Reminder - Bella Intima Event on April 18, 2009 at the Allied Arts Guild

You're probably all wondering why my blog posts have been few and far between. Things have been busy and stressful the last week or so. To boot, I caught another lovely cold. So, I've been trying to get caught up on all my orders and commitments that are coming due. This bouquet was inspired by one of my current brides. Slightly different than what she wants, but not too far off. Ivory peonies, Victorian purple roses, freesia, hyacinth, tulips, callas and stephanotis. The brown branches make it more rich and give a different texture. I really like this bouquet!I wanted to share with you the bridal bouquet that Patty Lee of 8events asked me to create for the Bella Intima Bridal Event at the Allied Arts Guild on April 18, 2009. As you may recall I had to back out of being a vendor due to my workload, but she asked if I could at least create a bouquet for a model wearing one of the gowns provided by Unique Bride for the event. I also still wanted to honor the donation arrangement for the raffle. So here's what they both look like. If you have not signed up, be sure to do so at www.bellaintima.com. You don't want to miss this event. You can read more about the vendors participating at www.bellaintima.blogspot.com. If you register before the day of the event, it is free. If you show up at the door, it's a $10 donation.

DK Designs Bridal Bouquets for the Ralston Hall Bridal Faire - Part IV

Here's one more bouquet that I finished today. It's green cymbidium orchids, ivory roses, tuberose buds and tuberose flowers finished off with a shimmery ivory ribbon and a rhinestone buckle. I always like to call this color combination, Tropical Elegance. It's got subtle greens and ivories with just a hint of color in the mouth of the orchid in the rich yellows and magenta pinks. Stylish and sophisticated. These types of bouquets are so popular for destination weddings. Cymbidiums are my all time favorite flower, especially the green ones. :)

DK Designs Bridal Bouquets for the Ralston Hall Bridal Faire - Part III

Here is another bouquet that I finished this morning for the Bridal Faire at the Ralston Hall for Sunday. I have one more that I hope to post about tonight or tomorrow morning. This one makes me think of tropical punch and rainbow sherbet. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful. I think the green, pink and orange color palette are one of my favorites of all times. It's such a happy color combination. This bouquet has green dendrohbium orchids, orange ranunculus and fuchsia pink roses with some greens to finish off the bouquet. The ribbon is a luxe fuchsia pink iridescent ribbon with a fuchsia and green iridescent criss-cross overlay.
This bouquet makes me happy. :) Today I start working on my bridal bouquet and centerpiece orders for 2 of my brides, one is getting married in Jamaica and one in Florida. Let's just say, the next two weeks I'll be making flowers every day and night until it's all done. Call me the flower making machine! LOL.

Black and White Bouquet - Anemones, Gardenias and Sweet Peas

I got an email early this week from a bride who saw my stuff and asked if I would be able to make a bridal bouquet for her NYC wedding on 2/21. Yes, 2/21! She isn't spending a lot of money given it doesn't make sense given the economy and she's having a vintage style wedding in black and white. She bought most of her items from Etsy artisans which I think is awesome. I suggested to her ivory anemones and sweet peas. Although her budget wouldn't allow what I had envisioned, we scaled it back and added gardenia flowers per her request with a few anemones thrown in. I love the striking look of this bouquet. Soft and subtle but the black anemone centers break up the ivory and white color palette. Plus with the black satin ribbon wrap I decided to add a little sparkle with the rhinestone buckle which I think will match since her hair fascinator has some rhinestone treatments in it as well.

Clay Stephanotis Bouquets with Crystal Centers are Back!

I think this will be the last post for the day. My productivity level is at it's all time high.. LOL... The 100 stephanotis flowers I finished yesterday have resulted in 2 gorgeous stephanotis bridal bouquets. These 2 bouquets are available for purchase on my Etsy site! They are on the petite size as the only measure 7 inches in diameter and 9 inches in length, but I find that more and more brides want something petite, stylish and sophisticated. Stephanotis bridal bouquets are classic and exquisite and I love that nowadays you can embellish them with anything you want. Obviously rhinestone crystals are very popular and a more modern version to the traditional pearl centers.

I've also added crystal rhinestone buckles to compliment the sparkle in the flowers. Tiffany blue still seems to be very popular, but I also made one with ivory ribbons for the bride that wants something more traditional. Now it's off to make more cake flowers and samples.

Kirsten & Chris - Real Weddings (Fall Bouquets)

This morning I received a link from my bride Kirsten of a sneak peek from their photographer, Richelle Brown Weddings! It's absolutely STUNNING! If you recall from my previous posts earlier this month, I did these gorgeous fall bouquets with chocolate proteas, green succulents, ranunculus and two town orange roses. Richelle Brown's team did a fabulous job. A beautiful fall wedding. I love the pumpkin centerpieces!

Kirsten also had a really sweet "thank you" email she sent me about her wedding day and how happy she was with my bouquets and floral items. It really makes my day when I receive such wonderful thank yous from my clients.

Diane, I really can't thank you enough for the work you did on our flowers. They looked absolutely fabulous! The guests could not believe they were clay. We did have a *very* light sprinkle of rain on our big day---I didn't subject my bouquet to it, but the groom's boutonniere held up just fine during a few outdoor shots. Our families all loved them and everyone was thrilled that they get to keep them forever! I will send some pictures along when we get them back from our photographer! Thanks again,Kirsten

Click here to see the rest of the photos from Kirsten & Chris' wedding. Kirsten & Chris, thank you for sharing your beautiful wedding day photos with me and my readers!

(Images courtesy of Richelle Brown Weddings)

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Pineapple

Today is a busy blogging day for me. So much to talk about...

So this afternoon I started doing my daily blog reading and I wanted to see if Miss (or should I say Mrs.) Pineapple posted anything new on her blog! They took a little honeymoon getaway after the wedding. She had some photos of her wedding day and I found the link to her photographer's site/slideshow of their wedding day. It gave me goosebumps. It was so beautiful and I almost felt like I was a guest at their wedding. It looks like such a wonderful wedding and fun reception. I love her candy bar.. so festive and fun! (Image to the left is courtesy of Mary Mervis Photography)

Anyway, click here or on the image to see the photography done by Mary Mervis Photography! I can't wait to share more as Mrs. Pineapple provides more images! I absolutely loved the Pittsburgh skyline and city as the backdrop to their wedding photos. Modern and so beautiful. Emily was definitely a DIY bride and everything she did and worked on were AMAZING!

Congratulations again Mr. & Mrs. Pineapple! It was such an honor to work with you both on creating everlasting bridal bouquets and flowers for your special day! October 18th is truly the SWEETEST DAY!

Clay Stephanotis and Plumeria Bouquets with Swarovski Crystals

A client who found me via the Miss Pineapple blog post on Weddingbee.com, asked if I could make her a stephanotis bridal bouquet and a plumeria maid of honor bouquet for her wedding in Maui. She saw a couple of my bouquets that I did a few years back and wanted to recreate something very similar. Her stephanotis bouquet contains over 130 stephanotis flowers that are accented with Swarovski crystals and the stems are wrapped with white satin ribbon. The maid of honor bouquet is made up of white plumerias with yellow centers and mixed with yellow plumerias with a pinkish hue on the outer edges of the petals, again accented with Swarovski crystals in the centers. The stems are also wrapped with white satin ribbon.

Plumeria and stephanotis flowers are such delicate blossoms that it's hard to keep them looking fresh throughout your wedding day. The clay flower bouquet option is such a great alternative for these flower types and what's even better is that not only will it look absolutely stunning on your wedding day but also for many, many years to come. No one will know the difference. I can almost bet that many of the bride's guests will be asking to smell the bouquet only to realize that it is made out of clay!

Victorian Elegance Bouquets Complete...

Last night I managed to stay up and finish Laura's toss (keepsake bouquet) and maid of honor bouquet. This morning, I woke up and finished her bouquet. Her bouquet flowers consist of light peach peonies with copper centers, peach ranunculus with the signature green centers, copper tone roses and mauvish purple roses with copper tone accents. I have to say, trying to put together a bouquet with peonies is a bit challenging just with the size/shape compared to the other smaller flowers, but I think they all came out really nice. The colors are beautiful together and the copper tones warm the entire bouquet. Laura didn't want any white or ivory tones in her bouquet and she wanted the focus to be on the copper color. So on her bouquet I decided just to use the copper toned flower clusters and add in more of the lighter copper tone roses. I used one more open peony to make the arrangement fuller and added some peony buds to fill in. She wanted her stems wrapped in all brown so I wrapped the stems with double faced chocolate brown satin ribbon and then crisscrossed back with brown organza ribbon.



Her toss bouquet and MOH bouquet were similar yet different. With those I went with the stephanotis with pearl pins and the tuberose flowers to fill in the gaps. I think it also brings out the colors of the other flowers quite nicely. Both of those were wrapped with the chocolate brown satin ribbon, but no secondary ribbon for those. Whoever receives the toss bouquet will surely be ecstatic to have something like this! (Laura.... I really hope you're just giving this to your special wedding guest and not doing a "free-for-all" toss.... Although the flowers are durable, they aren't meant to be tossed. :)

As I continue to make more bouquet orders and see how many people entrust me with their wedding day florals, it really makes me stop and think that the times have changed and people REALLY ARE looking for alternatives to fresh flowers. I think the even better thing for brides in terms of considering clay flower bouquets as an alternative is that someone (me) handcrafted each flower one petal at a time. I'm enjoying more and more the creative side of doing the flowers more so than the invitation side I guess because I continually perfect my flower making techniques. Well... onto the next orders in line (favors, baby shower invitations, guest book and more favors)...

The First Official Wedding Bouquet & Boutonniere of the Summer 2008 Wedding Season Holds Special Meaning

Today I completed the first official wedding bouquet and boutonniere for the Summer 2008 wedding season. I have been wanting to share this story with everyone, but I wanted to wait until I finished the order. This order came to me via a http://www.weddingbee.com/ reader who saw the post from Miss Pineapple who also contracted me to do her wedding. Her name is Debi and she knew that it was very short notice, but she asked if I could create her dream wedding bouquet. This came during the week that the blog post went up and I got 15 serious inquiries. I told her that I would do it and we worked out the details of what she wanted.

The reason this bouquet order has special meaning to me is because of Debi and Ed's story. Debi and Ed got engaged on July 4th, 2007. Earlier this year, Debi was involved in a serious car accident (she fell out of the back of a pick-up truck at plus 50 miles an hour). She's lucky to be alive. She couldn't walk, stand, drive or put any pressure on her leg. She explained how important this wedding is to her and just hearing her story and reading about it on her wedding webpage (don't worry Debi, I won't give out your link), I felt VERY HONORED to create something for her and Ed!


Debi wanted green cymbidiums with more of a copper bronze mouth and throat instead of pink or burgandy, she requested purple lavender colored hyacinths (more about that later), pink and cream roses and stephanotis flowers. Debi picked the specific flowers because each one has special meaning to her and Ed. Well, the ones I know about are this, the pink roses are the first flowers Ed gave to Debi and she took 20 plus photos of them and even framed one and put it up on her wall. The purple hyacinths... well, long story short, Debi meant to say purple hydrangeas. Purple is Ed's, her daughter Jennifer's and her late Grandma Josie's favorite color. Plus she told me that she and her Grandma Josie used to pick purple hydrangea balls and carry them around like bouquets so she could hold them while wearing her mom's wedding gown. So after I made hyacinths, took pictures and emailed her, she realized after her other daughter Becca told her where are the hydrangeas, that she made a mistake. She called me in a panic. I told her that I would not charge her for the change and to send me pictures of the purple hydrangea she would like. She was so appreciative. I told her I would just use them in an arrangement I could sell on my Etsy.com site. She emailed me back and told me that she wanted some hyacinths because every flower has meaning to them and now the hyacinths would remind her of our friendship and working together. So of course, I agreed.


Debi has gone through a lot. She's had a lot of bad luck over the last several months and I continue to encourage her and remind her that what's important is the love that her and Ed share. Ed took care of Debi at her worst and continues to support her during with his love and support! To me, that's true love... when someone you care about loves you unconditionally even at your worst moments (kind of like my own relationship with Michael - he saw me at my worst and still loved me unconditionally).

Anyway, I know this post is a lengthy one so I'll wrap it up. My agreeing to do Debi's bouquet, boutonniere and hair flowers made her excited to get married (she wasn't sure she'd be able to with the car accident) again. I redid some of her flowers because I wasn't happy with how they were looking so I guess in a way, Debi inspired me to do my utmost best and not settle for just o.k.!

So there you have it, my first official bouquet of the summer 2008 wedding season and it's a great way to kick off the flurry of wedding bouquet orders I have from now until October! Lots of love and best wishes to Debi and Ed for an everlasting, loving marriage! One last note, it just so happens I ironically had 4 hyacinths left which represents the day Ed proposed to Debi and she accepted (4th of July). There also just so happens to be 4 white roses and 4 pink roses and 7 cymbidium orchids. Of the 4 hyacinths, I put one in Ed's and 3 in Debi's to represent that Ed completes Debi... I always loved the line in the Jerry McGuire movie even though it was corny - "You complete me".... Debi and Ed DEFINITELY complete each other! :)