It was such a pleasure doing Andie and Marcus’s wedding this April at The Valley Ho resort in Phoenix. We spent a lot of time together talking about achieving just the right shade of pink and we did it. The pictures from Marcus Photography turned out beautiful, thank you to Marcus for these great photos.

In Andie’s bridal bouquet we used hot pink and medium pink hydrangea, pink miniature calla lilies, Aqua and Tenga Venga roses from Eufloria and rhinestone studded stephanotis. Don’t they look so happy?

Did we match the bridesmaids dresses or what?

For the bridesmaids we used a combination of pure white flat leaf hydrangea and those same stunning roses from Eufloria that I used in Andie’s bouquet.

What a great shot of the whole bridal party.

Here is a shot of me at work on the bridal bouquet.

And an in-studio shot of the centerpiece.

All of the centerpieces lined up like good little soldiers.

Thanks Andie and Marcus for letting me a part of your special day.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Real Weddings by Jeanne
Tags: aqua rose, miniature calla lilies, rhinestone stephanotis, tenga venga rose
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Hello and welcome to Trendy Monday. Today I’m talking about the trend of using wax vessels for ceremony or reception decor.

Look at these beautiful tall wax cylinders we used for a wedding last fall at The Royal Palms, they glow so nicely with a candle inside of them.

Here is a wider angle of them. You would definitely get a more dramatic effect at night but these were sure pretty, especially with the hot pink ribbon embellishment.

Here is an example of black wax vessels with flowers in them for a centerpiece. These are from a local company here in Arizona called Candles West, they have a great selection of shapes, sizes and colors.

Check out this gorgeous centerpiece (in a green wax vessel) offered by Camelback Flowershop, those girls really know how to do flowers.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Trendy Monday by Jeanne
Tags: wax cylinders, wax vessel
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Hello and welcome to my Floral Friday series. This week and several weeks to follow I will be talking about orchids. I am going to keep it simple and only talk about the common orchids that we use in the fresh cut floral industry because there are endless amounts of orchid species to talk about. Today I am focusing on one of my favorites- the Mokara orchid.

The Mokara orchid comes on a stalk about 12 inches long, it can be used as is or it’s flowers can be picked and individually wired for boutinneres or as an accent to an arrangement. I would say that the average size of an individual Mokara bloom is about 1 1/2 inches.

One of the best places for me to get my wholesale orchids are from a national company called Mayesh. It’s important in the business of flowers to build great relationships with your wholesalers and one great relationship I have built is with Sue Wood from their Phoenix, AZ location- talk about a wealth of knowledge! On all things floral, just ask Sue. So today I had a talk with Sue about Mokara orchids, here’s what she had to say about color variety, “mokara orchids come in orange, yellow, gold, purple, shades of red, white (has purple polka dots) and pink. But let me elaborate on pink, it’s not really a true pink, it has a strong purple hue to it so you almost have to call it lavender. The variety “Calipso” would be the closest thing to a hot pink you can find.” I have ordered Calipso as a hot pink before and Sue was right, it was more purple then pink. So this is when the handy dandy floral spray comes in- something I will talk about in another post.

This is an orchid field in Singapore. Sue says that “Mokara orchids are either grown in orchid fields or in hot houses were conditions are ideal. Inside these hot houses it’s the perfect setting for them to flourish, they have perfect venhilation and just the right amount of humidity.”

They are then graded by length and size.

Sue told me that the largest exporters of Mokara orchids are Thialand, Singapore and Thaiwan and two of her growers are Amy’s Orchids and Talk Taiwan Orchids. Talk Taiwan Orchids has some really interesting and unusual varieties that are bi-color.

Here is a true yellow variety that I used for a wedding at the beginning of April, it’s called “Full Moon”. One thing to mention also, these orchids were not put in the cooler and sat in my studio for 4 days at about 72 degrees and were so happy and looked great. The cold cold temperature of my cooler is just too much for them and they could possibly freeze if left in there too long.

Here they are in a beautiful mix of hydrangea, tulips, freesia, bluporum and cymbidium orchids.

Please join me next week when I will be talking about cymbidium orchids.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Floral Friday by Jeanne
Tags: amy's orchids, calipso orchid, full moon mokara, mayesh, mokara orchid
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Welcome to Trendy Monday, today I am talking about the trend of using floral spheres in wedding floral decor.

I love the idea of using spheres in floral design! I think the look is so clean, modern and simple- like polka dots. Iv’e hung spheres from arbors, made sphere topiarys for centerpieces, created sphere topiary altar arrangements, made sphere kissing balls for flower girls, hung floral spheres from shepherd hooks down a ceremony isle and I’m about to make a kissing ball sphere on a stick for a flower girl (wedding coming up in two weeks). Here are some great examples of floral spheres, enjoy.

I love this rose ball for pew arrangements.

This is a great way to decorate an arbor for weddings.

Love the little girls and their kissing balls.

This is a fun idea for a centerpiece.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Trendy Monday by Jeanne
Tags: floral spheres, kissing ball, rose ball
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Hi and welcome to Floral Friday, today I am talking about the oh so french flower Lavender.

The smell is so wonderful and really does make me feel like I want to take a nap (so relaxing). The color is so soft and delicate- lavender with a blue hue to it.

The life of an event florist- it’s 11pm on a Friday night, the height of wedding season and what am I doing? flowers of course. I waited to blog for Floral Friday (it is still Friday for another hour) until I had my bridal bouquet done for tomorrow because it had lavender in it and I wanted to share a picture of it with you.

It has a combination of dried lavender

fresh lavender

and lavender foliage mixed with lavender roses and purple sweet peas.

I don’t get much call for fresh lavender for weddings and as I have been putting this wedding together I have wondered why. It is so beautiful! I will gather photos from the photographer and do a bragspot on this wedding for sure.

I found this great information on lavender from Wikipedia- “The most common “true” species in cultivation is the Common Lavender Lavandula angustifolia (formerly L. officinalis). A wide range of cultivars can be found. Other commonly grown ornamental species are L. stoechas, L. dentata, and L. multifida.

“Lavandula intermedia” or “Lavendin” is the most cultivated species for commercial use, since its flowers are bigger and the plants are easier to harvest, but Lavendin oil is regarded to be of a lower quality.

Lavenders are widely grown in gardens. Flower spikes are used for dried flower arrangements. The fragrant, pale purple flowers and flower buds are used in potpourris. Dried and sealed in pouches, they are placed among stored items of clothing to give a fresh fragrance and as a deterrent to moths. The plant is also grown commercially for extraction of lavender oil from the flowers. This oil is used as an antiseptic and for aromatherapy. Lavender is also used extensively as herbal filler inside Sachets used freshen linens and discourage moths from closets and drawers. Dried lavender flowers have also become recently popular used as confetti for tossing after a wedding.”

check out these natural lavender bouts, I can’t wait to see it altogether.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Floral Friday by Jeanne
Tags: fresh lavender, lavender
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Petals down the isle is a very popular trend for weddings. Iv’e seen it over and over in many bridal magazines and get requests for it all the time (almost every wedding). I offer it in 3 different ways- scattered petals down the isle, two lines of petals (like the outside lines of an isle runner) down the isle, or petals in some sort of pattern.

This gorgeous ceremony was created by fellow blogger and florist Kristin Brancaleone of The Treasured Petal Blog. I read her blog and love to see what fantastic things she’s up to.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Trendy Monday by Jeanne
Tags: isle petals, rose petal isle, rose petals
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The gerber daisy is one of my favorite whimsical flowers, it’s ideal for a more casual look.

They come in so many different colors- white, cream, light yellow to bright yellow, peach to bright orange, bright red to dark burgundy and light pink to bright pink. When ordering them you can also specify whether you would like the center to be black or light.

This is a common way they are shipped. Usually by the time I get a hold of them they are somewhat dehydrated and their necks are very weak. At this point I pull them from the box, dip them in an acid solution and then place them in water with floral conditioner (food) in it. I have to be very careful when they are weak not to let them hang over the side of a bucket because once they start drinking water and firming up, their necks are permanently stuck in whatever position they have been placed in. One way to deal with this is to pull chicken wire over the top of the bucket, then drop your daisies into the water and let the chicken wire hold up their heads. In an arrangement they either need to be wired or gerber sleeves need to be placed on them because their heads are so heavy they can droop quickly.

Cute idea for a glass container.

This was a centerpiece I did for a wedding last fall at Circle Bar Ranch with the ever-so talented wedding planner Cicely of Life Design Events. It’s featured in the current issue of Arizona Bride, check out the full article.

Warm regards,

Filed under: Floral Friday by Jeanne
Tags: gerber daisy, gerbera, gerbera daisy
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