Scott and Clint were married in the London hotel, west Hollywood. Here are some images from the amazing photographer Gabriel Gastelum.
Floral design
Krystal and Daniel were married in a beautiful place The Mountain Mermaid. There are some images from Robert Paetz.
Real weddings: Krystal and Daniel / the Mountain mermaid / Topanga, CA
Real wedding : Janet and Josh / Yamashiro / Los Angeles, CA
Janet and Josh were married at the beautiful mountain palace , Yamashiro, Hollywood. A romantic wedding, their colors were lavender and white. Here are amazing pictures.
Real wedding : Kaori and Danny / Yamashiro / Los Angeles, CA
Kaori and Danny were married at the beautiful mountain palace , Yamashiro, Hollywood. A romantic wedding, their colors were lavender and white. Here are amazing pictures by Bluecat photography.
Kaori carried a bridal bouquet of mostly white flowers accented with lavender: white peonies, white “polo” roses, white ranunculus, lavender freesia, lavender herbs, lavender hyacinth.
Sara and Grey were recently married on a sunny Saturday in April. The wedding was held at one of my favorite venue, Athenauem House in Pasadena. Their colors were plum and burgundy with blue accents. Here are some beautiful images provided by Harvard Photographer..
Real wedding : Sara and Grey / Athenauem House / Pasadena, CA
Natalie and Brian were recently married on a sunny Saturday in April. The ceremony was held at boat in Marian Del Ray. Their colors were red and ivory with silver accents. Here are some beautiful images provided by Gina and Ryan Photography.
Real wedding : Natalie & Brian / Fanta Sea Yacht / Marian Del Ray CA
I love bride's lovely smile!
Natalie carried a bouquet of red flowers: burgundy peonies, red roses, and burgundy mini calla lily. Decorating the holder with her mom's necklace!
Real Weddings: Rebecca and Andrew / Smog shoppe /Culver City, CA
Rebecca and Andrew got married in a beautiful Sunday. The wedding held at one of my favorite venue, Smog shoppe in Culver city. Rustic and organic wedding. Their colors were ivory and green flowers accented with blue and plum.
Rebecca carried a bouquet of white flowers : garden rose, dahlia, ranunculus, anemone, dusty miller.
Andrew worn a boutonniere of succulent and eryngium.
Creatibe bride made the game books by herself.
Lounge area.
Terrarium inspired centerpieces
in Events, Floral design
We made these cool table centerpieces recently for an end of year dinner for math and science students attending East Los Angeles College. When designing the centerpieces, I thought the students might appreciate the biological feel of a terrarium centerpiece
Into clear glass cylinders, we placed a phalaenopsis orchid plant along with moss and a few stems of a jade plant. A simple centerpiece using plant material we have all seen before, but when placed within a glass container, it looks new and different. Maybe something right out of a plant lab! And to top it off, they are easy for the students to take home and maintain themselves.
Half the tables held a terrarium-inspired arrangement and the other half held a geometry-inspired centerpiece. We made these geometric centerpieces using a square wood box. The design featured four different colored flowers, each making up a quadrant. We then accented the arrangement with loops of purple flexible reeds.
Real Weddings: Anita’s succulent personal flowers
Sometimes our brides are more hands-on and crafty and decide to make their own centerpieces but hire us to provide the personal flowers. Here are some bouquets and boutonnieres we made for a recent wedding featuring succulents and dark “Schwarzwalder” mini calla lilies. We also inserted vintage buttons, which belonged to the bride’s grandmother, and incorporated them into the bridal bouquet.
The bridesmaids bouquets were slightly darker without any white mini calla lilies and were made of succulents, dark “Schwarzwalder” mini calla lilies, green hypericum berries, and green cymbidium orchids.
{One Love} Wedding Photography Workshop in Santa Monica
in Press, Floral design
The Flower Lab had the pleasure of working with Sara of
, a photographer extraordinaire. Sara was running a wedding photography workshop in Santa Monica and we helped out by providing a bridal bouquet and matching boutonniere.
The pictures are STUNNING!!! For the bouquet, I had free run of whatever I wanted to create. Sara just wanted me to have fun with the flowers, and I did indeed! I had just consulted with a couple earlier that month and became inspired by their floral decor. So for this photo shoot, I planned to make a very natural bouquet with lots of interesting leaves.
At the market that week, I saw that my favorite phalaenopsis orchid supplier had buckets of these awesome bicolor yellow and burgundy orchids. I let these orchids set the tone for the rest of the bouquet and included deep burgundy mini calla lilies, burgundy anemones, dark brown/burgundy succulents, and burgundy amaranthus. In addition to the flowers, sword ferns, variegated Italian pittosporum, and large branchy leaves filled out the bouquet.
hope you enjoy these photographs taken by Sara and her students. I love how they found such unique settings around the beach and pier for these images. Ahh Santa Monica — isn’t it a wonderful environment for your wedding and engagement pictures???
Real Weddings: Molly and Jonathan / Marvimon, Los Angeles CA
A Graduation Party on the Malibu Pier
in Events, Floral design
A swell was in one clear sunny Saturday in May and the surfers were out in full force. At the end of the Malibu Pier, Liz was having her graduation party in the Surfrider room at the Beachcomber Restaurant. Here are some pictures of the floral arrangements we provided. The color theme was orange and pool blue and Liz thought having actual oranges in the arrangements would be a lot of fun. I couldn’t agree with her more! We also used fun, bright orange gerbera daisies, yellow craspedia, peachy-orange roses, and accents of light green bupleurum.
Learning how to make a lei po’o on Kauai
Last month hubby and I went to the lovely garden isle of Kauai to attend our friends’ Dallas and Rachelle’s wedding. On our second day there, I saw an article in the local paper about a lei making workshop at the Kauai Museum. It was not your typical needle lei-making class, but rather a 6 hour long affair to learn the wrapping or “wili” method of making a head lei or lei po’o. You know it’s going to be intense when they tell you to bring your own sack lunch!
Master lei maker Kumu Kalei Cadawas began the class with an introduction to some neat Hawaiian chants. Something to sing when you are on the mountain ready to begin collecting the materials for your lei. It is in essence a way to greet Nature and ask for permission to enter the forest and begin collecting leaves and flowers. Kumu (which means “teacher”) Kalei also included an inspirational chant for when you find yourself feeling tired and sluggish from working on the same lei for over 5 hours!
There were about 10 women in the workshop and we sat in the shade of the courtyard of the historical Kauai museum. The sun was shining and there was a slight cool breeze – how wonderful to learn and work with plants and flowers outdoors!
Each student received a lovely parcel of goodies wrapped specially in several ti leaves.
After untying the piece of raffia at the top, the ti leaves separated and fell down, opening like a blossoming flower to reveal all the ferns and flowers we would be using for our lei po’o. What a delicious surprise! I had never seen this way of packaging before and loved it! We re-used the ti leaf package to hold our leis at the end of class.
Here is a picture of the finished product!
Notice how the inside of the lei is completely covered with ferns making it comfortable to wear – no errant stems sticking you in the head.
After class, I asked Kumu Kalei if it would be appropriate to wear the lei I just made to Dallas and Rachelle’s wedding. He replied that it was very much appropriate indeed. In fact, giving the gift of lei is very special and is a gift of the heart. I considered giving the lei to the bride and groom, but I only had one to give and suspected they probably had their own leis specially prepared for the wedding. So I wore the head lei to the wedding (to poor hubby’s embarrassment!) which was a lot of fun. After the ceremony, I gave it to Dallas and he wore it for their after wedding pictures and almost the entire rest of the evening. He got a little too sweaty with it on after he started to boogie.
Real Weddings: Jennifer and Jasen / Redondo Beach Historic Library, Redondo Beach CA
I love the flowers in Jennifer’s bouquet: white peonies, “polo” roses, and white cymbidium orchids with sweet little yellow marks in the lips. My new favorite ivory rose to use are “polo” roses because they open beautifully and look like vintage garden roses.
Jennifer and Jasen held their wedding reception at the Redondo Beach Historic Library – a very unique venue for a wedding (I am a big fan of libraries!). Their colors were ivory, green, and teal. For the green bridesmaid bouquets, we used baby green hydrangea, “super green” roses, and lime green cymbidium orchids.
Tall arrangements for the church altar were comprised of velvety green gladiolas and white fluffy hydrangea.
Tiffany (my assistant extraordinaire) took most of these pictures. I really like the composition of this picture of the wedding cake topper – so creative! The flowers we used include hydrangea, cymbidiums, and roses.
Corsages for the moms featured light green mini cymbidium orchids as well as white freesia.
I really like how the floating centerpieces turned out – not your typical arrangement with a few floating orchids in a lily bowl. The lily bowl has been around
a long time
, but here they look fresh and re-invented! I attribute it to the use of lush, leafy passion vines wrapped around the edge, some parts placed inside the bowl, and other parts above and outside of the bowl. Stems of white and green dendrobium orchids are not rigidly placed in the bowl, but rather allowed to breathe and angle over and around the lip of the bowl. Everything is kept tidy and within the glass bowl, but also looking loose and modern. So simple, yet looks elegant and new!
All the centerpieces lined up and ready to go!