Garden Wedding

Over Labor Day I was able to attend the wedding of my little sister's best friend at the Idaho Botanical Gardens. It was like a beautiful dream.

The happy couple had their ceremony in the English Gardens. Besides being very hot, it was a touching thing to witness.

Noelle made a beautiful Maid of Honor.

The following are photos I took as we toured the gardens, in between the ceremony and reception.

The covered pergolas were impressive. I would love to see them when all the climbing wisteria vines are in bloom!

 This was called the Rose Garden.

 

I loved these purple penstemon type flowers.I have only seen them in red.

The bridges, arbors, and gazebos added to the ambiance.

The big shady trees in this area made for lush shade plantings of hostas and heucheras.

We found the wedding party taking photos and went over to watch and hug the bride.

Loved the style of the photos with the suspenders and sunglasses!
 

 

It was a treat to be with all my sisters, and the bride may as well have been a sister, she was with our family so much! They met in kindergarten and would still call each other best friends. 

We may have taken a silly one of our own.

Then on to the reception! The colors were blue and coral, so pretty together!

The centerpieces were terrariums, and the doilies were actually my grandmother's!

Noelle made the darling backdrop for the gift table with strips of fabric and lace.

The bridal flowers... ahhh, the bridal flowers. They were amazing. I absolutely loved the succulents mixed in with the peach and coral flowers. The different textures made them look so romantic. 

The lace around the bride's bouquet was actually a section of the mother-of-the-bride's wedding dress!

We thoroughly enjoyed the night eating, dancing, and watching the festivities (while the other three dad's watched all the kids!!!). If I could do it all over again I may have chosen the Idaho Botanical Garden for my reception... Gorgeous!

White Wedding

I was so excited when my mom's friend asked me to do the flowers for her daughter's wedding! It has been a long time since I did a bridal bouquet and they are my very favorite.

This bride's vision was white and sea blue... lace and ruffles...elegant and a little vintage. She wanted her bouquet to be all white and include polo garden roses and ranunculus. She had also pinned some pictures with hydrangea, so I picked up a few stems to fill things out. I know it's unlikely any one reading this will go and make a bridal bouquet, but just in case you're interested, here's how I did it.

I don't have a wholesale account anymore and I wasn't quite sure how to get quality flowers without paying retail price. My favorite way to shop for anything these days is online, so I asked good ol' Google where to get wholesale garden roses. I ended up using this website for them and was very happy with them (especially since the price was only $89 for 50 stems, versus $110 for 10 stems at my local florist). They came really tight, but I had ordered them enough in advance that once I got them in warm water and let them sit for 4 days they opened up nicely. I know they were extremely fresh too because I kept a few that I broke and they lasted 2 weeks! I did get the ranunculus from my local florist because I only needed a small bunch, and wholesale bunches are huge.

The first thing to do when working with flowers is strip the stems and pull off any brown petals. This makes them all uniform and ready to go into your arrangement, and saves you from stopping and starting in the creative process!

Hand tied bouquets are so fun to make. I was a little nervous about it because it had been a long time since I had done it, but once I got going it was fun! I didn't cut anything off the hydrangea stems, but just started putting roses and ranunculus inside the hydrangea ball. I keep one hand tight around them stems and insert and arrange with the other, turning as I go to make it uniform.

Once I have a basic shape, I wrap the whole thing tight with floral tape. Then I can go back in and add things around the outside and tape them in again. This bride didn't want any greenery, but this is also when you would collar the bouquet with greenery. Last step is to wrap over the tape with ribbon, and voila!

I wasn't able to deliver the flowers myself, but my mom told me when she handed them to the bride, she exclaimed, "They look just like the picture!" I can't ask for a better reaction than that.

Note: I leave the stems long so I can keep the arrangement in water. Then when I deliver the bouquet I cut them down to size, usually 2-3 inches below the tape/ribbon.
  

 This is a smaller version of the bouquet for the bridesmaid.

The corsages and boutonnieres always take the bulk of your time. They are actually harder than the bridal bouquet because they require so much wiring and taping! Maybe I'll show how I make those another time...

Fall Flowers

Once in awhile I get to do something flowery. I'm not very good at it anymore, but it's fun to arrange little beauties.

These are the flowers I used at an open house we hosted for Mike's mom. I got the mixed bouquet at Costco, which is always good bang for your buck. I loved the sunflowers, but I took out the carnations (not a fan) and added a small bunch of peach roses. The real cattails were a cool linear touch, and the eucalyptus berries made for a beautiful cascading feel on the bottom. The rest of the fall decor was dominantly orange and the bouquet felt lacking in that hue, so I grabbed some carrots from the garden and put them in the vase!

I love fall pumpkins and gourds. I added some clementines, leaves and seeds, and sprigs of eucalyptus and thought the the bowls turned out sweet and simple.

Decoration Day

My mom says my Grandma always calls Memorial Day 'Decoration Day' because she puts flowers on loved ones graves. We don't live near the graves of any loved ones but we took our family to the Provo Cemetery to get a glimpse of what the holiday is really about. It was a beautiful sight to see almost every grave decorated.

Memorial Day is one of the biggest days of the year for florists. This patriotic arrangement was quite striking in red, white, and blue.

Most of the flowers were potted chrysanthemums, but occasionally we saw a florists arrangement. I love this cheerful sunflowers in this one.

My favorite were all the flowers cut from people's yards. There are so many things in bloom right now! Look at this vibrant purple iris against the pure white viburnum.

More viburnum mixed with yummy smelling lilacs.


My favorite were these gorgeous fuchsia peonies, laden with water drops from the morning rain.

Flower Shop

With Valentine's Day (the biggest flower day of the year!) around the corner, I set up a little play flower shop for my daughter to get a flavor. She absolutely loves it and wants to play all day! She tells me in the morning that she "opened the shop", asks all day if she can be the florist, and closes the shop before bedtime.

I wanted to share the idea because not only is she enjoying it, she's learning a ton in the process.

Flower names and ID. I am proud (as a hort major!) that these words are common in our house: gerbera, rose, ranuculus, orchid, dahlia, and daisy. I just got out some of my old flower books for 'catalogs' and rounded up all the artificial flowers I could find in the house. You could even make your own catalogs from magazines and pictures online.

Money. Maddie is obsessed with money, and this has been a fun way to teach her the difference between dollars and cents, as well as work on counting and numbers.

Writing. As part of the purchasing process I have her write down my order. She usually scribbles, but she has also sounded out some names and learned to write a few numbers.

Desigining. Look at this little florist in the making! She made me a corsage (with a hair clip and bracelet) and changes flowers out of vases.


Imagination. We have had lots of fun pretending we're celebrating birthdays, going to parties and dances, getting married, visiting someone who is sick, and giving people flowers just because we love them.

I'm actually quite enjoying the little bouquets around the house.


***And now a little note on buying real flowers for the big day...

As much as I think it's important to support the local shops, we all know Costco has the best prices, hands down, right?!

Happy Valentine's Day!