Yellow Rose of Texas?

You would think that the state flower would be the Yellow Rose, right? At least, they should make it the yellow rose after the fame of the song, but no. The State Flower of Texas is actually the Bluebell! Who knew? Well, I'm headed to Texas tomorrow for a wedding over the weekend and thought I'd post some recent work in honor of the Lone Star State.

Brian and Amy decided to use the colors of the college where they met and fell in love...bright sunny yellow and deep navy blue. Amy was so fun to accomodate with requests like, Daisies, but not Gerber daisies, and even with a math degree she wanted it messy without being too messy...not uniform and straight but not droopy either. She had the specific color requests and if the blue wasn't a real honest deep navy blue we needed to try something else, but otherwise, she was so willing to hear ideas for alternate flowers and arrangements. The blue Delphiniums that we used are a cousin to the Texas Bluebell, and ironically enough, there are yellow roses there too! with the greenery and a couple of spots of white to add interest, it was a lovely collection of flowers.

The fun part came when the groom offered some assistance. The groom?? Yes, the groom! Brian had been an avid lover of Oragami for years and wanted to include at least one blue paper flower for his bride. The idea sparked and we all loved it! In the end, Brian made more than 20 flowers for us to use in ALL the arrangements, and they were a huge hit!

What a bright, beautiful, cheerful collection of fun! Thanks, Brian and Amy for allowing me to bring such loveliness to light!

Midway Madness

Nearly a year ago, I found myself two days away from the due date of my second child in the midst of the largest wedding of my career to that point! Liz had exquisite taste and I was thrilled to get to work with her...despite the timing! With my large belly, I delivered the flowers for bride, groom, and their attendants to the ceremony site at the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, and then lead a caravan of cars up to the lovely Inn on the Creek in Midway, Utah.

My fantastic husband hefted boxes of supplies and bucket after bucket of flowers. He then ushered our three year old daughter around the property and snapped photos of my work for my portfolio while my amazing assistant, Melissa and I put together the 9 table arrangements, laid out the boutonnieres and corsages for the parents, and organized the flowers for the cake. The stellar staff of the Inn helped us coordinate decorating when the other vendors finished their work, and then we had such a tasty break for lunch at Granny's before a lovely drive home through the bright summer day.

It was a very long July 31st...but I think everything turned out so well! I was able to breathe a sigh of resignation when I experienced some contractions during lunch, but then our sweet Olivia waited until Monday during a planned inducement to arrive. (Thanks, sweetheart!) Liz was such a dream to work with and she had such faith in my promises that I would be able to deliver the vision she had for her gorgeous deep purple and sage green wedding. I learned so much about preparations for a wedding on location, organized timeframes, and planning communication with my staff. Add such beautiful supplies and flowers, and I was so honored to be able to create this work. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!



For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Bright Yellow Loveliness

Spring hasn't quite sprung yet, though the sun is shining, so today I want to put some of my own sunshine on the screen. A lovely bride, Lauryn, chose classic flowers of hydrangeas, dahlias, freesia, ranunculus and Queen Anne's lace in lovely shades of butter yellow and cream, accented with ribbons in grey.

It was a rainy day at the intimate reception hall at the Kaysville ponds area, but yellow brightens any event!


The bouquet was obviously done in advance, as were the toppers to a selection of frosted glass and black iron hurricanes that she used in strategic spots in the room, but the flowers on the cake had to be done on location. It made for a dramatic day of delivery, design and eventual downpour!



Thanks again, Lauryn, for such a wonderful and beautiful collaboration!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Time Lapse Flower Wedding?

There are a lot of advantages to having a photographer for a husband...amazing portraits of our family, LOTS of job options in different avenues of photos, as well as the fact that he possesses a great eye for color and design which means that his opinion always brings some weight to what I do too. The down side?...millions of pictures of me in the most inopportune moments. I can't count how many pictures I've seen of myself asleep on the couch or that were just supposed to be test shots for his lighting set-up on a fashion shoot, but that he keeps for his own amusement.

Well...a new option on his camera has created an interesting education for both of our jobs...time lapse. I did a wedding a couple of weeks ago, and Jon set up his camera on a 30-second timer and cranked out a time-lapse look at how I work. As you watch, understand that I work into the wee-small hours of the morning making sure that the flowers will be at their peak for delivery times...which means, yes, I'm in my sweats and my hair is pulled up so that I can tumble into bed once everything is in the cooler. Yes, he also shifted the location of the camera at one point, so I apologize for the shots of my behind, and thank you for assuming that, yes, I'm starting to look pregnant...that explains the belly.



Jessica's cute pink and green daisy, rose, and ranunculus wedding was a treat, and there were a couple of highlights! While waiting for the bride at the Salt Lake LDS Temple, some other patron stood looking at the flowers we had brought and asked how we got them green. My husband knows quite a bit about flowers at this point, and started to answer that there actually are a few varieties of flowers that grow naturally green...when I had to stop him and inform them both that those green ranunculus they were discussing were spray painted. Many compliments about how clean and natural they looked followed the disbelief, and that is always great! Also, the bride in front of Jessica carried a similarly sized bouquet, although the stems on her flowers massed together, and I will refer you back to my previous discussions on 'claw hand'. Her colors were similar, although more pale than bright, and she even had similar flower choices to Jessica's bouquet, so it was a great boost to the ego for both of us when the bride in front looked back a little wistfully at Jessica's bouquet and said that she wished her bouquet looked like THAT one. Excellent fun!

I hope you enjoy a little look, not only into the final product on the day of delivery, but at the process of time it takes to repetitively create a cohesive wedding floral spread like Jessica's. A little more understanding about why you hire pro for this part too, eh?...no bride wants to cut into her beauty sleep if she can help it.

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!