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!

Summer Wedding

It's hard to think about growing anything when it's -6 degrees outside. So instead I thought I would share some pictures from a wedding I did flowers for back in June.

 The beautiful bride and groom wanted vibrant pink and green, with a little orange thrown in for fun.

The mother of the bride was my girls' camp co-conspirator, so we had just spent many, many hours together. The wedding was the week after camp, so it was fun for me to do something for her after she did so much for me!

I wish I had stunning pictures of the flowers, but I had just lent out my camera card and only had my phone to document the process.

We ordered tons of white hydrangea for the centerpieces, and roses and calla lilies as the color.

Lots of interesting things come in lime green. We tried bells of Ireland, hypericum berries, and buplerum.

I always like to start with the most important piece: the bridal bouquet. This was about halfway through!

The bridesmaid bouquets were made to match the bride on a smaller scale, sans orange. 

The ice sculpture arrangement echoed the bride as well. 

Mothers wore pink corsages. 

A handful of pink callas made a statement for a side table.

The table centerpieces were white puff balls of flowers. These look a bit alien before they were places on the glass hurricanes with water and green petals floating in them. Again I wish I could show stunning photos of the reception, but I wasn't able to go because I was on the Young Women 4th year hike! I hear it was incredibly beautiful and I was honored to be a part of it.

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...