Red and Purple Wedding Part 2 - The Chuppah

So when my clients for this wedding came to me, they had a lot of ideas, a lot of ideas, but the one area where they were a little stuck was the chuppah. They knew they wanted something different, but were not entirely sure what. The father of the bride was planning to build the chuppah frame since they couldn't find one that suited them, but how to decorate it?

We struggled, looked in magazines, searched on line, but the chuppah photos we found were too conventional, over flowing with either flowers or fabric. These were not conventional people. This was not going to be a conventional wedding.

We had a bit of an orb theme going on for the centerpieces, and eventually we decided to retranslate that on the chuppah with spheres and rings. As I type this, I can't help but think about how symbolic the ring form is to marriage - continuous, never ending.

My clients left it to me to figure out how this would all work together, but their mandate was not ordinary and not symmetrical!

As you can see, there were quite a few other flowers on the stage of Mechanics Hall. Keep your eye on them, as they will turn up in the next post. ;-)

Here you can see better the purple and red ring and orb shapes. I did not have this all diagrammed out, but I did have a pretty good idea in my head how all the different elements would balance out. I really wanted to carry the eye through and around the chuppah, or at least, that's what I hoped would happen!

Friends and family made the canopy which I believe will end up quilted for the bride and groom at some point. This chuppah was a true collaboration among many individuals and based on on the glowing happy faces that kept coming out of the dressing room to watch us work, a real success!

Part 3 still to come...

Color Harmony - A Red and Purple Wedding - The Wedding Party

OK, here are the first pictures from our recent HUGE wedding! I'm going to do this in stages, since it was rather involved and will take me some time to do.

First up - the bride. Our self described "princess" bride adores purple and especially purple carnations! I know, when was the last time you heard a bride say, yes, please give me lots and lots of carnations?!

Well, we were happy to oblige. There are these fabulous purple carnations out right now gaining popularity, by Florigene. They've been genetically altered to be these amazing shades of purple. They're smaller than your average carnation, I suppose something gets lost in the altering, but the colors are incredible! (OK, so I'm a total sucker for purple!)

For the bride,we chose the second darkest shade of purple as I was concerned that the darkest one would photograph black. It's really deep.

She also requested bling! Woo! This girl likes everything sparkly, so we put various crystals in her bouquet and also embellished the handle of her bouquet with rhinestone bands.

The maids were in a wine colored chiffon, which really married the red and purple tones. Each girl's bouquet was different, some a little redder, some more purple, with a great assortment of flowers - roses, gerbera, stock, ranunculus, statice, dahlias, and of course - carnations!

Ti leaves with a burgundy edge finished off the bouquets. The pics here are not very true in color, at least not on my monitor, because all of those red flowers were a true Valentine's Day red, with none of the pink tones that I see here.

Rounding out the wedding party pics, we have a sweet nosegay for the mother of the bride with red dahlias, the darkest purple carnations, silver tinted seeded eucalyptus, and eggplant uluhue fern curls tied with platinum ribbon...

...and the best for last! The groom's boutonniere - a robot pin with a grevillea and globe amaranth accent. The groom wanted something non-flowery and they found the robot pin which is perfect for him as robot building is one of his hobbies!

A lot of personality this couple!

More posts to come...!

DIY Flower Advice

The best advice I can give someone who has decided to DIY their wedding flowers is - MAKE ONE.

We've gotten numerous calls lately from folks who thought they would make their own flowers, centerpieces in particular, and when it gets down to the final weeks of wedding planning, they start to feel a little overwhelmed and decide to call in the professionals.

If you want to avoid the last minute panic of not knowing quite what you're doing or having too many items on your plate, about a month before your wedding, you should get all the materials you think you will need for one arrangement and make one.

The first part of planning a centerpiece is trying to find where what you want intersects with your budget. Then select the materials that fit both those things - flowers, container, tools, tape, floral foam, rocks, marbles, greenery and so on. Write it down so you will remember that you had exactly 3 stems of pittosporum and 1 cup of river rocks.

When you've got all those things together, make your sample arrangement. Don't forget to time yourself from start to finish. Yes, you should pick up a little speed as you make more of them, but honestly, it takes a year of experience to really see a big improvement in speed.

At this point, you'll want to evaluate if this is something you want to be doing multiples of the day before your wedding. Take that time and multiply it by the number of arrangements. Will you have that much time? Can you simplify your plan? Should you reconsider the vase you chose? Would you be better off with two larger flowers or lots of little flowers? Where will you store your flowers? How will you transport them? Can you move them without sloshing or disrupting the flowers? Does baby's breath stink like gym socks? Are rose thorns evil?


(Yes, to the last two!)

After making your sample, take that recipe you wrote down that has everything you used in it and then multiply that by the number of arrangements to create your shopping list. Add 10% more to your list of flowers in case some blooms aren't perfect enough, break, come in small, or if your table count goes up. Make sure you have an extra vase or two. Do you have a list of second choices for flowers in case something is not available?

Still with me here?

Order your flowers, buy your vases.

Now consider where you will put those flowers when you get them - do you have plenty of buckets? A workspace that can get messy? When is trash day? Flowers can make a lot of trash.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it's because it is and is exactly what we go through every time we plan a wedding or party. The main difference being I know how long most things take to do and don't have to time myself. But I still write recipes, have a backup list of flowers, order extra for "just in case", and when planning my work day, I do still multiply the time by the number of centerpieces to give myself some idea of when to start.

Trust me when I say you should do a practice arrangement - you will save yourself many avoidable (mostly) headaches!

Gloucester Wedding

local customer of ours had a family wedding in Gloucester and we were happy to be included as one of their vendors!

The groom's family home, perched on a cliff overlooking the water was the setting. A tropical storm blew through the day before, and the morning began raw and gray, but by the time we were packed up and leaving, the sun was beginning to peak out. Big smiles!

The ceremony was set facing the ocean and with a view like that, you really don't need much in the way of decor, so a smattering of rose petals to brighten up the aisle and a pair of grass plants to frame the happy couple were the only touches needed.

The tented reception was a clambake and with all the extra doodads that come with that (Think pails for bibs, lobster shells, crackers and picks, and butter...mmmmm...butter! OK, stop thinking!), there was not going to be much room for centerpieces, so bowls of sand and shells accented with flowers and greenery brought a spot of color to the tables.

I'm going to pause here briefly so you all can stop for a moment and take a look at the tent picture again. Pretty blue table cloths, right? Nothing too fancy, no damask or pintuck here, just a nice crisp poly-cotton.

Now look again. Can you picture this same photo with white linens? Would it even look remotely the same? No, I don't think so. I love flowers, I would love to sell everyone lots and lots of flowers, but even with lots more flowers, with white linens in a white tent, it would be well, rather white, don't you think? Unless white is your theme color, you should always consider renting linens in a color when you're in a space as blank as a white tent. After the space itself, the next largest things in there are the table cloths. Think about it.

Really.

I mean it. :-)

Back to our show!

Bride's bouquet of 'Gelosia' roses and local hydrangea. Those blue hydrangea of summer are starting to get that bluey-greeny-purpley tinge to them. I love when there's some variation in tone, so much more subtle and interesting!

These two photos were taken back at the shop. We had to make way too many wrist corsages for the wedding party! (Only a florist will understand...) All kinds of bright summer colors, no two alike, zinnias, dendrobium, kangaroo paw, spray roses, craspedia...

...and tiny, tiny seashells!

We sell seashells down by the seashore...!

So Happy I could Squeak!

The Sprout blog was noticed by Floral Management magazine - woo hoo!

As if that alone wasn't enough, we were noticed for our list of Locally Grown Flowers, which took many, many agonizing hours to compile - yeah!

Not too bad for a recovering Luddite, eh?

Golf Birthday Party

A few quick shots of a small golf themed birthday house party. We had a "broken"club tossed into the rough...

...a divot display in the kitchen...

...and got a little tee'd off in the family room!

Keeping in the Public Eye

I try to talk up everything floral that crosses my mind, but sometimes you just have to talk up yourself! I never knew how important this was until I opened my shop. Marketing, public relations, networking, getting out there, staying in the public eye - it never crossed my mind when I first started that this was important to a tiny little flower shop. That stuff is for the big guys, right?

Wrong. It's probably even more important if you're the little fish in the big pond.

That said, we've been in the local media a couple times recently. There's a business profile of Sprout in the Worcester Business Journal, and we were also in the most recent issue of Worcester Living Magazine, having been voted Best Florist in Worcester for the second year running.

I stress about the interviews (and yes, the photos - will you see my double chin, can he make my hips look thinner, I should have gotten a haircut...you'll have to buy a copy of Worc. Living if you want to see my photo...Tom Rettig is awesome!) and it's nearly impossible for me to read what anyone writes about me - it's too surreal, like the words have some out of someone else's mouth. Hopefully I don't sound silly!

Any how, here I am tooting my own horn on my own vehicle for said tooting - I hope it's not too much! I promise to be full of myself for only another minute. ;-)

PS Just saw last night we also got a nice mention in The Pulse Magazine's College Issue - thanks so much!

80 Roses, Deconstructed

Hee hee!

...more Monday....