August 2008

The Flower Lab recently provided the flowers for a gala at Big League Dreams for the sister cities of West Covina and Ohtawara, Japan, organized by the East San Gabriel Valley Japanese Community Center, Inc. “Kakehashi” roughly translates into “building bridges of understanding and friendship”. No awe-inspiring views of the Pacific Ocean at Big League Dreams, but this venue is an amazing location for large outdoor events with plenty of parking and multiple swanky baseball fields!

The evening was marked by taiko drumming, musical performances, and a silent auction (of which I tried unsuccesfully to win the UCLA vs. USC football game in December – waah!). Here are some pictures of the florals and decor:

And here’s the full color advertisement for The Flower Lab in the Kakehashi Gala program book!

Thank you East San Gabriel Valley Japanese Community Center!

Jessica and Chris were married at the Neighborhood Church in Palos Verdes Estates.  It seems like the past few weddings I’ve done have been at venues with extraordinary views of the Pacific Ocean – this was no exception!  The church is a beautiful Spanish building with terra cotta tiles with a back patio where you can look out and see an expanse of beautiful blue. 

The colors were ivory, Tiffany blue, and copper, so we tinted white hydrangea using Design Master’s Peacock Blue.  To get a deep orange like copper or terra cotta, we used ‘Circus’ roses and ‘Mango’ mini calla lilies.  We also used gerberas and alstromeria of deep orange.  For ivory, we used ‘Vendela’ roses, ivory dahlia, and ivory lisianthus. 

The altar arrangements were in 24-inch tall clear glass cylinders filled with copper florists’ wire with pieces of coral attached. The flowers included tinted aqua hydrangea, orange alstroemeria, Casablanca lilies, and large ivory dahlias. 

The reception was held at The Chart House in Redondo Beach.  For a vintage look, Jessica requested that we used containers that look like they have been well-aged, like a copper penny that has turned a little blue-green.  Luckily we found some nice French buckets that had the perfect color and look!  To incorporate the oceanview, but not too literally, we attached sanddollars to the containers.

One Saturday in August there were two weddings held at Stauffer Chapel with the same florist!

The beautiful stained glass windows in the chapel goes well with any color scheme. Here’s a wedding in purple and ivory with deep pink accents.

The reception was later held at the Lindero Country Club in Agoura Hills, just up the canyon road and a little further on the 101.

Jessica and Jean were recently married at Stauffer Chapel at Pepperdine University. If you haven’t been to Pepperdine it’s a really nice drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and the views from the chapel are spectacular!

The altar at the chapel is set against a stunning backdrop of an entire wall of stained glass. (watch out for backlit pictures!). The colors of the wedding were white and yellow and Jessica wanted to incorporate lemons in the florals! For a more wedding “look”, we stuck with more subdued tones of yellow as opposed to bright, golden yellow.

lemony altar arrangement

Here’s the bridal bouquet comprised of ‘Tibet’ roses, lisianthus, yellow cymbidium orchids, freesia, dahlia, and mini calla lilies. We finished the bouquet with alternating lemony yellow and ivory satin ribbon.

bridal bouquet

full bouquet with ribbons detail

The reception was held at Duke’s of Malibu in the Moana room. There are almost 360 degree views of the ocean throughout the room! To continue with the yellow and lemon theme, the centerpieces had lemon slices pressed against the glass. And to create interest throughout the room, we made two styles of low centerpieces — one with a matrix of ‘lemon dream’ roses bordered by bupleurum and the other in a glass cube with a mix of yellow and white flowers (lisianthus, teddy bear sunflowers, hydrangea, dahlia, roses, salal, and bupleurum).

square table centerpiece

cube table centerpiece

I recently provided the flowers for a wedding at Yamashiro Restaurant in Hollywood. If you haven’t been to Yamashiro before, you must come to catch the view! In fact, you can even join one of the many star gazing tour buses that take you around Hollywood, Bel-Air and Beverly Hills! Many tour buses stopped in front of the restaurant while I was there!

The wedding ceremony and reception were held in the beautiful outdoor courtyard garden. To match the lovely Japanese garden atmosphere, the centerpieces were comprised of natural manzanita branches accented with cymbidium and dendrobium orchids. The colors of the wedding were burgundy and chocolate brown, so we used these amazing dark burgundy cymbidium orchids, burgundy mokara orchids, and green dendrobium orchids as an accent. The branches rested on dark red and black ti leaves held down by black river rocks. Individiual light brown chrysanthemum blooms were scattered on the table around the branch.

For the bouquets and the escort card table arrangement, we used beautiful burgundy dahlias (as well as ‘black magic’ roses, brown chrysanthemums, and seeded eucalyptus).

Step into the LA Flower Market now and you will see fabulous dahlias of all colors and sizes! I’m especially partial to the large “dinner plate” dahlias and could not resist using these large burgundy ones. I highly recommend Yamaoka Flowers, Saita Nursery, and Endow for dahlias in the Southern CA Flower Market side of the market. Hooray for dahlias!