Category Archives: Weddings

On the Edge of the Water

One of my favorite things about this job is other people’s imaginations. To hear about what a client has dreamed up, and then to bring that vision to life, is a never-ending challenge. And I mean that in a good way. Mollie threw me two delightful challenges with her February wedding to Rob:  First, she wanted a big, juicy, asymmetrical, gorgeous floral hair crown. Second, she wanted a presentation bouquet. You know, the kind you carry in the crook of your arm, like a dancer — which Mollie is.

The floral hair crown was not entirely daunting, as I’d been recently tasked with creating a couple of them for styled shoots (see blog post). But still. This was a real wedding! For Mollie’s, we went for full romance — big blush garden roses and delicate white ranunculus, intermixed with smidges of reindeer moss and other textural delights. The presentation bouquet was a little more challenging, as it became more unwieldy to hold as I continued to add flowers to it. Every now and then I’d stop to rest it in the crook of my own arm and look in my studio mirror. Did I look like a dancer? A bride? Not exactly, but I knew Mollie would.

I loved the muted, sea-inspired color palette that Mollie and Rob chose — perfect for the Edgewater Hotel on what turned out to be a very rainy day. But with all that candlelight and love in the room, it couldn’t have been warmer or cozier. (And the gorgeous photos by Maurice Photo are here to prove it!)

Wall + Flowers at OSP

The other day I discovered that the beautiful blue wall of waves in the Olympic Sculpture Park’s Paccar Pavilion is no longer! (I know, where have I been?) Made me realize just how attached I’d gotten to that gorgeous backdrop by Sandra Cinto, for celebrations of all kinds. Of course, the geometric, richly hued piece that took its place is also very cool — but I thought I’d share this wedding from the wave days in honor of their passing.

Plus, the photos that Barbie Hull took from this wedding are AWESOME!!! Wow, did she ever capture all the vibrancy of summer — and all the textures that I so love to play with. Garden roses unfurling next to scritchy scabiosa pods. Maidenhair fern trailing gracefully from playful groupings of ball dahlias and zinnias. The coral, orange, soft yellow, white, and green color scheme that the bride and groom requested was the perfect counterpoint to the blue and grey tones of the venue. It’s a florist’s dream when colors come together like this.  Added bonus:  Holly-Kate and Company on hand to make sure everything went flawlessly.

(And if you missed the blue waves, you can at least see a fascinating video showing its installation here.)

Casting the Right Bloom (at Cast Iron Studios)

What a difference one single flower can make. That’s what I think about every time I look at the images from this juicy, winey wedding we did at Cast Iron Studios last September. As any florist can tell you, purple weddings are tough. There just aren’t a ton of purple flowers to choose from, and the ones we do have at our disposal can be finicky:  hydrangea runs an unpredictable gamut from pale pinkish-lavender to plum speckled with green, lisianthus suffers the dreaded botrytis all too often, delphinium is so darn gangly, and some of the best plum-purples, like ranunculus, just aren’t available all year round. It’s a tough life, I tell ya.

But purples were the order of the day for this early fall celebration – which happened to take place on the MOST blustery, stormy day I have seen in a long time. (We’re talking about heavy iron doors blowing open and sending things tumbling down the stairs. Ack!) I rounded up my best purple soldiers and sent them marching into elegant silver vases and sweet hand-tied bouquets. But something was missing….

It was the gorgeous, vibrant, unique plum cascading phalaenopsis orchid, found by accident and purchased by the armload immediately! This deeply saturated blossom gave everything the punch and wow that I was looking for, and elevated the arrangements from sweetly gardeny to sexy and sophisticated. Behold, the power of a flower!

Beautiful images courtesy of Carolyn Kipper Photography. Thank you, Carolyn!

Peony Season at Sodo Park

What month is this? Not where am I, but when am I? Those are the questions that I catch myself unawares with. As a florist, I’m very focused on the seasons and what is at offer to my working hands. But as a wedding florist specifically, I am also caught in that odd whirlpool of planning for events to come and tying up loose ends on events past. Right now, in engagement season, my mind is so much in August and September that sometimes I have to remind myself that we haven’t even officially left winter yet!

I was thinking about Risa and David’s wedding at Sodo Park last spring, as in our orbit around the seasons we circle closer back to peony season again. While 90% of brides who meet with me say that they would LOVE to have peonies in their wedding, only a small handful actually get married in the 3-4 week window of late May-mid June when local peonies are doing their thing. Risa was one of those lucky brides.

We filled her wedding with delicious, vibrant, juicy Coral Charm peonies, as well as Icelandic poppies, godetia, sweet peas, asclepias, and other seasonal delights in super saturated colors of hot pink, orange, and coral. Bits of cool silver dusty miller and grey-green succulents provided contrast. I loved the overflowing planter boxes laid out on the “Hogwarts”-style tables at Sodo Park, and loved the way stripes and chevrons worked their way into the festivities. Color and texture:  my favorites!

Peony season is only a few months away again… Or was it only a few months back??

All-Star Vendors:

Planning and Coordination:  New Creations Wedding Design

Linens:  Choice Linens

Photography:  Bradley Hanson

DJ: Bamboo Beats

Hollywood in Seattle, from Houston with Love

In the spirit of the upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations, this post looks back at one of 2013’s sparkliest, NW-blingiest weddings. What is “NW-bling” you might ask? Well, seeing as I just came up with the term, it’s a concept in flux — but you can safely assume that NW-bling includes beaded lamps AND ornamental fungus. Shimmery vases AND understated blue hydrangea. And in this case, the whole scheme was inspired by a super fun bride from Texas.

The Hollywood inspiration tablescape -- we can do better than this!

The Hollywood inspiration tablescape — we can do better than this!

Planning a long-distance wedding requires a lot of trust on the part of the client. Candace and I began the process of fleshing out ideas for her wedding at Urban Light Studios over the phone; she and her fiancé had been to Seattle but both lived in Houston. Her decor vision was inspired by the 83rd annual Academy Awards Governor’s Ball. It was a to-the-hilt look, and one I don’t see a lot of in Seattle. Frankly, I thought we could do better! 

Candace rounded up all of her vendors for a site visit a couple of months before her wedding. The ever-insightful and awesome Kirstie Warren of Simply Wed was on the team at that point. Seeing the linens plus table lamps plus florals plus chargers plus flatware plus Chiavari chairs…. (whew!)… helped us edit the look. The room was going to be PACKED with elbow-to-elbow guests. We nixed the blue glass goblets and the sequined linens, and came up with a gorgeous, Houston-meets-Hollywood-meets-Seattle decor scheme that turned out to be one of my favorite weddings of 2013!

What do you think?

VENDORS:

PHOTOGRAPHY:  Julie Harmsen Photography

VENUE: Urban Light Studios

DESIGN/COORDINATION: Simply Wed

DRAPING: Rented Elegance

CATERING: City Catering 

DJ: Bamboo Beats

Fun and Games at Ray’s Boathouse

Christmas is coming, and toys are on the loose. (How else would I have come home with a pair of used bongos the other day, when I only meant to buy a $5 bottle of valve oil for our household trumpet?) Thinking about the parade of toys through the ages, a hoola hoop rolls through my mind and reminds me of this sweet little wedding from the summer…

Eva, the bride, had great vintage style — and was also an avid hoola hooper. What better way to bring some of her unique personality to the decor than to place a hoola hoop front and center? She and her guy Ian were to be married on the deck at Ray’s Boathouse. You don’t want to block the stunning view there, but the railing can use a little love.  We took a regular old hoola hoop and wrapped it with pink and cream vintage-esque ribbons, and hung it on the railing right where the bride and groom would stand. Soft garlands of smilax and romantic floral clusters featuring Cafe au Lait dahlias completed the look. Inside the dining room, sweetly simple centerpieces in milk glass and depression-era rose glass carried out the vintage vibe.

Wish I could have seen the first dance! Something tells me that a special hoola hoop might have been just within arm’s reach….

Thank you to  Joshua Mahar Photography for the lovely images!

Grand Homeyness at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Weddings are about balance, in so many ways. The balance of vision and budget, organization and surrender, intimacy and public witness. Maia and Kevin came to me with their own specific balancing act for their August wedding:  to make the modern, sophisticated Olympic Sculpture Park feel homey and welcoming for their down-to-earth families. This was a seriously stylish couple. They would have looked right at home in any high-falutin’ setting – but I appreciated that their first priority was making sure their own vision found harmony with their guests’ comfort level.

Color and texture were the keys to this assignment. A vibrant palette of hot pink, coral, yellow, green, and hints of orange would establish a summery, playful, celebratory feeling. We decided to incorporate lots of greenery – big sword ferns, trailing clematis vine, fruiting raspberry cane – so that the arrangements had a feeling of Northwest wildness about them. And of course the flowers themselves – dahlias, leggy sweet peas, zinnias, bee balm, garden roses – were flowers that many of the guests probably grew in their own gardens.

Looking at the photograph that Karen Obrist captured of all the guests in the PACCAR Pavilion, I have to say that people look very much at home. (And aren’t all her images just awesome?) The super-tall centerpieces float above their heads like cheerful beacons, directing this couple to a life of love and happiness amongst their friends and family.

The Wind Wins at Seattle Aquarium

Of all the elements that mother nature throws at me as a florist, the wind is definitely one of the most challenging. (Dare I say even more than the sun?) It can knock over chuppahs, send tall glass cylinders a-tumblin’, bust the petals right off a more delicate bloom. Let’s not even get into what it does to carefully coiffed wedding party hair, or a neatly twisted stack of cocktail napkins.

In July I gave up all my wind resistance at the Seattle Aquarium, for Cassidy and Ali’s beautiful ceremony on the pier. For the lampposts flanking the altar area, we ziptied lively floral swags around those posts as tight as Victorian corsets. Hanging from each was a passel of streaming ribbons in the wedding colors: hot pink, orange, gold. Paul Joseph Brown took my favorite wind-shots ever of these ribbons, blowing straight out to horizontal across Elliott Bay.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. “‘Em” being the breezes in this case. And really, shouldn’t a ceremony be vibrant and full of life forces?

And yes, thankfully, the reception was indoors.

P.S. Those super cool light boxes under the tall centerpieces were provided by Good Times DJ Services, and were custom programable.

“Sublime” Romance at the Olympic Sculpture Park

When it comes to flowers, is there really such a thing as too romantic? Methinks no way. It is  no secret that my taste for floral design runs towards the gardeny, the spilling, the lovely. Any color palette will do — it’s that romantic feeling and lushness that speaks to me. Local wedding and event designer Shannon Lassen of Sublime had me pegged — and to my great delight and honor, asked me to design such arrangements for her wedding reception at the Olympic Sculpture Park last September.

Shannon was a master at creating layer upon layer of texture at her reception. Three different styles of table linens brought an elegant eclecticism to the clean, cool modernism of the Paccar Pavilion. To go along with that, I used three different styles of vases: vintage ivory ceramic, classic silver, and understated glass. Although each centerpiece was a little different from the next, the overall palette was a unified blend of ivory, peach, pink, coral, green, and silver. Cafe au Lait dahlias made their show-stopping appearance, as did garden roses, ranunculus, fully blown spray roses, and other seasonal treats.

The intimate ceremony at Parsons Gardens got special treatment with an ombré aisle design, and a couple of sweet little arrangements hanging from shepherds hooks at the start of the aisle. My friend and colleague Jean Louise of Juniper Flowers designed all the personal flowers, and you can bet they were stunning. But all this would just be talk without the amazing photographic record by Eliza Truitt Photography.

Happy Anniversary, Shannon and Tom! And thank you so much for inviting Floressence to be part of your day!

At the Woodmark Hotel: Lakeside Splendor

I’ll never forget the 4th of July bride I had several years ago, who wanted her flowers in shades of red, white, and blue — and asked that they not appear patriotic. Jerusha and Dave didn’t get married on the 4th of July this year, but on the 5th — and they didn’t ask me to pull out the red, white, and blue flowers, either. This wedding at the always lovely Woodmark Hotel was a crisp splash of blue and green and a little white. Perfect for a lakeside celebration on a hot summer day.

Jerusha’s bouquet was especially fun for me to design. I don’t often get to go all out with a cascade bouquet, and especially not one made mostly of green flowers. Foxtail ferns gave texture and body to the cascade, while lily grass wisped downwards like sea grass in reverse. I’m so grateful for the amazing talents of Affinity Photography, who captured that bouquet (and everything else) so perfectly. I might not get my hands on another bouquet like that one anytime soon!

Two varieties of centerpieces reflected the waterside setting, all in — you guessed it — blue, green, and white. At the altar, we hung floral pomanders from iron “trees,” and strung them with green cymbidium orchid blossoms for good measure. There was a soft breeze coming off the lake, just enough to send the orchids a-fluttering. Just like bride’s and groom’s hearts, I’m sure.

It was a treat to work with Taylor’d Events on this wedding, and I’m sure that DJ Leslie of Seattle Parties kept the party going like fireworks into the night.