The Full Bouquet

SARAH WHITEHALL MANOR- LOUDOUN WEDDING

Happily for me my brides are sending in pictures from their weddings last year. Hallelujah because I love, love, love, having pictures of my work. Especially this time of year as I am looking through my pictures with client after client. Thanks to photographer Len Spoden for capturing Sarah and Jason's Whitehall Manor wedding, this past June. Loudoun weddings are always amazing this time of year.

The brides bouquet was created with pink peony, pale pink sophie roses, candy bianca roses and antique green hydrangea.

Maids carried bouquets of white carnations, white hydrangea from my garden, dusty miller, green hypericum berry, white phlox, and white limonium.

Small jars of honey were given to guests as favors.

Half of the centerpieces were designed on vintage glass cake plates. We used snapdragons, ferns, peony, spray roses, roses, larkspur, berry, and fillers from my garden to create these lovely arrangements.

The other half of the centerpieces were arranged on my white iron stands. This elevated half of the centerpieces and that really made the reception room feel festive.

Happy married life Sarah and Jason. I am so glad I got to do your wedding flowers.

GIVE ME PEONY

This time of year I have flat out flower withdraw. Luckily for me, I do have some winter weddings this year, and that will make the DT's a little easier to handle. I look outside and see my frozen gardens and I want to scream "give me peonies." Here are some peony creations from last year. I hope they bring a little bit of Spring to your day and mine. The first pictures is a tree peony from my garden. I know, delicious right!!!

White, pink, or red, I don't care, just give them to me. The above 3 images were taken by photographer Anne Robert.

No matter how I arrange them, I simply love them. Photograph by Kristen Gardner.

Photography by The Regeti's.

Every single one of these hot pink lovely peonies came straight from my garden. I literally walked through my garden creating this bouquet.

These maids bouquets featured my hot pink peony and viburnum, also from my garden. Last two photographs by Genevieve Leiper.

Photograph Ron Jones. White and pink peony mixed with white lilac, pink ranunculus, pink lilac and bupleurum.

I look forward to Spring and having peonies in the garden.

Friday NIght Wedding & In The Cooler

 

We have been busy, busy, busy, this week. It seems whenever my work load is slightly smaller I pack so much extra into the week that I am shockingly swamped. We have met with countless brides or moms this week. It is time to finalize plans for my fall 2010 brides and we are inundated with requests for 2011. I am also working on a new website, blog, and processes for our ever growing and changing business.  We have a wedding today, tomorrow, and Sunday. I am not quite sure why my mind thought this was a smaller work week, perhaps it was because the weddings were spread out through the weekend. Our wedding today took place at Sunset Hills Vineyard. I need to be back at the venue at 11:00pm tonight to strike the event. When florists or vendors talk about striking they mean breaking down the event. Did you know we had to do that?

 

The wedding today featured berry toned flowers, we also used as much local product as possible. Thanks to Don's Dahlia's and Fields Of Flowers for their fabulous blooms.  Whoops, thanks to my son Alex also who grew me zinnias, celosia, and hydrangea.

 

Cabbage roses were special ordered to create the bridal bouquet, but the hydrangea was local, and the lovely pink snow berry was straight out of my garden. Have I ever mentioned, that I love to try and include one blossom or foliage from my garden in every bridal bouquet I make. 

 

Designer Jessie made incredible bouts and corsages!!!

 

 

 

We lined the aisle with hanging mason jars.

  

Centerpieces were rich, rich, designs from the garden. We used cosmos, zinnia, celosia, dahlias, scabiosa, black berry buds, hydrangea, stock, amaranthus, coxcomb, and foliages.

 

 

This wedding was absolutely beautiful and we loved working with Maria and Kelly of Ritzy Bee Events, Kate Headley Photography, Fusions Cuisine. and  Stephanie The Baker.

 

 

Happy wedding Jenn and Anthony!

Here's whats "in the cooler."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's time to go STRIKE!!!!
 

Katie's Wedding- Woodend Sanctuary

I had the pleasure of providing the wedding flowers last weekend for Katie. Her wedding took place at the oh so beautiful Woodend Sanctuary. I loved this wedding, and I am dying to share it with you. I tried to wait until the amazing Kate Headley had a chance to get me the images, but when she sent me this one sneak peek photograph I knew I would share it immediately with you. This wedding was designed by event planner Ashley Summers from Table 6 Productions. Ashley is one of 6 chicks that plans events for Table 6 productions, this company handles several different major markets and they are totally fabulous to work with. In fact you can find our Jamie and Brad wedding here, which was an event we did this Spring together in West Virginia. Ashley covers, the DC,MD,VA, West Va, and CO markets, she is a superstar.

Now here are the images we captured, but remember they are mine and when Kate's get here everything will look so much more lovely. 

 

Ok, I have to admit this picture is pretty amazing. Katie's bouquet was created with milky way roses, David Austin cabbage roses, white majolica spray roses, white freesia, white lizzy, white sweet peas, and white ranunculus. I never promise out of season blooms to brides, but I always ask my wholesalers for them just in case. If a particular bloom is found then I am able to surprise my bride. Katie loved ranunculus but I did not believe I would be able to give them to her in August. Lucky for us both we got ranunculus and I was so happy to include this Spring time flower in her bouquet.  We wrapped the bouquet in lace from her grandmother. I loved, loved, loved, the finished design.

 

 

 

We created four very lush and rich designs, these were used at the ceremony and then they became the elevated designs on the long head tables.

 

This photograph shows the table before the large altar pieces were added to the head tables.

 

 

All of the designs were created in my vintage milk glass vases and placed on these amazing linens. I can't get over how incredible these tables looked!

 

 

This picture of my bride seeing her reception for the first time says it all. I heard she shed tears of delight which was awesome, because I shed tears over her bouquet as I placed the lace on the bouquet. There was no doubt in my mind that Katie's wedding would be perfect.

You may have noticed I skipped " in the cooler" last night, we happen to have the weekend off. It is amazing to me how blessed and lucky we are, because my schedule seems to keep working out.  I never even had an inquiry for this date and of course it was meant to be, I have two kids getting ready for college and this is the last weekend we are all together.  Not to mention the fact that we are still reeling from last weekend, we had a wedding on Friday, 3 on Saturday and one on Monday of this week, so the wedding Gods, knew after five events last weekend and with the kids leaving for college I would need a little break. I think we are headed to the zoo.

Danielle - Oatlands Plantation - Holly Heider Chapple Flowers

Danielle married this last Saturday at Oatlands Plantation. Her bouquet was a creation that I throughly enjoyed making. My notes said have fun making this bouquet, the bride trusts you. I did just that, I had fun.

 

Danielle told me what colors and types of flowers she wanted,  but I got to display them the way my heart told me to. We used yellow mini callas, pink nerine lilies (which I totally love), pink roses, yellow billy balls, blue thistle, pink veronica, green hydrangea, blue delphinium, green button mums, seeded euc, and fillers. We bound the bouquet in hot pink ribbon to go with Danielle's hot pink shoes.

 

 

The maids bouquets featured snapdragons, which gave the bouquets a very loose and gardeny feel.

 

 

Corsages featured all the blooms of the day. I love the bright and cheerful summer colors.

 

The wedding had a garden theme so they married, in the gardens of  course.

 

 

 

We continued the theme by designing in large dish gardens of wheat grass. We flew the flowers out of the grass and the look was so perfect.

 

 

We created a large garden display of grass for the favors. Lolly pops were to be placed in the grass for all of the guests. Super cute.

 

We also provided flowers for a family heirloom. Years ago Danielle's grandfather made a wishing well for the upcoming family weddings. Danielle wanted us to create a garden around the well to help soften the look of the well.

We loved designing this wedding! Lots of thanks to planner Jessica from Simply Chic Events and to Joylyn Hannahs Photography.  Happy married life Danielle, thank you for allowing us to be your flower girls.