Purple Madness

Our last few brides have loved the colour purple and white, which is lovely... but why not try pairing purple with other colours - like pink, or yellow? or even different shades of green.

The brighter yellow lifts the purple and makes the look pop and is very trendy

 Or leave the purple on its own with different shades of green - the above are two very modern takes on a very traditional purple theme...

Or mix purple with pinks and deep reds to get a more sensuous, romantic look...

Its all fair in purple and colours... so feel free to let the passion show.

step right up - next sept 18th couple

The second couple for this auspicious day was M&S. M is Malaysian and I met her on my very first assignment with Shangri-la hotels. Those were the days when i worked for the hotels, and i used to drag anyone who would care to come along (usually M was the poor unsuspecting soul) to all the ballroom deco days to see what they were doing for the events happening at the hotel.

So when she called and asked, how could i say no... the only problem was because I work with a small number of people, i could not do as much as she wanted (ie the car etc etc etc). But it all worked out.

M met S on the internet, and it worked - he came to visit her in Malaysia, and was hooked on both! They both looked so happy and filled with joy that night it was a lovely sight to see.

So, their theme was mainly green and white, with a touch of pink - and the venue was Bangsar Seafood Garden and Restaurant. The garden was the main thing that we had to spruce up. I did the wedding accessories and the venue deco.

The bride wanted big bold lilies in her bouquet, and thats exactly what she got for her morning tea ceremony. I did not confuse the bouquet with anything else but some huge dark green foliage- unfortunately the photo does not do it enough justice...or at least so i say ;)

The corsages were lisianthus with christmas greens, and we even had mini corsages for the mini members of the wedding party ;)

As they had the tea ceremony in the morning, and then the dinner in the evening, and given her choice of flowers were lilies, i did not trust the flowers to last the day - so i made a smaller bouquet for the evening - still with lilies, but this time with a few lisianthus thrown in.

The staircase up to the garden area was decorated with tea light candles, and the bannister had little test tubes of flowers hanging on them - i used lisianthus and roses for this - and the origami birds from a previous wedding made their appearance here. When you got to the top of the staircase you were greeted by the huge lanterns with the tall reeds ala balinese style - I know i know you are thinking you have seen these before - well yes, i did re-use the arrangement from the first wedding, but made it slightly different with the ribbons, colours and the bird cages in the styling.

Unfortunately I did not manage photos of the bannister and the entrance, but got the rest - so i hope your imagination is running wild!

the aisle was decorated with the same idea as the morning pews, but with the benefit of time, we managed to add more foliage to the cups and finally achieved the look that I was happy with - my hardworking team really pulled together for these. Sadly some children thought it was fun to knock them over - thankfully only after the happy couple walked down the aisle - note to self - don't forget to secure the cups to the ground!!!

The signing in table borrowed from the birds hanging at the bannister and on the trees in the garden, and so included the bird cages with lilies and roses in them.

the table arrangements were simple and pretty - unfortunately they were removed by the time the second course was served - a lot of the reason why I usually discourage couples to have something on the table for a chinese dinner, cos it is a displacement of your precious budget.

This was a great experience and i was so pleased to be doing it for someone who was there when the seed was planted (excuse the pun) with my flower and deco stuff -

congrats M&S - I really hope you had a lovely day.

Photos courtesy of YouStudio and yours truly.

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

the legend of 9 suns - HKflowershow

This next display was based on a chinese legend about a warrior in the Yao Dynasty who shot down 9 suns, leaving just one to serve the earth and its people. when writing this story I found so many versions -  only one kept me interested...
It goes like this...


Long ago, during the reign of Emperor Yao, Di Jun, the eastern emperor of the sky and his wife Xi He had 10 sons--er, 10 suns. Each day the ten suns would travel with their mother, the goddess Xi He, to the Valley of the Light in the East. There, Xi He would wash her children in the lake and put them in the branches of an enormous mulberry tree called fu-sang.From the tree, only one sun would move off into the sky for a journey of one day, to reach the mount Yen-Tzu in the Far West. Much like a bus driver might tire of the same route after a few centuries, the boys grew bored and decided to take their celestial walk all together.
When Di Jun and Xi He found out, they were horrified to see their 10 sons in the skies. On Earth, crops were drying out, forests were bursting into flames, and the seas were boiling. If the ten suns persisted in their promenade, all living creatures on Earth would die.
To prevent the destruction of the Earth, the emperor Yao asked Di Jun, the father of the ten suns, to persuade his children to appear one at a time. They would not listen to him, so Di Jun sent the archer, Yi, armed with a magic bow and ten arrows to frighten the disobedient suns. However, Yi shot nine suns, only the Sun that we see today remained in the sky. Di Jun was so angry for the death of nine of his children that he condemned Yi to live as an ordinary mortal in the earth.


this display reminded me about why i started doing floristry in the first place - using everyday stuff, or stuff that we used to use everyday before microwaves and electric steamers and fastfood came in to our lives - to create design...
this was my style - IS my style - unfortunately in trying to build a business, sometimes not everyone's vision is the same, and sometimes I have to sacrifice my style for the sake of a happy client somewhat...


and the colours!!! sunset related colours - my favourite kind ;)


i love the use of the traditional steamers here - they have been modified a little and only the shell remains - better here than in the rubbish heap ;)

Bamboo-zle me at the HKFlowerShow 2010

heh - do you like the title?
yeah corny I know - but hey it is my blog and i can be corny if I want to...

ok so here are the hong kong flower show photos - hahaha look at me writing to people whom i think are reading this - i sound as nutty as Julie in Julie and Julia - but I believe - baby I believe you are out there reading and taking notes and hopefully waiting to work with me...

of so enough about my insecurities - ha!
I promised you pictures.... and because there are so many photos, i am probably going to post them in sections - otherwise I am going to keep putting this off till I have a good 3 hours or something like that - which is stupid - and I cannot keep my imaginary friends waiting can I???

so first up .. the bamboo extravaganza - if you had not already guessed from the title - HA!

This display was really quite natural - it almost invited you into the forest of bamboo branches to discover the bush - which from afar looked like a bunch of dried leaves, but it was really a massive arrangement of orchids and foliage. I love it for the fact that a whole forest of bamboo probably went into the recreating of this - which may not be entirely 'green' ...hmmm

what was cool though was that the bark slates and the dark backdrop in the booth recreated something of a harry potter scene.
as you can tell i got pretty close to it, which did not amuse the 'guards' at the flower show!

Raffles Hotel

I wrote earlier about a new tie up with Wedding Acts... well I was given a chance to work with them recently... It was a 40th birthday party to be held at the Raffles Hotel lawn in Singapore. 

I was so excited and nervous all at the same time!!! This was the event that may decide the fate of THEFLOURIST, so it had to be good!

With this one though, some of the  designing was done for me..the look for the flowers and place-card holders was decided before hand, the napkin rings design came during our discussions.

The venue of course was amazing - I mean hello it was the Raffles. we could have put frogs on the table and it would have looked fab!! relax - no animals were harmed in the making of this event...

Blue and green were the colours - my fav colours of all time - (HINT HINT) For the blue we used hydrangeas and table runners, and we had green chrysanthemums and foliage. we also had blue and green candy, and Jonathan got name cards printed with the blue and green!

So with my lovely husband and great friend M in tow we pulled it off!! Thank you to them both without whom I would have tanked!

and thanks to a cheeky invite on FB, all photos are courtesy of the very talented Mr Jon M Pinto!