A Degree in MacGyverology Required for Florists?

Sum­mer is wed­ding sea­son world­wide and we’ve been busy cre­at­ing an abun­dance of flow­ers for many wed­dings this past month. We thought we would share a few pho­tos from the range of our con­tract­ed events. Some flo­ral jobs were very spe­cif­ic requests and some requests were made for us to cre­ate from our own styles.

If there are any that you love and what to know how we did it, feel free to con­tact us for the scoop as we are always hap­py to share tips and tricks of our trade.  For exam­ple, when we sus­pend­ed numer­ous paper lanterns for an indoor wed­ding recep­tion, our effort took a com­bi­na­tion of a very tall intern, an “S” hook as well as a stunt woman, a roll of tape and a binder clip. Did we men­tion that a degree in Mac­Gyverol­o­gy is essen­tial in this busi­ness? Event details fol­low from our August adven­tures in flower arrang­ing. Enjoy!

Flower Duet Creates Floral Designs for California Wedding Day Magazine’s First Best of Bride Awards

Awards and Dinner Celebration held for 650+ Wedding Professionals at The Ebell of Los Angeles on August 20, 2014

We were so pleased to be asked to par­tic­i­pate as a co-spon­sor and flo­ral design­er for the first Best of Bride Awards from Cal­i­for­nia Wed­ding Day mag­a­zine. We cre­at­ed flower designs using rich bur­gundy, pur­ple and green flo­ral ele­ments in gold vas­es and con­tain­ers to high­light a sophis­ti­cat­ed par­ty and lounge space with a Vin­tage French Cir­cus theme at the his­tor­i­cal Ebell of Los Ange­les. The evening began with cock­tails in the gar­den, fol­lowed by awards for wed­ding ven­dors based in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Many of the ven­dors we work with in our Wed­ding & Event Heroes group based at Ter­ranea Resort were nom­i­nat­ed. We were so excit­ed when Ter­ranea Resort won for best out­door wed­ding venue in Los Ange­les. Our good friend Caren Lazarus of Design Vis­age won for best make­up and hair in Orange Coun­ty. Spe­cial kudos go out to VoxD­Js for being nominated!

After the awards, over 650 atten­dees were treat­ed to a won­der­ful din­ner in cre­ative par­ty spaces that includ­ed a New Orleans Jazz club, enchant­ed gar­den and for­bid­den romance room com­plete with a large pep­per tree! See more on CWD.com’s Face­book page.

If you want to learn more about the mag­a­zine and its awards, go to the Cal­i­for­nia Wed­ding Day site or pick up a copy of the mag­a­zine on news­stands now. Flower Duet is hon­ored to be part of a love­ly pub­li­ca­tion and enjoyed par­tic­i­pat­ing and co-spon­sor­ing this first awards cel­e­bra­tion for the best of the best in the wed­ding indus­try in our region. Many thanks to our fel­low co-Spon­sors of the party/lounge space. Every­one’s work was phenomenal.

• Cal­i­for­nia Wed­ding Day — Spon­sor & Host
• Expres­sion­ary Events — Design­er of French Cir­cus Theme and Lounge Space
• Rrivre Works Event Design and Rentals — Rentals of Fur­ni­ture and Spe­cial­ty Lighting
• Cater­ing of Paris — Hand­made Choco­late Crepes Cart
• The Hol­ly­wood Can­dy Girls  — Glow in the Dark Cot­ton Candy
• The Repli­cas — Live Music with Soul
• Jes­si­ca Eliz­a­beth Pho­tog­ra­phy — Slow Motion Video Booth
• Design­er Spe­cial­ty Linens — Accent Pil­lows in Cus­tom Fabric
• JLM Cou­ture — Bridal Gowns for Models
• Fri­ar Tux Shop — Tuxe­dos for Presenters
• Super­cool Cream­ery — Nitro­gen Iced Martinis
• Town and Coun­try Rentals — Event Rentals
• Pacif­ic Event Light­ing — Lighting
• Bri­an Leahy Pho­tog­ra­phy for the pho­tos of the event space.

 

 

Three-Ring Circuses Are a Good Thing

When most peo­ple think of a three-ring cir­cus, an image of “things a bit out of con­trol” may come to mind, which is per­haps not what you want for a wed­ding. How­ev­er, if you think about it….a three-ring cir­cus is a won­der­ful­ly chore­o­graphed com­bi­na­tion of events that are work­ing so beau­ti­ful­ly togeth­er, pro­vid­ing an amaz­ing visu­al and mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence. This is thanks to an orga­nized bride who has hired a pro­fes­sion­al wed­ding planner.

As the flo­ral design­ers and often the deliv­ery and set up peo­ple too, we find our­selves set­ting up both the cer­e­mo­ny and the recep­tion and if there is not a wed­ding plan­ner on site, we are tasked with some of those duties, too. Since we have pro­vid­ed flow­ers for many of the venues in the area, we know where the pow­er source is for the inside and out­side and where the cock­tail hour begins and where the bride is get­ting ready. Our best advice to all flo­ral design­ers: “Please encour­age your brides to hire a pro­fes­sion­al event or wed­ding plan­ner.” Many plan­ners offer a range of pack­ages that will work with your clients.

See a few more images of the #CWDBestof2014 event on Face­book of the Cal­i­for­nia Wed­ding Day French Cir­cus Theme.

Birdcage Flowers Birthday Party

Our col­league Stacey Stew­art of Sweet Pea Par­ties asked us to cre­ate flow­ers for a birth­day par­ty at the SLS Bev­er­ly Hills. It was a first birth­day for a love­ly lit­tle girl and we loved the bird­cage and teapot theme using pink and white flow­ers, accent­ed with bright green foliage and trail­ing var­ie­gat­ed ivy.

A one-year-old cel­e­brat­ing a birth­day in style is some­thing for the whole fam­i­ly to enjoy.  For any­one who has been for­tu­nate to raise a child or two, we know it is quite a jour­ney and under­tak­ing when you bring home a tiny new­born baby and then make it through that won­der­ful first year.  Moth­ers and fathers should be cel­e­brat­ed for their patience, jug­gling abil­i­ties and con­stant atten­tion to their bun­dle of joy. So, we say, “Cel­e­brate your great accom­plish­ment with your friends and have a great par­ty.”  If you are in the Los Ange­les area….be sure to call Stacey for a top-notch expe­ri­ence with Sweet Pea Par­ties.

 Paper Lantern Wedding Reception

We cre­at­ed wed­ding flow­ers for a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny and a recep­tion held at the Blue­wa­ter Grill on the water in Redon­do Beach and the bride also request­ed white paper lanterns for the recep­tion space. Want to know how we hung each lantern? Leave a com­ment below and we’ll answer you!

 

You Said What to the Bride?

By Kit Wertz

Wedding Etiquette Column in New York Times

As florists, we are often tapped by wed­ding cou­ples on prop­er eti­quette for wed­dings. Since we’ve cre­at­ed flow­ers for hun­dreds of wed­dings and have often served as de fac­to “day of” wed­ding plan­ners, we can answer most ques­tions regard­ing the rit­u­als sur­round­ing a wedding.

While perus­ing the Sun­day New York Times, I ran across an adver­tise­ment for a won­der­ful col­umn that would be quite help­ful to brides, grooms and wed­ding guests. The Well Man­nered Wed­ding col­umn cov­ers a range a top­ics from: How to decide whether to send a gift to a wed­ding you are not plan­ning to attend, and how a bridal show­er gift dif­fers from a wed­ding present.

I think this col­umn would also be use­ful  for brides or grooms to send arti­cle links via email to rel­a­tives who may have too many opin­ions on the “right way” to plan a wedding.

Answers are offered by eti­quette expert Peg­gy Post, the author of  “Emi­ly Post’s Eti­quette, 18th Edi­tion,” and a direc­tor of the Emi­ly Post Insti­tute in Burling­ton, Vt.

Any­one can sub­mit ques­tions to we************@*****es.com or by mail to The New York Times, Soci­ety News Desk, Fourth Floor, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. Include day­time and evening tele­phone num­bers so that Ms. Post and Times edi­tors may fol­low up.

Wine Bottle Vase Wedding Reception

By Casey Cole­man Schwartz

We fea­tured recy­cled wine bot­tles as vas­es in July’s newslet­ter and are excit­ed to share some images of the final flo­ral designs.  The bride and groom were very involved, as the groom, as we men­tioned per­fect­ed the way to cut the glass so we could fill them with over­flow­ing green­ery and pops of flowers.

The bride had worked sum­mers in col­lege at a local flower shop and so she new what she liked. This was a great bonus when it came down to how  she want­ed us to design in the wine bot­tle vas­es. Our bride want­ed lots of green­ery to be the base of each design and then wished for just one col­or of flower for each table.

Each table would have three bot­tles of  the same col­or full of seed­ed euca­lyp­tus, salal, dusty miller and mini green hydrangea to frame the pops of pur­ple and hot pink flow­ers. The com­bi­na­tion of full green­ery, one col­or and var­i­ous height con­tain­ers made for a delight­ful visu­al impact on the tables. I was with the wed­ding coor­di­na­tor recent­ly, three-weeks after the event and she was still com­ment­ing on how pret­ty it all turned out.

Many of our brides and grooms request recy­cled wine bot­tles for wed­ding recep­tion vase cen­ter­pieces. Here are some pho­tos from our for­mer-florist bride’s wine bot­tle-inspired reception.

Flower Duet Special Appearance at South Coast Botanic Garden 53rd Annual Foundation Dinner

In August, Casey and Kit were asked to appear as spe­cial guests at the 53rd Annu­al South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den Foun­da­tion Meet­ing and Din­ner. A record 181 peo­ple attend­ed the rose gar­den din­ner and we helped many of them cre­ate their own bou­ton­nieres and flo­ral fas­ci­na­tors. We also cre­at­ed the rose-themed cen­ter­pieces for the din­ner. The mis­sion of the gar­den is: To serve the com­mu­ni­ty by pro­vid­ing a unique hor­ti­cul­tur­al and wildlife habi­tat expe­ri­ence, and to rep­re­sent a mod­el of excel­lence for land recla­ma­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.  We were so pleased to be part of a won­der­ful cause and to meet the tal­ent­ed co-demon­stra­tors at the event includ­ing land­scape archi­tect, Deb­o­rah Richie-Bray, who has cre­at­ed the new design for the Rose Gar­den as well as Chopped win­ner, Chef Bran­don Walk­er.

Co spon­sors included:

• Baby­Cakes Baking Com­pa­ny
• Chef Derek Bran­don Walker
• Cua­tro Dias Winery
• The Events Boutique
• Flower Duet
• Kristi­na Lee Photography
• Mis­to Caffe & Bakery
• Oka­ji­ma Group, Inc.
• PAPER CREW
• Toro Nurs­ery
• Two’s A Party

Beach-Themed Wedding at Terranea

 

 

Book Review: Windowsill Art: Creating One-of-a-Kind Natural Arrangements to Celebrate the Seasons by Nancy Ross Hugo

We are intrigued by this book which will be avail­able to pur­chase today — Sep­tem­ber 1, 2014. While we can­not look at the book yet, it promised to have some inspir­ing ideas for the home flower arranger. One key tip we offer to all our stu­dents: Don’t put your flow­ers in a sun­ny win­dowsill, or it will short­en the life of the flow­ers. Flow­ers like con­stant tem­per­a­ture in an arrange­ment, so be aware that flow­ers in a win­dow will be exposed to vast tem­per­a­ture changes. Even with that caveat, we still think this book is worth a look.

From Ama­zon:

Almost every­one does it: puts a lit­tle some­thing on the win­dowsill to watch it ripen, root, or just sit there look­ing pret­ty. But the win­dowsill can serve as a stage for more inten­tion­al arrange­ments – a per­son­al, free-wheel­ing kind of art…a cat­a­lyst for cre­ativ­i­ty. Author Nan­cy Ross Hugo demon­strates how to use the win­dowsill as a plat­form for small, sim­ple dis­plays that cel­e­brate the sea­sons and reflect the per­son­al style of their cre­ators. Her fresh approach uses bot­tles, jars and oth­er small vas­es to show­case arrange­ments of local­ly col­lect­ed leaves, seed­pods, flow­ers, fruits and twigs. In Win­dowsill Art the read­er will learn how to find and dis­play mate­ri­als, why some con­tain­ers work bet­ter than oth­ers, how to com­bine mate­ri­als – and sim­ple tech­niques to enhance cre­ative pos­si­bil­i­ties. Beau­ti­ful full-col­or pho­tographs throughout.

Avail­able Sep­tem­ber 1st, 2014.

Pur­chase on Amazon.com.

Flower Tool: How To Remove Thorns from Garden Roses Quickly (and Not Hurting a Finger in the Process)

By Casey Cole­man Schwartz

In recent years the gar­den ros­es which have become avail­able to flo­ral design­ers are vibrant, scent­ed and full of tee­ny tiny thorns. We love them, but oh my, what a job to clean them! It takes a lot of work  to the point of being able to han­dle them, not to men­tion hand­ing them over to a bride before she walks down the aisle.

My intern, Kee­gan and I were faced with a bunch of Keira the oth­er day, and he turned to me and said, “How on earth do I get all these off?” I agreed that these stems were some of the most prick­ly I had encoun­tered. The tool I reached for is not found in the flo­ral sup­ply store, but in your neigh­bor­hood hard­ware store. As many of you know we use all sorts of tools for this busi­ness from unlike­ly places.

I grabbed a sand­pa­per sponge. Small and gen­tle enough to work those thorns right off the stem with­out stress­ing it. Large enough to hold onto, with­out get­ting a thorn in your finger.