Alyson and Adam’s wedding was sooo much fun!  Just imagine:  a couple who have known each other since they were knee-high to a grasshopper decide to get married.  Friends and family rejoice and come together for a wedding filled with love and fun and embarrassing pictures from junior high (more on that later).  Magic!

Guess what?  Sarah Maren can take an amazing photo, or two.  I was thrilled to bring the pretty with my girls- Sarah Maren Photographers and Kate Miller Events.  The three of our businesses together form Alchemy (activate!).

Cymbidium orchids, sahara roses, orange and ivory spray roses, and trachelium went into the creation of Alyson’s beautiful bridal bouquet.

Adam’s boutonniere consisted of seeded eucalyptus, green hypericum berries, a touch of trachelium and a single Sahara rose.

I just loved the sassy cocktail dresses the bridesmaids’ wore.  The dresses had pockets, people.  Pockets!

When I walked into the hotel room to deliver the bouquets to the bridesmaids and the bride I was struck by the laughter and fun that filled the room.  All the ladies were sweet, hilarious and were clearly thrilled for Alyson and Adam on their big day.

Ceremony was held in the Crocker Art Museum’s Ballroom.  The ballroom has amazing architectural details everywhere.

We designed the ceremony altar to accent the amazingly detailed wooden doors.  Yes, those are battery operated candles.  No flame is allowed on the property, anywhere!  That is okay- we can work with the rules.  How can you say no to such a beautiful venue?

These simple and sweet arrangements of stock, spray roses, dahlias, bluperum and bells of Ireland later became part of the head table decor. Reusing the aisle and ceremony decor as part of the reception decorations is a wonderful way to get full use of your flowers.

The Reception was held in the court yard between the old building of the Crocker Art Museum and the new wing.

The long, “king’s” table was placed in the center of the guest tables.  I love how Kate Miller Events mixed up the shape of the tables in the reception room.  It made for such an interesting flow to the reception.  Kate’s weddings are always impeccably planned and filled with perfect details.

A very talented friend of the bride a groom painted little canvases for each place setting.  The paintings were of place that are important to the bride and groom and of California landmarks.  It was such a unique and meaningful detail.  What a wonderful keepsake for the guests!

The centerpieces were of two different designs accented with our rental walnut-wood boxes.

The Best Man’s toast was complete with blown-up pictures of the bride and groom from junior high.  Best.Toast.Ever.

The lighting after the sun went down was so romantic and beautiful.

Congratulations to Alyson and Adam.  I see many happy years in your beautiful future.

Such a beauty!  I just loved working with Diana and Sergio to make their wedding a dream event.  Sometimes, when I am designing a bridal bouquet, I cannot help but “ooo” and “ahh” as the bouquet comes together in my hand.  This was one of those occasions.  Diana’s bouquet was a Showstopper!

Diana’s bouquet consisted of Blushing Bride protea, Cafe au Lait dahlias, Sahara roses, White Majolika spray roses, Tuberose, Lisianthus and seeded eucalyptus.  It smelled as good as it looked, too!

Sergio’s boutonniere was a jewel-box collection of Blushing Bride protea, Dusty Miller, Silver Brunia and Rice Flower.

Stephanie Teague Events did an amazing job planning Diana and Sergio’s wedding.  Thank you for referring this wonderful couple to Flourish.  Thank you Allison Stahl for the beautiful images of this wedding!

Blushing Bride Protea is the most amazing and complicated little flower.  It is one of those flowers that always makes me stop and marvel.

Simple and romantic bridesmaids’ bouquets of Hydrangea, Babies Breath and Seeded Eucalyptus.

Collection centerpieces are my very favorite style centerpiece to design.  A collection centerpiece consists of a collection of items and flowers that work together to make a varied and interesting design for the center of the guest table.

When I found out raspberries would be in season for Diana and Sergio’s wedding I was so excited.  The color and texture was perfect.  The raspberries looked so cute tucked into a few of the little vases.  I love using little seasonal surprises in the flowers at a wedding.

Their dessert bar was amazing and beautiful!

Congratulations to Sergio and Diana!

As with any well designed and well run wedding, there is a whole team behind the scenes working hard to make it happen.

Planning:  Stephanie Teague Events

Photography: Allison Stahl

Cake: Freeport Bakery

Reception Venue: The Old Sugar Mill

I love designing bouquets for the Real Weddings Magazine cover photo shoots.  I get to be creative and have some fun with my favorite thing in the world, flowers!  Also, at the end of the day, I am given some amazing images of my pretties taken by some of the best photographers in Northern California.  The photographers for this shoot were my beloved Geoff and Lisa with The Goodness.  Wendy and her team from Real Weddings always provide the stunning models with amazing hair, make-up and fashions.  What is not to love?

This bouquet of green and white flowers featured the amazing garden rose variety called “Green Eye”, candy tuft, brezillia berries and passion vine.

The ruffled appearance of these roses, Peach Campanella, reminded me of lace.  So I added a cuff of vintage lace to the bouquet.  Hydrangea, hyacinth, brezillia berry and jasmine vine added texture and scent to the bouquet.

Garden roses are all the rage right now.  This bouquet of hot pink and light pink garden roses was a stunner!

Cascading bridal bouquets have been a traditional choice for a bride to carry since the 1900′s.  I updated the traditional look of the bouquet by using interesting and unusual flowers in a fresh color palette.  Phalaenopsis orchids, “Paitence” garden roses, parrot tulips, stock and passion vine combined beautifully in this bridal bouquet.

The other vendors that made the magic happen for the photo shoot:

Location: thegreenshotel.com

Photographer: thegoodness.com

Dresses: almasbridalboutique.com, alwayselegantbridal.net, thebridalbox.net, diamondbridalgallery.com, theclothesmine.com, dreamnette.com,  enchantedbridalshoppe.com, itsallaboutmebridal.com

Shoes: dsw.com

Accessories: advantagebridal.com, imakebeautiful.com, nordstrom.com, stelladot.com/staceyyow

Hair and Make-up: helloglam.net,  hairbylauramilo.weebly.com, imakebeautiful.com

Michelle and Seth were married at The Heirloom Inn in Ione , Ca.  Michelle called me from her home in Southern California months before the big day to start planning the flower for their wedding.  Seth and Michelle were coming back to Michelle’s home town of Jackson, Ca to get married.  Most of the planning was done via e-mail and phone calls.    Michelle and her Mom spent months planning and collecting all the little bottles and vases for the centerpieces.  Such care went into each detail.  It was lovely!

Thank you to Charleton Churchill for sharing the lovely images from Michelle and Seth’s wedding.

Sweetest story- Michelle’s parents were also married at The Heirloom Inn.  I just love this picture of them watching her come down the stairs.

The pictures below were captured on my trusty camera.

The arch was so romantic dripping with amaranthus, crystals and greenery.

Each centerpiece was different.  I love this look, it gives the tables a homey feeling.

Thank you Michelle and Seth for having Flourish be part of your wonderful wedding!

What can I say about the wedding of Kelsey and Lyle at The Crocker Art Museum that isn’t immediately obvious?  Lovely bride and Groom, beautiful color palette, sweet details and lots of love made their wedding one to remember!

I loved the colors used in Kelsey and Lyle’s wedding.  The colors really “popped” without overpowering.

The bridal bouquet featured Coral Charm peonies (my favorite!), Cafe au Lait dahlias, succulents, ivory peonies, garden roses, spray roses and phalaenopsis orchids.

The bridesmaids carried bouquets of hydrangea, garden roses, spray roses, succulents and Coral Charm peonies.

Aren’t Kelsey and Lyle a handsome couple?

The Groom’s boutonniere was a single miniature succulent and hypericum berries.

The arch for the wedding ceremony was SO.MUCH.FUN!  I had a blast making their arch.  I painted each of the tissue paper fans to match the color scheme of the wedding.

Kudos to Kelsey and Lyle for trusting me when I suggested the tissue paper fan arch for their wedding ceremony.  I think the exact conversation went something like this, “I have an idea, so bear with me.  What if I made an arch our of tissue paper decorations and gold mylar fringe? It will be amazing, I promise!”…pause…”Sounds wonderful!”  I love that they trusted me to make the arch happen for them.

Catrina Maria Designs pulled together all the cute details, linens, rentals and a pretty dessert station.  Catrina and her team are so wonderful to work with on any event.

Thanks to Allison Stahl for the wonderful images.  I have worked with Allison many time over the years.  She has a delightful and calm personality.  Exactly the type of personality you would want around you on your wedding day.

Location: The Crocker Art Museum

Planner and Event Design: Catrina Maria Design

Photographer: Allison Stahl

Lighting and DJ- Music and More

Cupcakes- Icing on the Cupcake

One of my favorite moments of the wedding day is when the bride sees her bouquet we designed especially for her, for the first time.

Gasp!  (Kight Photographers)

Don’t ruin the make-up!  (True Love Photo)

I love it!  (Sarah Maren)

My bouquet!  (Sarah Maren)

I have the best job in the world! (Sarah Maren)

When I am meeting with a client, sometimes it can be difficult to illustrate the designs and the flowers I am envisioning for their event.  I find myself saying things like, “Garden style roses would lend a bit of a formal feeling to the yarrow, feverfew, rosemary and other herbs in your bouquet.”  Often times my flower-rants are met with confused glances. To better communicate with my clients,  I realized that I needed to sketch the arrangements floating around in my mind’s eye.

Alecia wanted a bridal bouquet of bright and exuberant blooms focusing on the gorgeous orange dahlia.  I think the reality of her bouquet far out shone my rudimentary sketch.

Alecia left us this Yelp review:

“Shannon made my wedding bouquet, the boutonnieres, the corsages for family members, and a special flower ring for a dear friend of mine. I was on a tight budget and Shannon totally worked with what I could spend.  I was thrilled with what she created! I still get compliments on how beautiful my bouquet was.  Also the flowers dried pretty well too, so I’ll always have my wedding bouquet displayed in our guest room:) Shannon is a great listener, but also full of ideas too.  I would definitely recommend using Shannon for your wedding flowers!  She’s worth every penny!”

Alecia and her husband, Josh are expecting the birth of their baby girl any minute now!  Congratulations you two and thanks Alecia for being so awesome!

Planning by: Kate Miller Events

Photography by: Vernon Wiley

I thought I would start off this post by quoting the sweet review Emma left for Flourish on Yelp:

“The colour scheme for our wedding did not provide a vast choice of flower options so when I spoke to Shannon for the first time I couldn’t even imagine what I wanted for the big day. From that first telephone conversation I knew we had made the right choice in selecting Flourish as our florist. You can tell that Shannon is extremely passionate about what she does, and so she should be, she does it brilliantly! Every tiny detail had a huge amount of thought go into it and the flowers were amazing, from my bridal bouquet all the way to the petals scattered down the side of the aisle. Our family and friends still talk about the flowers at our wedding. Thank you so very much Shannon!”

Ian and Emma were married on a lovely, sunny day in January at The Forest House Lodge in Foresthill, Ca.  I was thrilled to design the flowers for their beautiful event.  Thanks to Lisa and Geoff of  The Goodness for sending the amazing images from Emma and Ian’s day.

When Emma and I first chatted about the flowers for the wedding it was via a long phone call.  Emma and Ian live in San Francisco area so all of the flower planning was done via phone and e-mail.

We decided on a palette of royal blue, deep purple and fuchsia to offset the bright royal blue bridesmaid dresses she had chosen.

Bits of cedar added a touch of texture in homage to the Sierra Nevada surroundings.

Velvet ribbon and sparkling brooches added richness to the bouquets.

Emma requested a slightly cascading shape for her bouquet.  So I added hyacinth blossom chains (I removed the blossoms from the flower and strung them lei style on a thin wire) to give a trailing shape to the bouquet.  The combination of the hyacinth blooms and the cedar sprigs made the bouquet smell wonderful!

I love using interesting textures and bits of flowers to make unique boutonnieres.  The boutonnieres were crafted of mini pinecones, cedar, delphinium blooms and genistra.  The stem of the boutonnieres were wrapped in velvet to match the wrap on the bridesmaid bouquets.

Ian’s boutonniere was a single calla and orchid blossom.  I just loved the bright blue tie he sported.

The centerpieces were walnut candle boxes filled with flowers, moss, cones and crystals.

Their head table was decorated with the bridal party’s bouquets and pinecone filled candle hurricanes.

Lighting can really change the look of a room.  Here, Joe with SJ’s Disc Jockey lit the room with purple uplighting.  It really brought all the decor together and added a unique look to Ian and Emma’s wedding at the Forest House Lodge.

Congratulations to Ian and Emma.  Wishing you many happy years together filled with love!

Thanks again to The Goodness for the images.

Flourish is  looking for someone to help out around the office.  The ideal candidate would have:

A love of flowers and for weddings,

Be flexible and willing to jump in and help where it is needed,

Administrative and customer service experience (this is a must!),

This job would run from now until November and require about 10 hours a week.

Interested? Email me: shannon@flourishdesigns.com

And because we cannot have a post without a flower picture, here you go:

Thanks to True Love Photo for the picture and for Jessica for playing along with the joke.  :)

I have been waiting- not so patiently to share this amazing wedding with all of you. Now that Style Me Pretty has had their posting way with this lovely event I can brag away!

Jillian and Dustin were married at The Citizen Hotel in Sacramento, Ca just this past November.  Jillian and Dustin have a wonderful sense of style.  I just loved working with them and the amazing crew of wedding professionals that signed on to make this stunner of a wedding happen.

Jillian’s bouquet was a combination of draped pearls, sparkling brooches, pearl flowers, sola flowers, velvet leaves and fresh roses, dusty miller, and seeded eucalyptus.  Whew, it was a showstopper!

The candlelit ceremony took place in the downstairs ballroom at The Citizen Hotel.

Heading upstairs to the penthouse suite, post-ceremony, to capture some gorgeous sunset photos.

Then it was time to party in the Terrace ballroom at The Citizen Hotel.

Thank you so much Jillian and Dustin for asking Flourish to be part of your wedding day!

Thank you to the wedding professionals involved for making my job that much easier and making Flourish look so darn good (especially Kate Miller Events, Sarah Maren Photography and Hello Glam- we just have too much fun!).

Wedding Photography: Sarah Maren Photographers / Wedding Venue + Catering: The Citizen Hotel in Sacramento, California / Event Design + Planning: Kate Miller Events™ / Floral Design: Flourish / Wedding Cake: The Dancing Fox / Wedding Invitations: Kate Miller Events™ / DJ: Extreme Productions / Linens: La Tavola + Wildflower Linen / Rentals: Classic Party Rentals + Celebrations / Lounge:Hartmann Studios / Wedding Dress: Jenny Packham / Bride’s Shoes: Manolo Blahnik / Makeup: Hello Glam