Annie and Ted were married on a perfect June day at the Neighborhood Church, followed by a reception at the Palos Verdes Country Club. Their colors were ivory with touches of blush pink.

Annie loves peonies and it was the perfect time for white and blush pink peonies. We also used lovely ‘polo’ ivory roses and hydrangea.

Annie’s bouquet featured all white peonies in various states of openness.

The bridesmaids carried bouquets of ivory ‘polo’ roses and blush pink peonies.

We placed a tall arrangement of hydrangea and peonies in the center of the escort card table with the escort cards radiating out from the flowers.

Each reception table held a low centerpiece of ivory hydrangea and ‘polo’ roses and blush pink peonies. We wrapped the clear glass cylinders with a band of gold ribbon.

Ahh, the Smog Shoppe! One cool venue for a not too large wedding! What was once a place to get your smog checked, is now an urban oasis event space with chic vintage furnishings.

These beautiful images of Senta and Rob’s wedding were taken by Laura Grier of Beautiful Day Photography.

Boutonnieres featuring yellow craspedia, waxflower, astilbe, veronica, and limonium.

Lovely wildflower bouquet of limonium, stock, waxflower, alstroemeria, astilbe, veronica, and monte casino aster.

Senta picked out these awesome old soda bottles from the Rose Bowl Flea Market to use as her centerpiece containers. It was really cool seeing all the different brands of soda pop from back in the day!

We sprinkled loose flower blossoms along the length of each reception table.

Old flattened spoons with table numbers etched in — another great find by Senta!

Each place setting held a box of candy cigarette gum! I remember getting these as a kid and thinking I was so cool puffing out the fake smoke!

I may be partial, but I love this photo of the reception in full swing with Senta and Rob framed by their flowers… and guests too!

Congratulations Senta and Rob!

And now for some additional flower pictures, unfortunately taken from a lesser photographer (moi!):

Wendy was surprising her parents with a party celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary! The big bash was held in the Oceanside room at Shutters on the Beach, Santa Monica. This is one of the most beautiful spaces at Shutters – perfect for an intimate party of 50 or so people.

Wendy made up fun little quizzes for the guests to play and spread out pictures of her parents from back in the day!

To coordinate with the blue walls and white trim, the flowers were all white in white wooden boxes for the long dining table. And for the cocktail tables, Wendy requested light blue and white in silver containers. In the main centerpieces, we used hydrangea, roses, stock, china mums, and peonies. For the cocktail flowers, we brought in the nice light blue color with some amazing hydrangea.

We placed a white cymbidium orchid on every place setting.

What a fun cake!

A swell was in one clear sunny Saturday in May and the surfers were out in full force. At the end of the Malibu Pier, Liz was having her graduation party in the Surfrider room at the Beachcomber Restaurant. Here are some pictures of the floral arrangements we provided. The color theme was orange and pool blue and Liz thought having actual oranges in the arrangements would be a lot of fun. I couldn’t agree with her more! We also used fun, bright orange gerbera daisies, yellow craspedia, peachy-orange roses, and accents of light green bupleurum.

You can place your order now on our ONLINE STORE. Then pick up your flowers between the hours of 12-7pm on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday (2/11-2/14). Or stop by the lab to check out the flowers and place an order in person – I’ll be around daily 12-7:00 pm. We will also have arrangements available to buy on the spot. But if you pre-order an arrangement before Thursday, 2/10, receive a free letterpress Valentine’s Day card with every arrangement you purchase!

1. Hello Kitty Bouquet: For kids and kids at heart, how about a small bouquet in the shape of our favorite kitten, Hello Kitty?

2. Book of Love: We are also offering roses in red and fuchsia hidden in a box in the shape of a book. Open the cover and inside you’ll find many roses clustered together, a secret treasure.

3: Medium box of roses: Give the gift of love and friendship in a chic wooden box of roses. There are 9 roses arranged artfully in this 8″ box decorated with vintage pink tulle or a sexy bronze mesh. Choose all fuchsia roses, all red, or a mix of red and fuchsia.

4. Large box of roses: Just like the medium box of roses, but bigger at 10″ square and filled with 16 roses. Choose all red, all fuchsia, or mix of red and fuchsia.

Here are the letterpress Valentine cards we have. They were printed in-house on a hand-operated flatbed cylinder letterpress by moi! They are $4 each, or pick one free with every Valentine floral arrangement!

1. What is Love

2. Makin’ Bacon

3. Udderly Fantastic

4. Unforgettable

5. Honey Bunny

We ended 2010 by providing flowers for a fabulous Christmas party at the historic Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. It was a pretty large party with 28 tables. For a tall wintry design that is also easy on the wallet, we made centerpieces with all white flowers: hydrangea, dendrobium orchids, and snow-sprayed curly willow branches.

For the cocktail tables, we filled clear glass cubes with the heads of white spider mums – modern, simple, and elegant!

Many of the guests commented on these snow-covered curly willow branches. They are available at the flower market right around the holidays and come already sprayed. When they hit the water, the snow comes off very easily and settles down at the bottom of the vase. Completely unintentional on our part, but the layer of snow at the bottom of the vase was reminiscent of a snow globe and looked great!

Happy New Year 2011! Merry Christmas 2010!

Sorry so slow!

Here are a few images of a private Christmas brunch held at the Jonathan Club we did last year. That Sunday was also “Snow Day” at the club where they created a miniature hill made of snow for kids to sled down. And not too far away you could hear the crashing waves of the ocean! What a way to confuse the senses!

We attached clear water tubes to sandblasted grape wood branches and filled the tubes with water. Each tube then held a couple stems of paper whites. We arranged 3 branches on each table on a bed of smilax vines.

After the party, the centerpieces came apart easily for guests to take home!

We made three different centerpiece designs: white hydrangea with white dendrobium orchids in a 12″ cylinder, orange mokara orchids and curly willow accent in a 12″ cylinder, and white cymbidium orchids with curly willow and river stones in a 20″ tall cylinder. Each design fit on the lazy Susans leaving plenty of space for the food and were simple and modern, yet interesting enough for the guests to enjoy.

The wedding cake was decorated with golden orange cymbidium orchids and surrounded by loose mokara orchid blossoms – a nice alternative to the ubiquitous rose petal.

Even if you don’t plan to hold your wedding on Valentine’s Day weekend, you can still have beautiful, romantic bouquets in multiple shades of pink and red. Accent with deep purple or peach for something a little different. Adding ostrich feathers makes a dramatic and glamorous statement. And little sparkling rhinestones glued onto roses and calla lilies or just placed between the flowers add a little bling bling edge.

Lots of different soft textures evoke romance and love, so plan to have a bouquet of various types of flowers in the same color family.  Flowers for romance include roses, of course, as well as the multi-petaled ranunculus, cymbidium orchids, fluffy peonies, mini calla lilies, and sweet peas.  You can also decorate the bouquet handles with lace overlays, rhinestones, or large satin bows.  Let your bridal bouquet speak the language of love!

What’s going on? Well, as growers continue to cross and breed and create hardier cut flowers that survive the long, arduous journey from farm to plane to auction to wholesaler and finally to shop and customer, we begin to substitute fragrance with longevity. We are left with gorgeous and long-lasting blooms that come in new and interesting colors but without much fragrance. Which might be a good thing for some people, but sometimes scents and fragrances can really set the mood and complete the memories of your wedding day. And isn’t it natural to just stick your nose into your bouquet to smell the flowers?

Well, lucky for us there are still many flowers with lovely scents that our human noses can enjoy! Some pretty strong that they may actually bother some people (lilies, baby’s breath), and some might not be all that pretty in smell (narcissus, poppy), and some smell like you’ve walked into a kitchen (dill, allium). Some really beautifully smelling flowers include perfect for bouquets include freesia, lilacs, sweet peas, gardenias, tuberoses, stock, and some roses have a lovely faint scent. Most cut orchids do not have a scent, but cymbidium orchids can smell quite pretty. Chocolate cosmos, already stunning in a dark velvety brown, also smells just like their namesake – chocolate! So request some of these flowers for your wedding décor for a memorable and deliciously fragrant day!

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