December 2009

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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