquets were personalized using silver and rhinestone pins that could be removed and kept as a keepsake.

(click to enlarge)

It was a joy to work with these couples. I wish them much happiness, love & laughter!

The Land of Weddings: April

April has flown by and I cannot believe we are just a few days away from May. It is definitely spring and I am loving it! This past month a little thing called a volcano erupted throwing a bit of a glitch in flower supply coming from the Netherlands. We are getting back on track though and planes are flying! Yay!

I have been working with a lovely couple on their upcoming wedding (it is this coming weekend) and I thought I would share the color palette and some flower choices. The bride loves hydrangeas so I am bringing in light green hydrangea and hopefully (depending on the volcano) some darker green hydrangea along with pale pink roses and million star gypsophilia. The bouquets will be finished with variegated greens and thick ivory satin ribbon.

(click to enlarge)

Photo credits: bridesmaid dress, green hydrangea, ivory ribbon, green and pink arrangements, glass bubble bowl, hydrangea and rose bouquet, pink roses, glass hurricane.

Out and About: Tulip Fields

About a week ago I was able to take the afternoon and go with my family up to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival! I absolutely love the tulip fields…it takes my breath away and I am left in awe at the concentrated color and sheer volume of flowers.

We started at the Rooozengaarde Show Gardens and later visited some of the fields.

At Roozengaarde they had several colors of these giant multi-layered tulips. I am pictured above next to the red “miranda” variety and the photo below shows the pale pink “angelique” which I have to admit is now my favorite tulip!

I love the contrast (shown below) of the orangey-yellow tulip next to the deep almost black tulip.

In the fields:

Rows of purple (above)

Rows of pink (above)

I really like the purples and pinks but for me there is something so dramatic and impactful about the red and yellow fields…I just love them!

I am so happy to have made it up to see the fields this year. Thanks Mom, Dad, & Grandma for coming along…what a memory!

The Land of Weddings: March

This past month seemed to fly by. I am having a hard time believing that tomorrow is the beginning of April! I am completely enjoying the process of meeting new brides and working with them to create the floral designs of their dreams. This next month I will begin to post some inspiration boards for the upcoming group of weddings…it is so exciting to see it all come together.

In March we welcome another wedding expo to our region. It was held this past weekend (March 27-28) at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall and was put on by Brides Club. I again worked with American Party Place to create the booth. We chose a palette of navy blue and yellow. They just received in these amazing yellow pintuck linens…love them! Below are my photos from the show.

click photo to enlarge
click photo to enlarge
click photo to enlarge

The Land of Weddings: February

As a floral designer for weddings and events, my February has been filled with consultations (I love meeting new people and hearing their love stories), creating inspiration boards (I will share some of these down the road), and working up bids. This month I also created the bouquets for the wedding of my friend, Brady. He married an incredibly wonderful, sweet, fun girl (Kim) on February 13th. I am so happy I was able to celebrate with them!

For their wedding we chose to use silk blooms due to allergy concerns. Kim wanted hand-tied bouquets of red roses tied with sheer black with white polka dot ribbon. The overall look was elegant and classy with a punch of fun. (photo below)

As for this coming wedding season…I am truly looking forward to creating the flower designs for the couples I am working with. Their stories are so precious and the ideas so incredible. It is going to be a blast!

Flowers In The Media: The Olympics!

I got excited as the Olympic Games kicked off in Vancouver just a week ago. I love the Olympics and this year loved seeing the bold bouquets given to the winners at the medal ceremonies. The bouquets are hand-tied and consist of bright green spider mums, green hypericum berries, lily grass and ti leaves.

As I was catching up on news this past week I took note of a Yahoo Sports article about the Olympic flowers. It is called “There’s quite a story behind the Olympic flowers“. I love that the flowers received attention and were featured on the Yahoo Sports Blog “Fourth Place-Medal”. The designer of the bouquet is June Strandberg owner of Just Beginnings Flowers in Surrey, British Columbia. Margitta Schulz (owner of Margitta’s Flowers in North Vancouver) helped June create the 1800 bouquets ordered for the 2010 Olympics.

Job well done June and Margitta. The bouquets are great!

Flowers In The Media!

I logged onto yahoo.com earlier this evening and was clicking through the “Today” stories section and came across this article on flowers and florists. It is called “13 Things Your Florist Won’t Tell You.” This story is a spin on an article featured in Reader’s Digest by the same title “13 Things Your Florist Won’t Tell You.”

Some of the points in the articles are very helpful and informative and some of the points are a little silly. To highlight a few points:

1. It is true that a lot of roses lack the distinct rose fragrance due to particular breeding methods.

2. Yes, we will recycle your vases for you!

3. It is definitely important to keep some varieties of flowers away from fruit!

I suppose my overall advice to you would be: shop local and don’t be afraid to ask questions (most floral designers love to talk about flowers)!

A look back: Sharing My Passion!

I was just looking through some old portfolio photos when I came across the photos below. They were taken during a session I was teaching on arranging a grocery store bouquet. This particular event was the Friday before Mother’s Day and the local grocery store was running a special on bouquets (something like spend $10 and get a vase free).

I began with the buckets of bouquets (pictured above).

Then, I deconstructed them, separating out my flowers by flower variety and type (filler/focal).

For the arranging portion I made a hand-tied bouquet, cut the stems, and inserted the flowers into the vase (that was free with my purchase of flowers).

In the days following, I was fortunate enough to get feedback from the ladies, several of them had gained confidence through our session and had arranged flowers for their moms for Mother’s Day!

I have been invited to share with other groups as well and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity. Through a bit of research, I learned that studies show living with flowers can increase compassion and kindness, chase away anxiety, and boost energy (according to a 2006 New Harvard Study)! For this reason I love to share my knowledge with those around me.

So treat yourself to a bouquet…consider it part of living healthy in this new year!