I am going to let you in on a secret- During the summer, Sacramento can get really hot.  I know!  Shocker!  When I am designing flowers for summer weddings here in Northern California I need to make sure they are going to hold up to the rigors of the day.  This is where succulents come into play.  They are super hardy.  I love to use them in boutonnieres and other pieces for the wedding flower decor.  Some of the reasons I heart using succulents in wedding flowers are:

Succulents will hold up to heat and abuse of the wedding day.

They are a stylish alternative to more traditional flower choices.

You can plant the succulents after your wedding and have a lasting reminder of your day.

FUN NOTE:  The boutonniere above features succulents and scented geranium leaves plucked from my own garden.

Ashlee at The Citizen Hotel asked Flourish and Kate Miller Events to team up and style the dessert and sweet heart tables for The Citizen Hotel open house that took place last month.  Sugar and Spice Specialty Desserts provided all of the serious “YUM” action on the dessert table.  Sarah Maren hooked us up with all the pretty pictures.

Kate and I came up with the concept of designing a backdrop for the dessert table utilizing mostly paper decor.  Festooning and tissue paper honey comb decorations made for a fun but still upscale look.  I crafted the circle garlands out of scrap booking paper and wire.

Of course, Luxecuts made an appearance in this super cute sign.  I love the doily lacy look of the sign.

Yellow is so fun and light hearted.  I just love using yellow in wedding flowers.

The sweet heart table featured more paper festooning, flowers and lots of candles.  I want to go to there!

I read this post by Sean Low on his blog- The Business of being Creative and I couldn’t agree more! I realized I am very guilty of just posting images of weddings and wedding flowers with out much explanation to the process behind the event.  Kinda boring, right?  So I am going to launch a new category on the blog- Flower Favies!

Flower Favies will feature a single design Flourish has done in the past and explain the thought process behind the design, what makes it stand out to me and other interesting info about the Flower Favies pick.

This pretty little vignette was part of a magazine fashion shoot for Our Wedding Magazine.  I love the play of the colors in the design.  The blue birdcage on the blue table against the blue background is so eye catching.   The green hanging amarathus was the prefect accent to set off the shape of the cage and table.  This shoot was also the first time I had used the rose Talea.  It quickly became a favorite rose of mine.  I just love its soft and barely there peachy/pink color tones.

Funny side note- I vividly remember placing the flowers on the table and cage as the stylist for the shoot stood there and watched me.  When I looked up at her I must have had a look on my face that said, “Ummmm… can I help you??”  She immediately started quizzing me about how long it was going to take me to complete the floral design.  I asked her if I was holding up the shot- I had only been working for about 5 minutes at this point, and then informed her I would be done in another 5 minutes.  No- the model was still in hair and make-up the stylist just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to “…take an hour.”  Oooookaaay….

Photo shoots are always interesting.  They can be fun, inspiring and very stressful.    The day includes hair and make-up people, models, photographer, stylist and other support people all with a job that needs to be done quickly and perfectly before the end of the day.  Generally each person is an Alpha, “A” type of personality.  Put all that together and you have the recipe for some major personality clashes.  Luckily, I have always been able to work with the best of the best in Sacramento.

Photos by True Love Photo

Tracy and Michael’s wedding took place during a fabulous fall afternoon in Foresthill, Ca.  It was so much fun to work with them to design their wedding flowers.  They had a real love of color and wanted their flowers to reflect that love.  The venue, The Forest House Lodge in ForrestHill, Ca was the perfect natural environment with an intimate feel for Tracy and Michael’s to host their wedding.

Fabulous, as always, images taken by True Love Photo.