Manuela & Marco at Romantic Ridley Creek Park

Manuela was an absolute delight to work with. How lucky her elementary school students are to have such a sweetheart of a teacher. Ella chose a color pallete of purple, lavender, and white for her wedding at Ridley Creek State Park. She also felt that she wanted to decorate Hunting Hill Mansion in a way that was appropriate for the era of the mansion. She decided that she would use urns and thought it would be fun to hunt for them herself. And she did a wonderful job too!

Manuela's bouquet consisted of purple lisianthus, lavendar lisianthus, white stock, and purple godetia. She also wore a lovely white gardenia in her beautiful dark hair. Marco's boutonniere was made up of a purple and lavender lisianthus.

Unfortunately I accidentally deleted my photo of the bridesmaids' bouquets, made up of various shades of stock. Groomsmen wore boutonnieres of godetia.

Tubed heads of hydrangea with lavender bows were placed on the pews at Holy Savior Church in Norristown.





I used three shades of stock to fill up the urn which went on the placecard table. This was similar to the flowers that the bridesmaids carried.











Ella bought three different styles of urns to use for her centerpieces. We decided to fill each with her favorite flower - hydrangea - plus a contrasting flower. The first type of urn was filled with beautiful purple hydrangea and white godetia.

I filled the second type of urn with huge stems of lavender hydrangea and purple carnations.

The third urn was filled with white hydrangea and lavender roses.

The cake sat in a nook on an upper level at the mansion. I decorated it with lavender roses, lisianthus, and purple carnations. I'm looking forward to seeing professional pictures of this beautiful purple wedding.

Backyard BBQ - How To Make Easy Centerpieces!

It's easy to combine flowers that you grow with flowers that you purchase when doing casual centerpieces. For this party at my friend's house, I used mason jars as vases. I used a summery pallette of yellow, green, and lavender and tied it all together with a lavender and green print ribbon around the neck of the jar. My cutting garden was full of "green" eyed Susans which I combined with lavender larkspur, mini sunflowers, lavender mardi gras asters as filler, purple veronica, and green hypericum berries. When you put together an arrangement like this, make sure that you use flowers of different textures. One flower type should be tall (larkspur), one should hang over the rim of the jar (mini sunflowers), and then other flowers to fill in between. Small heads of hydrangea work well in these jars as well. Lots of us grow those. Good luck and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Angela & Joe - Perfect Pinwheels!

Angela and Joe wanted a joyful, happy wedding full of white, yellow, and green flowers. Angela decided to make whimsical, colorful pinwheel placecards for guests to pluck from green grass in order to find their seats. What a fun way to start off a reception. And she did an amazing job!

Angela chose mini sunflowers, with green centers and stephanotis with green pins in them, for her bouquet. A huge "thank you" to her fabulous photographer Denise Mabilog, for sharing some of her pictures with me. http://www.denisemabilog.com/. Angela and her family worked hard on many of the details of her wedding. It's easy to see that a lot of love went into making this wedding so special.

Bridesmaids carried bouquets of yellow and white daisies. I sewed daisy buttons onto the stem wrap to match.

Large antique white wicker containers held a mass of Baby's Breath and bright yellow and green fugi mums on each side of the altar at church.

A close up picture by Denise Mabilog shows how cute the placecard pinwheels were.

The tall flower container filled with sunflower seeds was placed in the center of the wheat grass sections. The boxes that held the grass were built and decorated by Angela's talented parents. The whimsical pinwheels that Angela and her mom made for placecards were placed in the grass. This was such an adorable idea!

Very cute triple glass containers in yellow and green were filled with individual flowers and placed on cocktail tables.

Emily & Dan - Hershey Happiness

Emily is truly a gifted artist. She wanted her wedding to be fun and "different", so she designed a fun lounge with lighting, great food, furniture, and her artwork. The people at Hershey Mills Country Club were so gracious and worked so well with Emily and Dan to make their wedding everything they wanted it to be. Wedding colors of fuscia, black, and accents of orange were used. I can't tell you how nice it was to work with such a creative lady.

Emily carried a bouquet of Malibu roses with a collar of painted aspidistra leaves. Black pins were inserted into the roses. Black is a difficult color to bring into personal flowers, but I think we managed pretty well. Dan's boutonniere had a bit of "black" leaves to match.

Bridesmaids carried bouquets of fuscia roses each with a pearl in the center. Groomsmen's boutonnieres matched.

I made two pink, white, and black topiaries for Emily and Dan's ceremony. They were later brought to the country club and placed on the dance floor.

Emily and I both worked on this light up "lamp" which was used on the placecard table. I used crystal beading and fresh roses inside the vase which was lit up by two carefully placed lights. Emily painted the lampshade to match her wedding colors. She also did the small painting sitting on the table.

Sofas, tables, and other seating were brought in to give the ballroom more of a "lounge feel". Emily painted two large paintings that she displayed on easels in the room. She did such a wonderful job.

Emily painted small canvasses for the tables where I placed small flower arrangements. Some of her tables lit up! They looked fabulous.

How cute is this cake! Emily left no detail neglected.

Shannon & DeShun - Rockin at Rivercrest

Shannon wanted her wedding flowers to be soft, full, and asymmetrical! She wanted blooming branches and flowers that looked like they were just picked from the garden. So we used lots of hydrangea, stock, snapdragons, and other wonderful, soft bloomed flowers in pinks, white, and green to achieve the look she wanted for her wedding at RiverCrest Golf Club.

Shannon's gorgeous bouquet was made up of calla lilies, peonies, lisianthus, roses, and mini hydrangea. A big thank you to the lovely - and talented - Jenn Childress for sharing some of her beautiful photos with me. It's easy to tell which are Jenn's and which are mine! http://www.jennchildress.com/

DeShun wore a double white mini calla lily boutonniere.

Bridesmaids carried bouquets of two shades of pink spray roses. Groomsmen wore a single white mini calla lily.

The ring bearer carried a "present" of green button mums wrapped up in pink ribbon.

We made adorable flower wands for 5 flower girls with fresh roses and Baby's Breath and lots of pink streamers.

Lots of mock orange branches and a mix of pink and whtie flowers were arranged in a beautiful, huge glass vase that sat on the entry table for placecards.

Cocktail table arrangements were made up of pink roses and green dendrobium orchids sitting on clear acrylics in rectangular glass containers.

Due to a very early blooming season, I wasn't able to use the cherry blossoms that we wanted for the higher centerpieces. Fortunately, I found some pear, some mock orange, and some other blooming branches from California to use. I gathered the branches into bouquets with snapdragons, stock, and hydrangea and dropped them into the large glass vases that Shannon had purchased.

Low centerpieces consisted of hydrangea - in either pink or green - plus salal. Very simple - very pretty.

Shannon and DeShun wanted to honor their relatives and friends who could no longer be with them. The vase of roses represents the men and the iris the ladies. I placed them on the fireplace mantle in the seating area at the club.

Fiesta time - Mexican themed party

I was asked to provide some brightly colored flower arrangements suitable for a Mexican food themed party. I thought that pinatas would make wonderful containers. So I very carefully lined them and then filled them with flowers instead of candy. I love the results and flowers are much less fattening! The bull pinata centerpiece also had attached streamers, which I had strewn across the table with confetti for added color.

The donkey pinata was filled with sunflowers, red monarda, and orange gerber daisies. I scattered brightly colored confetti around the legs.






Under all of these flowers, is a sombrero. It's the kind that can be used for chips and dip. I filled the base with lots of hydrangea and then inserted colorful flowers into the hydrangea and again into the crown of the "hat".

Second time around at Columbia Station

Christi wanted only family and a few close friends at her second wedding at Columbia Station. It would be a short and sweet morning ceremony followed by a brunch reception. Christi requested that her flowers be fun, garden-like, include white gerber daisies, and definitely shades of purple - her favorite color. By the way, she wore her purple shoes to our first meeting so I knew that this color was a "must". I took all of that information into consideration, along with the fact that Christi (an elementary school principal) raised orchids, and came up with ideas that pleased Christi very much.

First I found white dendrobium orchids with gorgeous purple centers for her bouquet. I made the groom's boutonniere to match - an orchid on a purple wire curl.



The ceremony took place in the same room as the reception. Chairs were set up in front of one of the large windows facing the porch at Columbia Station. I filled a wicker garden basket with larkspur, delphinium, roses, and other flowers in shades of lavender, pink, blue, and purple.

Tin containers of wheat grass and gerber daisies decorated the brunch stations.

Christi wanted white gerber daisies in her centerpieces. I used some pretty light blue ceramic vases each filled with one of five different shades of purple stock and the gerber daisies on the hi-tops and 30" low tables in the cocktail room at Columbia Station. The stock is so full this time of year and filled the air with its' sweet scent. Christi reported that the wedding was wonderful and she loved her flowers - especially her orchids!