Nancy and Nori met while they were both Peace Corps volunteers in Malawi and were married in the fall at The Old Stone House in Brooklyn. When Nancy and I visited the flower market together, she fell in love with all the dried botanicals. Used in combination with fresh flowers, dried botanicals evoke a beautiful natural, rustic, and organic atmosphere.

For the centerpieces, dried lunaria, or money plant, was the key feature. These delicate and papery discs were mixed with large, showy dried lotus pods and okra pods. The dried lunaria were collected from the Nancy’s family farm in Indiana, where they grew in abundance. Dried curly ting ting in a natural finish was used to fill out the centerpiece and add texture and volume.

Fresh seasonal flowers in lovely fall shades accented the dried botanicals. We purchased from the flower market, vibrant flame colored crocosmia. From the local farmer’s market, we used seasonal zinnia in a variety of colors like yellow, orange, red, and pink.

Because the bride and groom spent some time in Thailand working at the Thai-Burmese border, we thought it would be nice to bring in some of their Thailand experiences in the form of tropical orchids in autumnal shades for the personal bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres.

We made a gorgeous, natural, trailing bouquet for the bride with amazing flowers from the flower market. These included orange cymbidium orchids, magenta phalaenopsis orchids with small stripes of yellow making the petals appear more burgundy, vintage orange ranunculus, hypericum berry, and for the real showstopper – fantastic mauve tree peonies. These individual stems were secured to a rustic wire frame work of fresh trailing vines

For something a little different, the ring bearer carried a small box covered with variegated Ti leaves and accented with orange cymbidium orchids, mokara orchids, and hypericum berries.

Bathroom window ledges were decorated with fresh flowers and dried botanicals: ranunculus, phalaenopsis, hypericum berry, and dried grasses and miniature grape vine wreaths.

All images courtesy of Jenica Miller Photography.

Sometimes it can be fun to incorporate many different colors into a wedding while still maintaining a dominant color scheme. Especially if the wedding venue and location is outdoors where many different colors can be found naturally in the environment and surroundings. Being free with color can be very exhilarating and allow your personality to really shine through!

At a recent late summer wedding in September, the bride chose greens, yellows, and oranges for her reception table centerpieces. But for the personal flowers and bouquets, she wanted to do something a little different and more playful. All the groomsmen and bridesmaids were decked out in black, but each attendant wore a different color pair of shoes. The contrast between the black clothing against the colored shoes really popped and grabbed everyone�s attention. Along the same theme, we made each bridesmaid a bouquet featuring her specific color using flowers within the color�s shades and tones. The bride�s bouquet tied everything together by incorporating each bridesmaid�s feature color.

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You might consider the wedding arch a little tired. Many times you see them decorated with oodles of vines, roses, and hydrangeas with the flowers framing the arch, tracing its natural shape. This type of design utilizes a lot of flowers and makes the arch look very beautiful, very opulent. However, such a design may also seem a little more on the traditional side.

I love wedding arches, but sometimes I want them to look a little more modern and updated. Lately, I have been using strands of hanging flowers and beads to decorate arches, arbors, and gazebos. Dramatic and eye-catching, it also creates a very simple and elegant look. And not to mention, since it uses fewer flowers than the traditional wedding arch design, it might be friendlier to your pocket book!

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I recently had the fortune of attending my sister-in-law’s wedding in Osaka, Japan. Because Vera had grown up in America and her fiance in Japan, their wedding, although Japanese, did not have all the formal accouterments of most typical weddings in Japan. It was a nice blend of East meets West, held at a restaurant and event space called Mitte.

Besides having had cried buckets at the wedding and eating some very delicious and amazing food, I was quite enthralled by the flowers!

The bride first walked out in her Western style wedding gown holding a lovely petite, asymmetrical bouquet of white roses and amazing, ruffly white cattleya orchids with magenta centers. Her up-swept hair was also accented with 2 beautiful cattleya blossoms. Here in the States, most brides go for small blossoms accenting their hair – think mini cymbidiu orchids, spray roses, or stephanotis. They might even use one large daring bloom like a peony or fully open rose. I loved the use of multiple large blooms in Vera’s hair – very dramatic and effective – and was not at all over-powering.

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Sometimes a bride may have a difficult time picking a particular color scheme because she likes lots of different colors and combinations of colors. Here are some pictures from a wedding we did this summer that featured fuchsia, orange, and yellow flowers accents of lavender and grey-blue.

The bridesmaids wore black dresses and bouquets with long flowing ribbons of sage green, fuchsia, and pewter. In the bouquets, we used fuchsia ‘luxor’ roses, yellow tulips, grey-blue thistle, orangeprotea, and “voodoo” orange roses.

We used glassy white ceramic containers for the centerpieces which really made the bright and intensely colored flowers pop. The vivid orange dahlia stood out dramatically and the yellow oncidicum orchids created an additional layer of depth, texture, and interest.

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Because each bouquet, centerpiece, and floral arrangement at your wedding is a hand-made, personalized design, it is important to get the most out of your consultation with your florist. Here are some tips and suggestions to help prepare for your floral consultation and what you can expect!

The wedding flowers are usually one of the last vendors couples hire. Which makes sense since the venue, invitations, and dresses will dictate the look and theme of the wedding. Wedding flowers are flexible and can be designed in any way to accentuate the overall theme and look of the wedding. So by the time you meet with a florist, you will know the color scheme and theme of the wedding.

Sometimes it is helpful to bring a color swatch of the dresses or a sample invitation to help convey a specific shade or hue. Other things to bring with you include images from magazines or books that speak to you. Of course looking at all the available bridal magazines can give you a pounding headache! But the pictures can be very helpful to you and your florist. You probably won’t want to copy the pictured design exactly, but they can help convey your personal style and aesthetic as well as an act as inspiration.

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Orange isn’t usually the theme color of choice when it comes to weddings. But when used in a summer outdoor beach wedding, it is fun, vibrant, fresh, and modern. We recently provided the flowers for a casual beach wedding in beautiful Santa Barbara. The bride wore white, but wanted to feature bright orange flowers against aqua/teal. She carried a bouquet of all orange ‘mango’ calla lilies which we wrapped in ivory satin ribbon and accented with light orange pearl pin detailing. The bridesmaids wore aqua and held bouquets of all white mini calla lilies wrapped in aqua satin ribbon with light orange pins.

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