Bicycle built for two

The Flourist finally got to do a wedding that featured decorating two of our favourite things...a bicycle and a mini cooper ;)

We booked this December wedding quite early on, though some of the details were only finalised closer to the date of the wedding. It was fantastic to be back in the swing of things again, after the short baby break.

The theme was purple and white, and the bride and groom wanted a country look for their wedding. So we used simple heart shaped frame with orchids for pew ends, and tall arrangements for the altar. With the colour theme, we used a lot of orchids for this wedding - from the accessories to the church decoration. The altar arrangements had to be tall to be seen - so we used the idea of a hand bouquet of orchids and adapted it for a vase arrangement. We tinted the water for the altar arrangements to make sure it was in theme...



The wedding was at a church on Tanglin Road, and had an interior decor with wood panelling and wooden pews with plush seats that went well with the country theme. Add to that a bicycle out the front to greet guests at the wedding - the country quirk was perfect. We had such a lot of fun decorating this wedding! For the bicycle we used purple brassica (the cabbage looking flower) and lots of little daisies - the idea was to have a just picked look for the bicycle. We then decked it with ribbon in case the bride and groom decided to use it as their get away vehicle ;)

The only departure from the purple country scene was of course the bridal car... but I love the mini cooper, and obviously so did the couple and it was their day - so who cares if the red clashed with the purple...we simple left out the purple for the car, and used white gerbera daisies and roses and lots of green to make the flowers pop.

late but surely not to be forgotten

Remember how I mentioned I did a wedding in December? No I am not in a time warp...I so realise it is presently only May - i meant December 2009!

heh

yes I am a bit tardy, but to be fair I only got the photos in March, and then between then and now I have seriously not stopped long enough to say BOO to you right?

I mean who else would i say hello and write to if not to you my small but faithful readers of my blog.

So as i was saying... wedding in December... How did I get the job, I shamelessly plugged my services, met them, and tried to work with them to get the look they wanted within their budget. This couple went through quite a lot of planning dilemmas and issues, trying to organise not one but TWO occassions in TWO different countries!! it all turned out beautifully and so kudos to them.

I learnt some very hard lessons with this one, and at one point was about to drown myself in some very yucky flower leaf water..., but thanks to my mum, my aunt, my best friends and my husband I got through it. I am not too sure how I did. But you know how even if most of the project goes well, the one bit that didn't is the part that gets enlarged and keeps playing over and over in your head? well that was me... like a scratched DVD I kept rethinking and replaying it all over and over again, and learnt from it (fingers crossed)!

So thank you to the bride and groom for giving me a chance, and thank you for being gracious and letting me know what you thought so that I could be better.

enough of baring it all... back to the theme. White vintage and pistachio green were the main colours. I decorated the church with tall foliage and chrysanthemums and babies breath on the pews - an idea the bride saw at another wedding and wanted replicated for hers. This lady has known what she wanted for a long time, I just had to help her get there. The original idea had a lot more colours and expensive blooms to create the look - using different flowers and the idea we got her look for less.

For the bridal chairs, I made up some simple chair covers, and used the babies breath as the focus at the base of the chairs.  I love the way these turned out...especially with the applique motif of the floral on the chair covers coming through with the frame of the old fashioned church chairs.

the car was done with the image of the bunches of the babies breath in mind. But this time instead of babies breath I used net and feathers and plain ribbon. Against the dark blue of the bridal car it looked quite regal. The photo does not quite show it in a lot of detail - so you will just have to take my word for it ;)

For the wedding party accessories, I played with the colour elements from the brides maids and flower girls dresses. baby pink, pistachio green and white carnations, orchids and fish fern were the stars. the carnations really made the flower balls work well, and the colours were so lovely together.

The corsages were kept simple and light with mainly greens for the groom's men, and the anthurium for the groom's corsage to match the bride's bouquet.

The bride's bouquet was my downfall :( we had agreed on phaelanopsis orchid bouquet - the style was to be quite tight - which meant we would have to work with the blooms off the branch. While I had worked with the flower before, i had not worked with it in such heat. 

Yes, i know what you are thinking... it is so expensive!! but it was the perfect match for the lovely dress the bride had picked.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the flowers wilted the minute I started working with them, and were dying before my very eyes. bleary eyed from the long work day and crying in frustration, I stuck in some  reviving solutions to try to make it work for the next morning.

The next morning, while they were looking better, I did not think they would last the whole day. 

So, for the first time, I had to call the bride and give her stressful news. that was probably the lowest point for me.

so that morning, while my lovely lovely volunteer worker bees got going at the church i ran out to the florist to get alternatives. anthuriums, peacock and white roses.

it was not what I wanted for her, let alone what SHE wanted for herself! 

and as a wedding florist for me to admit that I messed up on of the key elements is not easy. Its like the most important thing to get right! I don't have a picture of it, mainly cos it was so mad that morning, and I was so disappointed with it.

I did not have back ups which is something I ALWAYS have - but with such expensive flowers and trying to keep the cost down I thought I would be fine.

Moving on... 

for the reception, we had tree branches with photos of the couple and flowers and pearls strung, and for the table arrangements, we reused the babies breath bunches from the pews on the tables with the addition of some candles and clear christmas baubles which I had decorated with feathers and ribbons.

For the main table, the hotel had provided a large circular arrangement, which we filled in with baubles to match the guest dinner tables.

Another lesson - make sure you clarify with your clients if they are happy for their clients to keep props as keep sakes. I felt like the police sergeant from hell as I was packing up the baubles and finding people with BAGS of the baubles tucked away!! i think my polite attempts at telling them that these were not quite keepsakes may not have been taken quite so well but some!!

This was probably the largest and most emotionally draining project I took on, but it was certainly made me stronger and I learnt so many things.

All photo credits to Ms Sharon Lam

Sing me 'I DO'

This was a lovely May wedding surprise. The couple were related to a close friend Sharon Lam and had not thought about flowers or decoration for the church - so I happily pitched in to help.
KC and Gen were lovely! They met while acting and singing in a musical, and that was that!
They were the most un-fussy and down to earth couple you would ever meet.
He wore a tuxedo and tails! and the bride wore a lovely A line ivory dress.They exude this old world charm how could I not help out.
so enough about the couple - the flowers!- it was to be very simple. the colour scheme was really taken from what we already had - I picked lavender (from the cards that were meant to be printed blue but turned out lavender) burgundy cos the bridesmaid dress was burgundy and white from the bride's dress! the style of the flowers were borrowed from English country style which I thought went well with the character of the couple.I used chrysanthemums in little silver buckets for the pews, and the same flowers for the bride and bridesmaid's bouquet.
It was great to be given the opportunity to work with this couple - even more to be able to witness a wedding so full of love and regard. The church was packed with their family and friends of from different walks of life! Judging by their friends who were all easy going and who pitched up to help out with the set up at the church, it was obvious that these two have love all around them. Their friends even put on the entertainment after the ceremony and made a whole lot of lovely noise while guests ate lunch.
for all the lip-service our politicians are doing for 1Malaysia - KC, Gen and friends achieved it just by being themselves.

The following photos are courtesy of Ms Sharon Lam

The one that got me going

Since I was pretty sure I would be out of a job in January of this year, I offered to help a good friend with some ideas and perhaps work her wedding in kuala lumpur.

It turned out to be THE mega wedding to kick off the year and

what luck that she decided to trust me for some of the stuff! I was asked to come up with an idea for the pews in the church, the car, and the dinner at home for close family and friends for the day after the wedding.

Her theme was pearly white, which was a lovely look, until it came to stringing the pearls into different lengths so we could use it for different things!!!

We did little pom pom balls for the pews in the church, hung from sheer white ribbon and complimented with pearly strands. these flower balls adorned every other pew, with simple sheer ribbon bows and pearl strands on the remaining pews. nothing like this had been done before at this church, so I was pretty chuffed. these did take a long time to do up though, thank goodness for the bride's international friends who lent a helping hand the day before the wedding!

The car was decorated very simply. I wanted to use the same flowers she was using for the rest of the event, so opted for white dendrobium orchids and the beautiful dark green monstera leaves and white ribbon (rather than the tulle which is so often the trend).

We decided to reuse the flowers from the beautiful setting of the bridal reception at the hotel the night before, and the church altar for the home reception the next day. the colour theme for the house reception was white and pink. so I used many of the arrangements as is for the stair case leading up to the house, with pink pearl strands draped on the flower stands. we pulled the remaining arrangements apart to create two large arrangements at the top of the stairs, and rearranged the rest into smaller arrangements for the tables. we used the beautiful pink rose candles that the bride had ordered as part of the arrangement, with little pink pearly wheel

accents in the table arrangements.

we had all the cousins and aunties in the house that afternoon pulling tables together and tying the flower balls from the pews to the tent posts and stringing pearls for the chair backs. with all their help we managed a fantastic effect! what an experience that was, and was great training and first job for me. It was only after this that I truly beleived that I could... possibly... maybe...?

perhaps... make this work!