Wrapping Up Imagination

So many of my brides order a bouquet with wrapped stems and think nothing more of it. I smile every time that I surprise girls by asking them what KIND of wrap they may prefer. Huh? How many different ways can a bunch of stems BE wrapped, you ask? I haven't stopped counting! To get these girls started thinking about the kinds of twists, bows, pins and colors they can use in wrapping their bouquets, my fantastic husband helped me put together a brochure to demonstrate a few of the more common wraps I've used over my career. We didn't want to stiffle any imaginitive new options, but feel free to use these as a springboard to more fun that is entirely your own!


Click on the image to view an enlarged view!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Calle and Dustin

Yes, I am asked to use daisies often. I'll admit that they didn't use to be a favorite for me, and I would groan inwardly when I got requests about the blooms. When Calle came along, I thought it would be more of the same...oh, how wrong I was!

Not only did Calle have a very specific idea of what she wanted her wedding to be, and what she wanted it to look like ten months in advance of the date when we met with her, but she stuck to those ideas right to the very end! Choosing daisies in a citrus combination of a melon pink, orangie-orange, lemon yellow, and her signature lime green, the combinations were so fun to see! She wore a single orange daisy in her hair at her engagement session on the Heber Creeper Railroad. At her bridal session at Lagoon she made sure to wear her green-bottomed shoes, carried a lime green umbrella (which came in handy through the small showers we experienced), but she also got her choice of cars and seats throughout the park, and every time she chose the green car closest to her! She was always aware and prepared!

For her wedding, each of the bridesmaids wore coordinating tracksuits and flip-flops during the decorating hours and then put on their gowns which had been tailored specifically to coordinate those colors again...matching their flowers to their dresses. If the maid wore a green dress, her accent colors of ribbon, heels, and flowers were white. If she were in pink, the yellow accents showed up through every detail. It was planned down to the last tiny thing, and I was thrilled to be included in something so well designed!

A couple of other sweet touches to the day were a tiny green boutonniere for her four year old son as well as small photo frames attached to her bouquet of her mother and brother who had both passed away, but who were loved and remembered. Thanks so much again to Calle for all the amazing fun, fantastic design, and the beginnings of daisy love!

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Weddings and Women's Basketball?

Forget that most atttendees at a University of Utah vs. Brigham Young University Women's Baseketball game are parents of the team or 10 year old girls of school alumni...the U of U combined forces with our friends at Bride Access to throw a really fun wedding show! We were invited by Bride Access to present a booth on the concourse of the Huntsman Centr during the game, and we had a nice afternoon rubbing elbows with other vendors and handing out treats to the attendees of the game. Today, we got video footage of the half-time fashion show courtesy of The Perfect Dress...models escorted by Swoop. Fun stuff!

Summer and JD

What a great summer for our fantastic Yellow Rose of Texas, Summer! It takes a special girl to choose bright sunny yellow as her wedding colors, but Summer was certainly up to the challenge! (She did one-handed cartwheels in her wedding dress...both at the bridal shoot as well as on her wedding day, and check out the sassy yellow cowgirl boots!) The amazing group of people in her wedding party were also a huge amount of fun, and seeing every one of them in dresses, tuxes, and holding flowers at the Salt Lake LDS Temple was amazing! The rain threatened, and Summer teared up herself to think that her fantastic outdoor reception could be ruined on account of the weather. But, the sun shone down at just the right time, and the entire event, from the candles floating in the pool to the paper lanterns hanging from the trees, was beautiful...with Sunmer as the perfect smiling centerpiece, and a smiling JD at her side.

Simple yellow roses combined with hydrangea, gerbera daisies, and tulips for a beautiful set of arrangements, but the bride kept the monkey's tails for herself and the groom...a fun way to set their flowers apart from the rest. Summer made the vases for the centerpieces herself, scrapbooking pictures, phrases, and fun from her courship with JD, and adding flowers to it all brought the whole look together. Thanks, you two, for allowing me to be part of such an amazing and completely fun event!!!

See more great flower photos at my Florilista website!

Silk Flower Fun!

Most artificial flowers aren't necessarily silk anymore, simply for the fact that there are so many shapes and colors that can be created with so many other substances, but I still love the sound of "Silk Flowers." It brings to mind beautiful memories of luxurious dresses from the 40’s and French couture from any era.

It's come up several times of late...brides that have multiple events who don't want to pay for two separate fresh flower weddings...or brides that just love their flowers and want to keep them for more than a day or two...what if you want fake flowers?

Over the last couple of years, I've actually made several fake flower bouquets, just for the fun of making them. A good number of them have ended up in bridal photos shoots done by my husband when one of our clients were so focused on hair and makeup or the wrinkles in the dress that they just happened to forget the flowers for the bridal session. Most people are surprised at how realistic some of these arrangements can look on film, and I really enjoy that surprise! Here are a few examples of how fake flowers can be fun, pretty, and pretty realistic.

Orchids, Callas, Berries, and Grass

Melanie emailed me from New Jersey with a half-inch jpeg of a bouquet and asked if it was something I could recreate for her Salt Lake City wedding. With the help of a zoom, magnifying glass, and some insightful guessing, I was happy to recreate this beautiful assymetrical bouquet using phalenopsis and dendrobium orchids, 3-foot calla lilies as well as mini calls, hypericum berries, and bear grass. I was also able to create some boutonnieres and bouquets of the mini callas for the bridesmaids and gromsmen with an orchid boutonniere for the groom. Using the nearly 4-foot callas in the centerpieces added a great connection through the event with orchids and bear grass on the cake. It was such a beautiful wedding, a beautiful party, and such beautiful flowers to work with! This "Orchid Wedding" is a consistent favorite with all my clients and is definitely worth a mention in my review of my best and favorite work. Thanks again, Melanie for all of the fun!

Thanks for all the fun!

We had such a great time at the Grand America Bridal Extravaganza last week! We know it was tough to try and pull yourselves out of the house on a cold Saturday morning...much less so when that morning was the day after the new year...but it was great to get to meet so many of you and talk flowers and photography, so thanks for taking the time!

It's difficult to go wrong in such a gorgeous venue, and we loved filling our booth with the photos and flower accents that we hoped set us apart from our neighbors.


One of my favorite things when it comes to trade shows is to play with the flowers that strike my fancy. For a show like this, I have no customer with specific requests...it's just me. Things were made a little bit difficult because of the holiday. My wholesalers were closed for the weekend starting on Thursday, so I had to be very careful which flowers I chose...I needed flowers that would be hearty and would last the weekend, and I wanted some colors and styles that would appeal to brides with various tastes.

My first choice was Stargazer Lilies. Not only do they take about four days to bloom (I still have a lovely arrangement on my coffee table that is continuing to bloom), but they are strong and striking! I added some soft pink roses and some draping seeded eucalyptus accents to make a fairly formal bridal bouquet. To add to the fun, I used a floral shaped gold bouquet holder and sparkling brown bling to bring out a new look to the classic pink and brown that we all love.


Next, I decided on something to the far end of the spectrum from formal...baby's breath! Gypsophila is a sweet, fun, and simple flower that most people remember from their parent's wedding photos from the 70's or 80's. Baby's breath got a bad rap after being over-used and abused in the floral industry during those decades, but I wanted to show that any flower can look different when you have some imagination! Instead of using it as an accent or a filler the way that makes everyone I know roll their eyes, I chose to make it the main flower in a solo-flower bouquet. All Gypso...all the time! By trimming some of the branches to keep the flowers into a textured pom, I had so much fun taking this cute little flower to a new level. The shape took on a tree-like quality to me, so I chose some green and brown ribbons to wrap the stems in my pinned ballet technique for the ground effect, and then added some blue butterflies in the "sky". It's just such a happy spring bouquet that I still smile every time I look at it.


To bring in more color and some styles to the middle of the road between formal and casual, I chose some vibrant orange calla lilies, spray roses, and alstromeria (princess lilies). A classic shape of bouquet was offset by using a little bit of bear grass springing out as well as caging the blooms. I was particularly proud of the stem wrap on this one, simply for the fact that there is only ONE PIN in the entire thing. The stems were wrapped in two large aspadistra leaves and then were wrapped in more bear grass to hold it all in place. Lots of wrapping, overlapping, and twisting, ending in a single pin at the top, and you have a great looking, clean-green grouping of stems!


My final bouquet was a cross between the classic and the sweet. Another single bloom bouquet in white, but this time made up entirely of stephanotis blooms. My silver bouquet holder looked great, but I knew there would be a bit of space showing between the blossoms, so I wrapped the head of floral foam in an extra aspadistra leaf and pinned it in place. Each stephanotis bloom was also pinned in place with sterling pins right through the center, creating a great effect of metal in the petal. I had brought some sleek silk grey and black ribbons, but a single bow just didn't seem like enough...so I kept going! I added loop after loop of the layered ribbons to back the stephanotis flowers and pinned the loops in place with more of the sterling pins. The final bouquet turned out better than I'd hoped. One more reason why a little bit of imagination and simplicity can be totally new and different! Also another reason why following a feeling with flowers is what turns fun into fashion!


Thanks so much again to all of you that stopped to chat or if you even just picked up a card to view at home...I had a great day and hope that you did too! I'm already starting to consider my options for the next show. Hmm...blue and purple next time? Daisies and hydrangea? I'll ponder!

Come see us at the Grand!

We're excited to be joining the great team at the Grand America for the upcoming bridal show! Come see us on Saturday, January 2nd, and feel free to sit on the couch, go through our new portfolios, and enjoy the photos and flowers that we are excited to present!

We hope to see you there!!!

Flowers Uncut

Yes, I had it programmed into my tivo before the premiere. Most of you know that at any given time, if you were to walk in on us watching tv, it would be about a 50/50 chance that you'd see wedding dresses, flowers, or wedding cakes on the screen. We really do live weddings in our house! My new favorite thing, thanks to the TLC station, is Jeff Leatham and his team. They create the most amazing flower designs for events in New York City. He's worked all over the world, and I now have a huge case of flower envy for the events at Versaille as well as the MoMA...who gets to do flowers for an event sitting at tables surrounded by original Monets?! After the first episode, I wanted to work for him. After the third, I realized that he needed to come up with a couple of new ideas because some of the arrangements are the same from event to event...but it made me smile to see that he re-uses vases. I do that too! It also made me nod knowingly to hear him drop costs on some of the episodes...yes...for something that beautiful, you're talking $4,500 just in flowers...add in supplies, labor, and his name to the deal, and you can just imagine how high his invoices soar.



I am so much of a flower geek at this point, that it made me giggle to see how many times he used hydrangea (I recommend it all the time as a money saver...and here he is using it as a major design piece in every single event!) as well as that he hired someone else to come in and build bouquets and boutonnieres for him on a wedding. He does events...locations...full rooms of flowers...not personal bouquets. Hmm. Maybe I can call and suggest myself. ;) The final smile is that Jeff is actually from Ogden, Utah! Yes, you heard me! This funny man in cut-off tees and leather pants, with the mouth of a sailor when riled, and who sports a questionable accent because of all the locations he's lived, is a home-town boy made famous! How fun is that?!

Ahh...share the flower love and joy with me, people! Thank you TLC for combining so many of the things that I love most!

Mariana and Carlos

We definitely work with some of the most fun and wonderful people! And, as many wonderful couples as we've worked with, Mariana and Carlos are probably in our top five when it comes to the weddings we've done this summer! Talk about the cream of the crop! Mariana is from Brazil and Carlos is from Spain, so the cultural flare and style that they brought to every meeting we had was like a breath of fresh air!

Not many couples could pull off dancing through their engagement session or kissing at the top of the Capitol. Heavens, so few people could pull off those white shoes! Good thing Carlos is gorgeous, sweet, and a salsa dancer! And Mariana matched him every step of the way!...she's just as sweet, just as gorgeous, and check out those fantastic toe points when they dance! Preow! You go, girl!



Mariana had some amazing flare for her wedding flowers too! It was so much fun to bring in flowers like blue iris and hydrangea. And, despite some reservations from Carlos about a little bit of drama possibly going over the top (he requested a single white rose for his boutonniere), we all compromised and came up with some gorgeous arrangements that brought in ostrich feathers, architectural aspadistra leaves, and ribbon sprays!

Thanks so much to the staff at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for their awesome support and their go-to attitudes! And thanks to Mariana and Carlos for dancing so colorfully into our lives!