Last Pair of Free Flora Euphoria Tickets!

We've been really busy lately giving tickets away left and right - on Facebook, Twitter, & Worcesterite - to Worcester Art Museum's Flora Euphoria party. Woo!!! Lots and lots of happy ticket winners who love art and flowers make us very happy!

So we're giving away our last pair of tickets to the shindig to the first person to comment on this post that they want 'em!

Who wants to go out and see art and flowers Thursday night and show Worcester some love??!!

Mid-Winter Wedding - Blue, White, and Ice

This will probably be the last wedding post for a while, as not too many people in New England get married in the bleak winter. The dark days, the chance of bad weather, all can cast a pallor over winter wedding plans, but for those taking the winter challenge on, there is much to be gained! Venues and vendors are more available so you might have your pick where those who marry in more popular months may not get their first choice and have to settle.

Our bride chose a mostly white color palette with blue as the accent as her maids were in navy. Her bouquet has seasonally appropriate 'Snowy Jewel' roses, ranunculus, and mini callas, with small accents of gray berries and foliage, and a dark green lemon leaf collar.

The handle of her bouquet was wrapped in satin from her mother's wedding gown, and beadwork from her grandmother's wedding gown for a sentimental touch. The beadwork was particularly fragile and I'm afraid after hours of being clutched in the hand the silk threads holding it together may have dissolved! But I'm sure there were enough beads to perhaps be repurposed into a necklace or other adornment for the next bride in the family.

The men's boutonnieres were silvery gray berries (tortum cones) wrapped with a touch of blue ribbon.

The maids' bouquets featured blue hydrangea, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, roses, tulips, and dusty miller foliage.

The chapel was unlocked a half an hour late, which put us behind the eight ball for setting up, so I only got one quick picture of some of the altar flowers as I was sneaking out the side door, just before the bride was to enter.

I think I mentioned ice in the title of this post! Well, here you can see what I mean as the morning sun hit the crystal strands in the centerpieces.

Another view in Tuckerman Hall, again with the sun lighting up this one centerpiece.

Here you can see the crystal strands a little better. Tall cylinder vases, natural birch branches, mounds of white hydrangeas, a few dendrobium orchids, and crystals - if you were in Worcester Mass in December 2008, you might think this bride was paying homage to our horrific ice storm!

Corporate Event - Lemon and Lime

I was going through the photo albums, and noticed that I never blogged this corporate event from last fall. Citrus shades of lime and lemon made for a really bright pop of color for this luncheon. We belly banded the vases with ribbon, and used baby green hydrangeas, gerbera, and interesting foliages for this (ahem!) zesty look.

This was a business to business event, with a lot of ancillary promotional materials at the tables for all of the guests.

I had no idea that when we decided on the lemon-lime color scheme for the flowers that there would also be these gifts at every place setting that color coordinated! Talk about a happy coincidence! :-)

Flora in Winter Ticket Give Away!

I'm going to be giving away some tickets to Flora in Winter at the Worcester Art Museum, so you might want to keep your eyes peeled to this space, and I would follow sproutflowers on Twitter and fan Sprout on Facebook if I were you! I will be using various methods of disbursal! Oh, and I'd check www.worcesterite.com from time to time too - fair warning!

(clicky links in sidebars to the right!)

Wedding Consultations

Those of you who have been following us on Twitter and Facebook know we are all booked up for Saturday consultations from now until after Valentine's Day. That's what happens when you're a small shop, such as we are. There are only so many hours in a day!

If you definitely know you want Sprout to do your wedding, but can't get an appointment in right now or aren't ready for a consultation, we are happy to save your wedding date with a $200 non-refundable deposit. Some dates book up early, like the month of October - it's New England, we like our October weddings!

And while we're talking wedding consultations, now's a good time to remind all the newly engaged out there about the two most important things for a smooth appointment:


The Color Scheme

Sounds like a no-brainer, but it's next to impossible to discuss flowers without the maids' dresses having been purchased, since this is where the main color comes from. Sure, I can talk about flowers and great color combos until the cows come home, but none of it matters until we know what your colors are.


The Budget

Another obvious one, but if you come to a meeting without a budget in place, we may spend a lot of time talking about a fantasy that isn't really feasible.

Now I know, you're saying, "How am I supposed to know how much wedding flowers cost? I've never done this before!"

Well to help you, we have a little place on this blog in the right hand column, that says "Click here for prices". Do it, click there. It will bring you to a general price list. It's not perfect, it doesn't cover everything, but it is a place to get started.

Do some math - 7 bridesmaids times $XX = . 22 centerpieces times $XX = . Try some numbers out, figure out a price range you're comfortable with. Your florist isn't looking to spend every last dime, but without guidance from you, they're really lost. Last year we did a wedding for under $100 and another for $8000, so you can see there's quite a range. We need you to have that narrowed down before the meeting.

Another thing you might find helpful - in the search bar, also on the right, type in Cost of Wedding Flowers. That will bring up some posts we've done on pricing out flowers found in bridal magazines.

When you're ready, give us a call!

Flora in Winter 2010 at the Worcester Art Museum

It's time to put Flora in Winter on your calendars! Opening night event, Flora Euphoria, is Thursday, January 28th, and it runs all weekend from Jan. 28-31.

I am doing a floral design to go with the Spanish Ceiling in a gallery on the 1st floor off the Renaissance Court. And of course, Sprout will be decking out the restrooms as we usually do! I have a plan, but I need to do a little experimenting first to see if it will work. It's a bit of a construction project, this idea, and I can't have any structural failures, that would be bad. And messy. Always thinking of Plan B though...!

You'll also be able to find me at the Flora demo and Interpretive Challenge Friday, the 29th at 3:00. If I recall, we're supposed to use the Chapter House and Renaissance Court as our inspiration.



Keep your eyes posted to the blog, Worcesterite.com, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook and you might be able to win some Flora passes and opening night tickets!

Sprout's a Google Favorite Place!

And when I figure out what that means exactly, I'll get back to you! In the mean time - YEAH!

Wedding - Orchid and Kiwi

We had a HUGE wedding the Sunday after New Year's which we worked on while the shop was closed to the public. The week from Christmas to New Year's is generally dead unless someone books us for a big New Year's Eve event, so this way we got a few days off to enjoy the holidays (those of you in retail know how hard that can be when you're in the midst of the holidays), and then we had the peace and quiet of the closed shop to really focus and get things done.

Our bride had a very full gown with side swept ruching and needed a bouquet that would hold its own against all the fabric. We came up with a handtied cascading bouquet of just white amaryllis and white phalaenopsis orchids. Very simple with the flowers grouped, but full and dramatic. My two favorite elements are how phalaenopsis orchids flutter and bounce when used in a bouquet, they give some lovely feminine movement that so few flowers have. And I also loved how the white amaryllis had a pale green tinge inside their throats which subtly picked on the kiwi green tone used in the other florals.

Aren't phalaenopsis orchids just so girly and sexy?!

The maids' gowns were in the darkest eggplant purple, so to brighten things up we went predominantly with the kiwi green with touches of orchid. The green flowers feature cymbidium orchids and "Anastasia" mums and the orchid is brought out with, well, orchids! More of those awesome phalaenopsis!

One of the tiny pleasures I got out of making these bouquets is how the throats of the green cymbidium orchids have these violet freckles which play so nicely, but quietly, off the large purple orchids blossoms.

This wedding reception was held at beautiful, historic Mechanics Hall, one of the most acoustically perfect concert halls in the world. We love working there because it is such a beautiful space, but also because the hall staff is a pleasure to work with. You florists know what I'm talking about!

Half the tables had tall centerpieces and half had low and all had the same kiwi green and orchid color scheme.

Did I mention this was a big wedding?! This is a view of half of the head table - half!

The low centerpieces had orchids, green spider mums, green hydrangeas, and a few well placed tropical leaves. Eeek! As I look at that photo above, I'm hoping someone had the sense to move that candle under the flowers before they lit it. (flowers went down before candles did or I would have moved it) Folks, keep an eye on your candles! You don't want your centerpiece going up in flames.

You may have noticed a large size distinction between the tall centerpieces and the low centerpieces. This wedding had a lot going on the tables so the low arrangements had to much more compact than the tall ones. In fact, the caterer freaked out a little at the size of the arrangements, not knowing that there were two different sizes as we unpacked the tall ones first.

After hors d'oeuvres on a different floor, guests would be coming upstairs and starting their dinner off with an extra course of Greek mezze. So every place was set with - water glass, wine glass, toast glass, coffee cup and saucer, bread and butter plate, and mezze plate. Also going on the table were favors at every place (they were quite large), salt & pepper, sugar & cream, four candles, a basket for bread and a 13" platter for the mezze! These tables were FULL! You can see why it's not a silly question when your florist asks you what else is going on the table.

After the color scheme, this is where the design of the wedding began - with the cake. Our bride is studying architecture and found a picture of a very minimal architectural cake that she loved which the caterer was able to copy, I think exactly.

Phalaenopsis orchids were the minimal floral accent, although the original was in white, we used the purple. Once I saw the cake design, we had some direction for the rest of the flowers. Phalaenopsis where ever they would work, not too many varieties of flowers, and clean bright foliages. Mechanics Hall is a grand Victorian space, so a zen minimal thing might look silly, but I think we found a happy marriage between the building and the bride's style!

One last shot of the centerpieces. Someday I'll tell you all about the agony of putting them together, but today I can sit back and just appreciate them like I hope the guests did!

Holiday Party

Before we get too far into 2010, I have a few posts I want to make this week, wrapping up 2009, including this holiday party.

This was a corporate event held in an art gallery in a renovated mill building. This is for a regular client of mine who has certain preferences, which include an "earthy but elegant" style and a love for all things hydrangea, berry, and twig. We have a code, she and I, for what this is called, her name plus -"ism". Our own little shorthand. ;-)

For twigs, we used a manzanita branch crystal tree as the main feature of this display above.

The area around the crystal tree was accented with votives and vases filled with gel pearls and fresh white blossoms like these amaryllis...

...and white phalaenopsis orchids. Clean and simple and elegant!

Our centerpieces had my client's other two favorites - hydrangeas and berries. This was a holiday event, but it had an understated but seasonal color palette with the olive green crush linen, silver chivari chairs, and white flowers. Blooms of white hydrangeas and amaryllis, with silvery gray berzelia berries, gray kochia, and seasonal winter foliages in a silver crackle cube complete the look!

The Cost of Wedding Flowers - Centerpieces

Photo from Martha Stewart Weddings

Time for another price check!

The newest Martha Stewart Weddings is out. Not too many centerpiece photos to chose from in this edition, but the peach and cream compote above is dreamy.

And it might well remain a dream! Why, you ask? Well, those "Sarah Holmes" garden roses (the cream 5 petaled rose) that take up fully half the visual volume of the centerpiece, are a climbing garden rose, the likes of which I've never seen as a cut flower for sale, so if you like them you might have to start growing your own.

I've also never run into the oak leaf hydrangea foliage featured here. Not saying it's unavailable, but I think the vendors in the Boston flower market have access to just about everything and this is not something I've come across.

Those things said, how am I going to price this out for you? I'm going to give the rambling "Sarah Holmes" roses the same price I would the other garden roses, and the oak leaf hydrangea foliage a price of somewhere between other fall foliages and hydrangea blossoms.

How much for this sweet peaches and cream confection?
Approximately $400.

The Great $50 Wedding Centerpiece Challenge is on Baby!

So maybe trying to get a contest going during the holidays was not such a great idea, as there were few submissions. But I know you want to do this, I know you do, so I'm going to give it another whirl!

Our conversations with fellow florists and flower lovers bemoaning how wedding flowers depicted in magazines are unrealistically beyond the budget of the average bride, leads us to this, our first contest.

A comment on the original contest post from a reader named Elizabeth really puts a fine point on why this is relevant - "Thank you for doing this! My wedding centerpiece budget is $50 and I'm not even sure what to ask my florist for, because I'm afraid she won't be able to work with me. You will be helping florists and brides alike with your great ideas! Thank you."

Here are the rules again - get your game faces on!

The Great $50 Wedding Centerpiece Challenge

1. Centerpiece value must equal $50 retail, (US dollars) – including container and labor. You cannot claim the container to be a rental.
2. You must show your math. Retail price of all ingredients – flowers, container, greens, supplies like floral foam, ribbon, etc. – must be accounted for. No “free” product – if you “had” it, found it, grew it, or picked it by the side of the road, you must give it a realistic retail price.
3. You must show what percentage of the $50 price is for labor. No exceptions.
4. I reserve the right to toss out anything with questionable math.
5. 1 centerpiece submission per designer.
6. Centerpiece must be appropriate for a wedding.
7. Send only 1 photo of your submission, so pick the best one!
8. Husband says you should submit your photo as a JPEG, TIFF, or GIF, so I don’t have to learn anything new before Christmas.
9. Submit 1 photo,your itemized math, and your contact information to: sproutcontest at gmail dot com. Subject line should read - $50.
10. Submissions must be received by 6:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, January 31 2010.
    
11. Voting will run from February 1 - February 28 2010. Winner will be announced March 1, 2010.
12. Winner will be blog reader’s choice.

There will be a prize, and I have decided it will be a copy of the new book by Preston Bailey: Celebrations!

Feel free to link this contest to your own blogs, web sites, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. I figure the more people who know about this and send submissions, the more exciting it will be!

Now, get designing!!!