Last year my sister-in-law was married on the beach in Santa Barbara. This year I had another opportunity to deliver wedding flowers to Santa Barbara, enjoying the drive through Thousand Oaks, Ventura, and Carpinteria. You get to past by places with fun names like Summerland, Mussel Shoals, and Santa Claus Lane.

The wedding was held at the beautiful Bacara Resort and Spa. It was a really windy afternoon when we set up, but we managed to improvise with an on-the-job lesson in physics so that the arch didn’t blow over! The ceremony was held outdoors with a majestic view of the Pacific Ocean. The theme was simple elegance in whites and ivory. We used “polo” roses and white hydrangea for the bridesmaid bouquets, edged with a collar of ti leaves. The bride carried a bouquet of white peonies, sweet peas, and mini calla lilies. The reception centerpieces were all white hydrangea with accents of lily grass weaved throughout the flowers.






Yamashiro Restaurant in Hollywood makes a beautiful setting for an intimate wedding. The reception tables are arranged around a garden complete with a koi pond. Seating 6, each table is rectangular, which can allow for long and low table designs.

For Danielle and Cliff’s wedding in burgundy, we used large “Sumatra” lilies, deep burgundy peonies, James Storey orchids, and cymbidium orchids in white, pink, and burgundy.

What most of my clients learn when they first schedule a consultation with me is that I work from a “home-based studio”. When I first started The Flower Lab, I was worried that working out of the home, as opposed to out of an actual brick and mortar shop, would turn off many customers. But what I have come to learn is that having this type of small, homey business has led me to meet not only wonderful new people, but new friends as well. Perhaps this “business model”, if you can call it one, attracts a certain type of client. Perhaps someone who would like a more personal approach, like working with a cousin, an older sister, or a next door neighbor. Whatever the reasons, I do enjoy welcoming my brides into my home and sharing a little of myself as they share with me their thoughts and personalities reflected by the flowers and designs they want for their wedding.

Hubby and I live in a 3-unit, 3-story building in Santa Monica. Our home has a mostly open floor plan and I do all my floral work on a 116″ long project (sometimes special occasion dining) table in the living room area. The flower cooler tries to hide in the dining area next to the kitchen. Consultations are held on blue couches in the main formal living room area and if hubby is around, he may hide in the TV room area or proudly detail his convoluted computer-tv-surround sound set-up to any willing fiances.

Here are some pictures of a particularly busy production period – preparing for two big weddings. Tons and tons of flowers, but everything fit just fine!

My work table – just recently covered with an oil cloth table cloth I made, but needs to be improved for a better fit.

Blue couches peeking behind hydrangea and roses. My desk in the corner.

Work table from a different angle, with the TV room area in the background

The flower cooler and lovely prepped glass vases for table centerpieces.

Karen and Jon were married at the First Baptist Church in Pasadena and held their reception at the Hilton San Gabriel. They had a large, multi-course Chinese style wedding banquet. With so many tables, we needed economical centerpieces that were interesting as well as narrow enough to fit nicely among all the entrees set at one time in the middle of each reception table.

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.

I think hubby and I are doing okay.  Some days are a lot worse than others. We spent a nice week in NYC – not really considered first pick for a relaxing escape for healing and rejuvenation – but was surprisingly good and helpful nonetheless! We saw old friends and ate at our favorite restaurants.  Did a lot of walking and some retail therapy.  And eating desserts therapy too!

Josh’s cousin Kari recommended the book, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. It is a memoir and tribute detailing Elizabeth McCracken’s own experience when her first pregnancy resulted in the stillbirth of her son, nicknamed Pudding. Zoo-ee-mama! It was a very good read. Beautifully written, and it felt like I was conversing with someone who knew what I was feeling and had moved forward through the pain and heartache. Available from the local library.

Recommended by our midwife, I also found this book helpful: Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby by Deborah L. Davis. It’s sort of like the bible for people who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. Available from the SMPL.

There are quite a few books out there! I’ve also been reading Pregnancy After a Loss: A Guide to Pregnancy After a Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Infant Death by Carol Cirulli Lanham. This book overlaps with Empty Cradle Broken Heart a little, but also acts as a practical guide for parents who are considering or ready to conceive another child – known as the subsequent pregnancy. I checked this book out from the library, but also own a copy via Paperback Swap so I can refer back to it in the future. An example of the kindness of strangers: the woman who sent the book wrote me a nice note telling me how sorry she was and recommended Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir because it was so helpful to her.

I liked reading Finding Hope When a Child Dies by Sukie Miller, but it is a little more out there. It was interesting reading about how various primitive cultures talk about and explain the death of children and try to answer the question of “why did my child die?” While it is difficult to prescribe to the same beliefs and faith adhered to by the cultures presented, it can be comforting to think about child death from an alternative perspective. Also available from the good ol’ S-M-P-L.

There you have it! Therapy by library card.

Angeles and Steve were introduced to me by their wedding coordinator, Liz Coopersmith, of Silver Charm Events. Liz has a cool blog with very helpful tips and best of all, her Wedding Wise Wednesday posts of cool events and sales around LA and on the web. Not to mention, she’s a nice gal and awesome to work with!

In their invitations, Angeles and Steve wanted to incorporate the atmosphere of their wedding venue, The Hotel Maya Long Beach. They found this fantastic image of the Mayan calendar from istockphoto. We used the bottom right quadrant of the image on the invitation and the top right quadrant for the reply card. I think this image is a great example of how we can get such fine, intricate detail work with digital letterpress. Behold, the awesome beauty of letterpress!

I met Stephani many moons ago when I visited my then boyfriend (now hubby) over spring break in college. Fast forward 13 years and voila, she is engaged to the corniest guy ever and getting married at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles!

Stephani’s mom drew the lovely cherry blossom image for the invitations. We took one part of the cherry blossom branch and used it as the main image for the reply cards. Stephani loves purple! Her wedding colors are lavender and silver so the flowers and names are printed in light purple, the branches and stems in taupe, and the text in deep purple with a hint of silver. The paper is Strathmore cover 110 lb. in bright white.


Baby Wren

I’m sorry it’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post. Hubby and I have been going through some tough times. I was due to give birth to a baby boy on April 1, 2010, but our little guy, Wren, came early. I delivered a beautiful and seemingly healthy 7 pound, 20.5 inch baby on Tuesday, March 9, 2010, at 12:12 pm in our home with our midwives. To our devastation, Wren stopped breathing at around 11:30 pm that night and was not able to be resuscitated.

Josh made a blog site in Wren’s honor chronicling the short time we spent with him.

We’re figuring out how to move forward as we process our grief. I think, hopefully, the hardest part is over.

Lots of love and thanks to our family, friends, and community. I’ve learned so much, and despite the awfulness of this experience, I have become a much better wife, friend… and mom.

My smarty pants friend Irene studies ice! She is an ice-ist – so you better not mess with her!! She is also super talented and creative – she drew the koi and water lily leaf image for her wedding invitations.

She wanted to keep the koi motif throughout the rest of her wedding stationery – putting it on the top of the reply card and blank A2 cards later to be used for thank yous.

The invites were printed on Strathmore 110 lb. cover stock in sage green and platinum grey ink.

For the Birds

So our first baby is due on April 1 (ha ha!) and after 6 months of not really doing anything in preparation, I began to feel the urgency! I came across an excellent blog post on SewLiberated detailing a Montessori style bedroom for her new baby, Finn. When I saw this post, I was like, WOW! Very inspiring!

One of the beautiful handcrafted items featured in Finn’s Montessori style bedroom was a branch with hand-sewn birds attached. With all the wedding arrangements we’ve been doing with manzanita branches, I knew I could make something similar!

The pattern for making the birds came from the Spool Sewing blog. And I used some various fabrics I stockpiled from our recent trip to Japan.

I had a couple of sand-blasted manzanita branches (about 24″ tall) leftover from a wedding and attached the birds using a glue gun. We’re going to hang the branch on the wall in the baby’s room. Hopefully soon!

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