Oooooo! Flower School

I want to go back to school. Well at least this school.

While traipsing around looking for something interesting to bring you for Flower Friday I ran across La Belle Ecole. Located in Paris, the school offers a variety of disciplines from cooking to painting but it was the floral design that caught my eye.

Offerings are set up as either 5 day intensive workshops or individual 2-3 hour classes. The workshops, called the Floral Art Week of The French include a field trip to the famed Rungis, the largest open air market in the world.. ~sigh~

I especially covet this one The Parisian Florist: Florist and Decorator, on June 30th. It covers Bouquets, window design and wedding flowers.

Enjoy the pretty slide show on both links. If you suddenly start dreaming in French, don’t blame me.

Vicki, if you are reading this, I can pack really quickly and my passport is in order.

Mad about Green

Maybe it’s the season, but I am suddenly mad about green. A pretty place to start to pick the colors for your wedding is to choose a base of one or two related greens, then add cream and an accent color for pop. You can almost not go wrong. This works especially well if you are planning an outdoor wedding.

For more inspiration, go to COLOURlovers and type green into the search box.

My Favorite Bouquet. Ever.

I have always thought that flowers in and off themselves are works of art. Sometimes arrangements and bouquets can get a bit too contrived and you miss the independent beauty of individual blooms. Just to give you an idea, this is the image I have on my desk top.

Over the last few days I have been working with images for a website I am building and ran across this bouquet. Oh my. I am pretty sure that this composite bouquet has to be my favorite bouquet ever. In this creation, Vicki Sanders of Branching Out Event Florists has captured the intrinsic beauty of a Stargazer Lily and pushed it to the limit.

A word of warning: each one of those petals is individually wired and taped. Then the ‘bloom” is composed out of the petals. The petals of lilies aren’t the hardiest little buggers, so you always have to make extra in case a petal becomes damaged in construction. Having said that; don’t expect a bouquet like that to be a low cost option. It certainly makes a statement though. Can you just imagine how fabulous it smells. Ahhhhhhh.

Top photo by Christine. Bouquet photo copyright David Wright Photography.

Wedding Bouquets

Is it just me or is anybody else getting bored with the hand tied bouquet trend?

When they first came on the scene they were a refreshing change from the more contrived bouquets of the 80’s. It seems that in recent years everyone has forgotten there are other styles of bouquets.

Depending on your unique body type and the cut of your gown there may be better options. So here is a brief overview of some of the different bouquet styles.

Presentation: Think beauty queen. Designed to be held in the crook of the arm they have longer stems and often a more relaxed feel. These can have the look and feel of having just left the garden or the sleek simplicity of a few simple calla lilies.

Cascades: Long and tear drop shaped they can help elongate your overall look. Either loose and flowing or tight and symmetrical depending on the style of you wedding.

Posy: These can actually encompass any round bouquet done in a holder. What makes them different from a hand tied is that the stems are cut and stuck in a holder with floral foam. Not only are you losing the weight and girth of the stems but your blooms will stay fresh longer thanks to the water filled foam.

Pomander: A round ball of flowers suspended on a handle or ribbon. Carried in front it provides a spot of color them slip it over your wrist when you need both hands. A fresh and clever alternative to the same old thing.

Now there is a bride with a handle on things!

Goodies from Around the Blogosphere

I have been completely swamped for the last week and just today have gotten a chance to catch up on my blog reading. As usual I found some wonderful things to show you. So let’s get to it.

First up flowers:

Kristin Newman Designs Not a blog but still a worthy stop as you surf for ideas for your wedding décor. Kirstin is an event coordinator in Charleston, South Carolina. Her website has enough photos to keep you delighted and inspired for hours.

Michelle Rago Ltd Michelle is an event designer and florist on West 28^th, in New York. I was lucky enough to find her blog thanks to a couple of the blogs in my reader (see the list at the right). Sorry that I don’t remember which one, like I said last week was crazy. If whoever originally posted about Michelle would leave their link in the comments I would be grateful. Thanks to Michelle for all the inspiration. That is her creation an the left. Very cool.

Oh Happy Day! Wants you to bring the love back for carnations.

On to DIY

Abby Larson’s blog, Style Me Pretty always comes up with marvelous ideas for DIY. You may remember a while back she held a contest to submit your DIY. You can see the entries here. This week she is showcasing some DIY design idea from Matthew Mead. Here, here and here.

Inspiration

Oh Happy Blog some great ideas for a chic modern wedding inspired by all things Ikea.

Finally, Liene is running a quick two question survey on her blog, Blue Orchid Designs. Take a moment and show a fellow blogger the love. Besides, I am dying to see the results

Finding Inspiration III

I thought that I would leave you with some inspiration for the long holiday weekend. The images above are all from my favorite floral designer, Vicki Sanders. She and her team at Branching Out are quickly becoming the most innovative and sought after event designers/florist in the South. Yes that is her on the bottom row.

A while back I clued you in on a wonderful rental company that I always seek out when I am in need of inspiration, Fabu. I also gave Sarah a whack of the pencil for not having a great website so I didn’t have to fight the traffic to get to her shop. Well great news, Sarah’s website now has an extensive catalog of fabulous thing that you can peruse to your hearts content. Not only that, but she has opened a new show room for the event rental side of her business to make viewing easier. Incidentally, if you like Sarah’s taste as much as I do you should check out her gift shop. With the holidays just around the corner I know I’ll be there at least a few times to find the perfect little gifts for everyone on my list.

Gorgeous Flower Ideas for Your Wedding

There is a goldmine of flower ideas out there if you just know where to look. Rather than trolling through the same old galleries that you have looked at before here are a couple of new and wonderful site I have run across recently.

Wedding Flower Ideas. This on from the UK is just chock-a-block full of great ideas for anywhere you could possible want flowers from the ceremony to the cake to a really big collection of bouquets. I hope you have an hour or two to invest.

Asiel Design This company out of California is both a design service and floral company. Wait until you see their portfolio. Their site describe Linnea Asiel as what you would imagine if Pablo Picasso and Tim Burton had a love child. That pretty much sums her style up. Be warned, the opening page has music and I could not find any way to turn it off; so if you are at work (no, not you) hit mute before you open it.

The Flower Expert Once you have found all these beautiful flowers you may want to know just what they mean. This handy online flower encyclopedia will have the answer for you. Again, I hope you have a few hours to invest because this is another site that I could wander around on for a while.

The Fun in a Hyper-organized Wedding

Back in September I posted the first installment in the saga of the Michigan wedding that friend of the Dish Courtney Hammons had the pleasure of participating in as a bridesmaid rather than the highly qualified wedding planner that she is. Well I finally wrangled the rest of the story out of her.

Let’s see if you find bits of this as funny as I do. The commentary at the end is purely my own; sometime an outsider sees thing a little differently. At least there weren’t any bomb scares at the wedding. Read Part I here and Part II here

Wedding Day – Sept 15^th

7:30am and my mom is knocking on my hotel room door – I am being told that it is time to go get ready for a 5pm ceremony. Seriously what is wrong with this picture?¹ So out I go in my powder blue sweat suit (that matches my mom, sister and all the other bridesmaids!!!)² Once at the house of the parent’s of the bride the fun begins! I guess when you are doing hair and make-up on 18 people you got to start some time.³ Mom is first so that she can go back to the hotel and take care of my niece. It’s amazing that even when she get’s her hair done it looks just like she did it. Mom is back to the hotel with my sister and I settle in for a day of lounging around. By 1pm everyone is done with hair and make-up and we begin the task of getting everyone dressed. All the dresses are hung alphabetically (did I tell you we had to ship our dresses ahead of time)⁴ Some dresses are to big and others are to small but in the end everyone is in their dress and ready to help the bride put on her one of a kind bridal gown. She looks gorgeous and is so happy to be marrying my brother. The flowers arrive and I all can say is please consider the size and weight when choosing bouquets! The bride’s bouquet came in at 10lbs can you imagine that for the next 10 hours.⁵ Pictures went without incident at the house and once everyone was loaded into the 2 limos and the Bentley off to the ceremony. A beautiful ceremony it was but the pictures afterwards took FOREVER! Not only were we a hour late to the reception we somehow managed to miss the sunset shot. Now let me take a moment and explain the reception one room was for dinner and the other room was for the band and dancing. So we have everyone enter the dancing room for announcements, first dance (which the band did not know!!) and the father daughter dance. We than move everyone (250 plus people) to the dinner room and than towards the end of dinner we ask everyone back to the dancing room for the Horah and the mother son dance! Anyone else see some challenges here!⁶ Well that’s it! After a year of planning, parties and excitement it was all over in a matter of 8 hours! Off to Belize went the bride and groom. And back to Tennessee came my husband and me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Do you have any idea how exhausted everyone is going to be by the end of this day? Sure the bride and groom are off to sleep it off in Belize but the rest of the world has to get back to their real lives.
2. Please, please tell me they did not have “Bridesmaid” embroidered across the butt. Please.
3. Ok if you subtract the two mothers and the bride that leaves 15 attendants. What! you asked your entire sorority to be brides maids???
4. I don’t even know where to start. Hung alphabetically? OK then, that takes being organized to a new level. Add to that the “ship our dresses ahead of time” thing, which was so the mother could install identical bustles and you are bordering on obsessive. Can some one explain to me how long of a train a bridesmaids gown has to have to require that it be bustled?
5. Piece of cake. You only thought that the reason a bride must spend the year before their wedding lifting weights was to tone their arms, it’s really so they can lug around 10 pounds of flowers in addition to the weight of their dress. Never forget that it’s not just a wedding – it’s a marathon. Train, train ,train!!!
6. This is the one that cracks me up. I can only picture this crowd of 250 rising as a single unit and shuffling from room to room, sitting in unison and then repeating again and again. Reminds me a very well dressed, multicolored giant amoeba.

I am glad that Courtney survived with her marvelous sense of humor in tact.

I want to hear your tales of wedding excess, leave them in the comment section so we can all share in the joy.