Pressed for Ideas

I'm always looking for more ways to permanently capture things about your wedding day.  Hopefully it was the best day of your life, which is why a videographer and photographer are ESSENTIAL!  Being a florist, I search for floral preservation techniques for the brides bouquet.  More and more ideas are coming into fruition.  I was reading my trusty COSTCO Connection Magazine today and came across this business:

All Seasons Floral Preservation
www.allseasonspressed.com

Check them out!  It's another great option if you want to keep your bouquet forever....or until death do you part, really, since we can't take anything with us from this life to the next. 

But that's a topic for another day.

Wedding Blogs

One of my new favorite ideas is doing a wedding blog. Once you get engaged start a blog together. Tell about how you met, about the proposal, blog about wedding planning, post pictures trying on different dresses, post un-used engagement pictures. Another good thing about doing a blog is that you can get feedback. You can say, "I'm thinking about going through ________ for my catering. Does anyone have any input on that?" etc. (Note: Slurping your blog to www.blurb.com doesn't transfer really well. So you'll probably want to create your book at the same time as you do your blog and just copy and paste everything into both. Otherwise you have to spend a lot of time fixing the layout of your book at blurb.)

Making sure you leave enough time to get the book before your wedding, have your blog turned into a book. You could put it in chapters; for example:

Chapter 1 - Dating
Chapter 2 - Engagement
Chapter 3 - Wedding Planning
Chapter 4 - Sign-in book

Leave lots of blank pages in chapter four. Intersperse the blank pages with engagement pictures. Then let everyone sign this book at have a peek at all your wedding plans at your wedding. In the end you will have everything about your wedding, including the love notes from those who shared the day with you, all in one place. You could even scan and include cards from friends and family who attended showers or sent something in advance.

I wish this was something available when I had gotten married. But those were the good ol' days.

Bride's Bouquets

Let's talk about the Brides' Bouquet. Just as with every other detail of your wedding, your bouquet should be a reflection of who you are. How do you do that? Consider the following:

1. What is my dress like? If your dress is ornate, a simple bouquet would probably be best.
2. What is my body shape like? Your bouquet can be another tool you use to look your best on your wedding day if you pick the right shape.
3. What do I LOVE? Your bouquet, as with everything else on your wedding day, should be what you love. What if your dress is ornate, but you want a big fancy bouquet? YOU SHOULD HAVE ONE!!

The problem is that most people do whatever is "in style" whenever they get married with no consideration at all to the above questions. I have to laugh at an "in style" wedding because if your wedding is "in style" that automatically means two things: 1. It wasn't YOUR style, and 2. It will be out of style.  Don't just do whatever you've seen at all the most recent weddings! Look at a lot of different pictures to see what you really love and DO IT!

Consider the following examples:


This beautiful bride opted for a hand-held, long stem-showing bouquet with a lot of personal touches. With her on-the-farm wedding I personalized her bouquet by binding it with straw string, making a "W" out of horseshoes (both her maiden and married name started with "W").


This bride loved the cascading variety, but didn't want it to be too long. She already has gorgeous, long legs, so that was a good choice to flatter her body.



This bride liked the idea of having stems showing, but wanted her bouquet to look less formal and put-together. So it's arranged in such a way that it doesn't look like every flower was specifically placed (which, of course, it was), but rather like she gathered a bunch of flowers and just bound them together.

This is a good example of doing what you love. Her dress was very ornate, but she loved the big, ornate, cascading bouquet. And so that is what she got! GOOD FOR HER!

This bouquet is a great cross between super formal and tight (like the top bouquet), and very informal (like the third bouquet).

This bouquet is customized to the theme of the wedding (Spanish Vinyard) with the addition of the grapes. It is also a big, long, cascading bouquet. It was perfect against the backdrop of her simple, elegant dress.

This was the first all-white bouquet I ever did and the bride was thrilled with how it turned out (me too!). It is also of the cascading variety, but hers is more involved at the top and thins out as it goes down.  I became a believer in the all-white bouquet after this!  I loved how it turned out!

This cascading bouquet is full all the way down, but the bride wanted more greenery than flowers at the bottom. 

Sorry for the blurry picture. Don't know what happened there. This hand-held, stem-showing bouquet is a great marriage between formal and informal. It has the stems showing, which is traditionally informal, but it's put together in such a way that it fit perfectly with her formal wedding.

This bouquet made mostly of "black" Callas and dark wine Dahlias was accented with peacock feathers. They were such a fun addition and it turned out great!

So start looking at pictures anywhere you can find them. Remember the following:
1. Only consider the outside edge. For example, if you were going to lay the bouquet on a piece of paper and trace it, when you lifted the bouquet, what would the tracing look like?
2. All the colors and kinds of flowers can be changed.
3. Gather pictures and make sticky notes your florist. Write on each picture things like, "I love these colors" or "I love this kind of flower".
4. It's as important to tell all the professionals you work with what you DISLIKE as much as what you LOVE. Make comments like, "I like the style, but dislike the orange flowers!" or "I love the Calla Lilies, but dislike the Roses!"

Happy flower picking!

Bride's Shadowboxes

One of my new favorite ideas this year is the Bride's Shadowbox. It's a fabulous idea, if I do say so myself. All brides have the same problem: What to do with her bouquet at the end of the evening. You could maybe hang the flowers upside down and dry them, but then what? They are brittle and shatter easily. You can't clean them at all. They just look horrible. But use fake? NEVER! Ugh! So what do you do? How do you use beautiful, fresh, fragrant flowers and then somehow keep them as a remembrance of the best day of your life for the rest of your life? The answer? A shadowbox!

This is one of the shadowboxes I did this season. I used flowers and extras from the bouquet, then added a copy of their wedding invitation and a picture from the wedding with the bouquet showing. It turned out really great!

Butterflies are a personal favorite of this bride, so they were placed throughout the cascading bouquet. They are a great addition to the shadowbox.

I have been using Silica Gel (which is actually a powder) for my preservation. It freezes the flowers in time. It is an amazing thing! It draws the moisture out of the flowers, but it doesn't take the moisture on itself. So you can use the powder over and over again.

Some flowers do better than others with Sillica Gel. You have to carefully pour the powder on the flowers, so flat flowers, like daisies of any variety, or stiff flowers that you could put in a cup and fill with Silica Gel, like roses, do especially well.

In order for the Bride's Shadowbox idea to work for you, you need to do some advanced planning. The preservation has to be done immediately. So you either need a willing florist that someone can deliver the bouquet to them at the end of the evening for them to do the preservation, or a willing family member that will wait for you to be done with it and then start the preservation process. Perhaps your family member or friend could do the preservation and then you could take everything to your florist when you return from your honeymoon for them to arrange. It is a long process, but it's worth it for the treasure you get in the end! The best part about the Bride's Shadowbox is that the options are limitless to what you could include. Pictures, your cake topper, your cake-cutting knife, the garter belt, the tiara you wore, your jewelry, etc. etc. etc.

One thing about using Silica Gel: It is an art in and of itself! Don't think that you'll just buy some and have whoever do the preservation for you at the end of the evening having never used it before. Buy a bunch of flowers at the store and practice the preservation process. You'll learn in a hurry what works and what doesn't.

The Brides that I have done shadowboxes for have been thrilled with the idea of having somewhere to put their wedding day treasures that is clean, sturdy, all-inclusive, and looks incredible!

C & T

Another example of how striking an all-white bouquet can be was this cascading bouquet. Stargazer Lilies, Calla Lilies, Lisianthus, Stock, Delphinium, and Liatris - all in white, were accented only by their own stems and Bear Grass loops.

Only the Bride's bouquet and the Groom's bout were all white though. All of the other flowers used were full of summer color. For example, this Mother's corsage made of fuscia Orchids and mini yellow Gerber Daisies.

Or this father's bout made of purple Lisianthus and mini yellow Gerber Daisy. Bear Grass loops were used throughout the arrangements.

The all-white wedding cake was only accented lightly with vibrant colors.

Never Underestimate the Power of WHITE

A lot of people are afraid to use varying shades of white for their wedding, but an all-white wedding (including shades of off-white) can be incredible!
This cake made by Gateau Fille (see her blog at right), and covered in White Stargazer Lilies, White Hydrangea, White Lisianthus, and White Roses was a show-stopper!!

Spanish Vinyard Wedding

One of the best ways to make your wedding your own is to have a central theme. What is something that describes who you are, as individuals and as a couple, that you could use as a theme for your wedding? This couple, who met in Spain, selected "Spanish Vinyard" as their theme. Everything about their wedding - including their flowers - reflected their theme.

The tables were beautiful! Black lanterns were surrounded with fresh flowers and grapes.

Another great way to personalize your wedding is to have it at a location that is special to you.
The Brides' family estate was the perfect location for their wedding.
Hanging baskets filled with their flowers and both sugar-coated and plain grapes
were placed throughout the yard.

Small bundles of flowers and grapes were hung throughout the trees
to add more color to their late Fall wedding.

My two favorite pieces to build for this wedding were the brides' bouquet and the cake.
The bride gave me free reign on both items to do whatever I thought was best.

When a bride is deciding the shape of her bouquet, her number one consideration should be her body shape. A very close second consideration should be her dress. If your dress is very elaborate, you would want a small, simple bouquet. But if your dress is simply elegant, as was this one, it can support an elaborate bouquet.

Shades of wine, purple, and green were the palette for this wedding.
The bouquet included them all. Sumatra Lilies, Lavonda Roses, Green Hypericum Berries, Stargazer Lilies, Black Bacara Roses, Purple Lisianthus, and faux grapes
filled this long, cascading bouquet.

Then finally the cake. In light of their theme, a basket-weave pattern was the perfect selection for the icing. The cake and table were covered with all of their flowers and colors.
The final touch was a traditional Canrian Knife, a gift from a Spanish Native,
that was used in their cake-cutting ceremony.


Everything you can do to personalize your wedding will not only make it more meaningful to you, but it will be something special to all of your guests. It will be memorable to everyone
because it wasn't a standard, cookie-cutter wedding.
This Spanish Vinyard wedding is a perfect example of that.

C & A Wedding

This beautiful wedding was done in Eggplant, Champagne, and Chocolate
(unless you asked the groom, in which case it was Purple, Off White, and Brown).
Black Calla Lilies (shown below) were the emphasized flower.

On a visit to the local flower wholesaler the bride fell in love with a unique filler that I was told would not be available for their wedding. When I went to pick up the flowers, there it was!
It's always fun when things work out.

The reception hall where they were married provided these candles, wreaths, and stands.
We added the fresh flowers to make them look like they were made just for them.

Mini Black Callas were added to the silverware along with a Champagne bow.
They were so simple and elegant!

The wedding cake was topped with Mini Black Callas and Purple Dahlias.

The Groom's Bout: Mini Black Callas and White Freesia.

Bridesmaid's Bouquets

The Brides' Bouquet: This simple hand-held, stem-showing bouquet was so elegant!
Real peacock feathers were added to the fresh flowers and added such a unique touch.