Broach bride

These bouquets actually were created for the bridesmaid's. The bride made her own bouquet out of broaches; it was very sparkly and went through several phases of wrapping from white tulle, feather collars to black satin and the final result was quite dramatic. The overall theme for the wedding incorporated birch and branches and a fall feel without the traditional fall colours. This gave us an opportunity to incoporate some great seasonal materials like sedum and purple fountain grass and red hypericum berries. The girls were wearing black cocktail dresses and we picked that up with the satin wrap and then mixed the burgandy tones with some vibrant red spray roses and miniature carnations. I loved the overall textural feel of these bouquets The size of these bouqets was just perfect to comfortably hold in one hand and were extremely hardy. These seemed like a great brainwave on my part and they looked great as a finished product but honestly they were a pain to transport. I had hoped the grapevine base of the carnation portion would be able to travel separately to and from the church and the reception venue. However, once we got the supports in place in order to keep the entire topiary balanced we had to firmly secure the ball to the vertical branches and therefore they were quite tall. We accented the base with burlap and I'm sure they looked amazing at St Gregory's in Picton- which is an absolutely beautiful church.

We used a variety of foliages and stems to create a base for the flowers and at the same time adding bulk and depth. Giant phalaenopsis orchids and fuji mums have a substantial visual impact at the base and central portions of the piece. An orange spray orchid has a delicate, branching effect at the top reflecting the shape and arch of the green fiddle head stems and the orange callas.

The final addition was just to add a little movement with some sweeping loops of orange midelino sticks bunched. Overall I was pleased with the finished product and it was great fun working with such fabulous materials!

Studio 237 goes Orange

This post will share a lot of piks from start to finish of the undertaking of converting the large central arrangement at Studio 237 from it's previously white and chartreuse colour scheme to the new accent colour orange. The arrangement will be a focal in the centre of the salon, in order to increase the stability of the arrangement Darek has decided to make it more permanently located there and we are adding a substantial wooden framework which will create a lot more weight. I took a lot of pictures as I worked on the arrangement in the evenings when the studio was not open. We completely removed the former arrangement and Darek had the structure built and encased within the large fibreglass base. He also had the pedestal and the base permanently attached to one another.

The ugly beginning structure and all the materials......

To begin I started greening the base...

Welcome 2013!!

Well if anyone ever looks at this blog aside from myself you may notice some sincerely lackluster blogging performance in 2012.....My New Year's resolution this year among a severe need to organize my various recent technological advances and to hone the skills required to operate aforementioned devices is (drumroll please) to get all the images that I have in folders uploaded as posts on this blog. We look forward to another amazing year with great brides and bouquets to share!

100 Mile Bride

This bride and groom presented an unusual theme to their wedding -both vendors and guests! They hosted a potluck reception and asked that all items offered were procured within a 100 mile radius of Belleville. The same was expected of the items I used. I travelled to several local markets and agricultural vendors in order to select the blooms and foliages for the ceremony arrangements, bouquets, table centres and cake top. Fortunately there was a lot of flexibility in the contents. I was able to use zinnias, glads, sedum, heliotrope, echinops, phlox, verbena bonariensis, chelone, and garden roses. We added additional texture from the centres of coneflowers, hops and berries, and finished with a wide variety of foliages including baptisia, euonymous,ninebark and flax.

It was exceptionally quiet in the shop today- I suspect we will all be a little sad each time we look in his favourite spots.... He was a wonderful animal, though, and I will miss him dearly.

Nicole

Nicole came to her bridal appointment and knew exactly what she wanted. In fact she was so completely certain I knew very little details about her dresses and colours until I saw the finished photography by Ruth Stenson Photography... I must admit- although I'd like to take credit for the entirety- her choices were amazing and I was pleased that we could accomodate her requests.

Her colour palette was composed of orange and lime green for her bouquet and the rest of the bridal party. The maids' pomanders hung from a broom handle across our backroom door on a beautiful fall afternoon.



Nicole wore a couture dress with an ostrich feather detail on the bodice and we added some creamy ostrich feather accents to the pomanders which were composed of green viking or button mums and orange flat daisies.



Nicole's bouquet featured mango calla, orange dahlia, orange cymbidium orchids lime green flat mums, queen anee's lace and more ostrich feathers.



The table centres were contemporary cubes filled with orange lily and gerbera daisies, green hydrangea and fern fronds wich echo the movement of the ostrich feathers...


Two large vase arrangements of orange gladiola flanked the stairs of the Montrose Inn which looks remarkably like a southern plantation in the photography from Ruth Stenson which I will post next.