Look what I found on the White magazine website

It's the wedding bouquet I did for Juliet!

I did Juliet's wedding last year. It was the first wedding that I did at home - and it was all a big secret. One of the disadvantages of being a florist, is that the bosses I previously worked for told me that I wasn't allowed to do weddings from home. It's pretty common practice to be told that. If someone wanted me to do their wedding, they had to come in to my work and ask for me.

That never did sit right with me as I didn't want to turn away family and friends. What was I supposed to say if my best friend asked me to do their flowers? No? I don't think so!

So when my wedding photographer asked if I would like to make the flowers for Juliet's wedding I was very hesitant as I wanted to stick to the rules, but then thought - well why shouldn't I? It was weird having to do it all in secrecy from my boss, but I didn't want to get fired just for trying to get more experience under my belt.

Juliet and I met a few times and she was so fun. She chose a posy bouquet of cream roses, white freesias and blue hyacinths, framed with camellia leaf. For her bridesmaid and gorgeous flower girl, she chose smaller posies of cream roses and blue hyacinths.

You can see some photos of Juliet's wedding in the link here (photos by Delisser photography).

Juliet doesn't know it but I owe her (and my photographer Julie for introducing us) alot of thanks for getting The Kissing Tree off the ground. Being told by my bosses that I wasn't allowed to do weddings from home, in my own time, is what got me thinking about being my own boss and not having anyone else place their restrictions on me. And actually making Juliet's bouquets, seeing how they turned out and how happy Juliet was with them, gave me the confidence to go out under my own name. So thanks Juliet! I'll always remember you as the very first The Kissing Tree bride.

New Wedding Magazines out now

Oh no. It's that time of year again when all of the new editions of my favourite wedding magazines are released, and I have to avoid all of the newsagents so that I don't indulge my addiction to them. Here are some new ones that I have noticed on the shelves over the last couple of weeks: White Magazine: I love this magazine for all of it's local content (especially the real weddings) of the Central Coast, Hunter Valley and Newcastle.

Cosmo Bride: this is my favourite of all of the wedding magazines. Doesn't the cover look just gorgeous? It always takes my breath away and I always found so much inspiration from them.

Bride To Be: an oldie but a goodie. I never liked how loaded this one was with advertising, but I am definately in the minority as others seem to love it and find it extremely helpful. Mind you - when I was wedding planning, I would still buy every edition so I couldn't have had too much of a problem with it. So do any of you have a favourite? Or at least have some advice on how to cure my magazine addiction? Or is it OK to still buy wedding magazines even 6 months after your wedding? (Please say yes). LOL!

The Weekend Summary

I'm finally back after a busy weekend.

I've got lots of photos to show, so first I'll start with Jenny's wedding which was on Saturday.

Jenny had white freesia posy bouquets for her and her 3 bridesmaids. They smelt absolutely gorgeous!

All packed up and ready to deliver: And on Sunday I was an exhibitor at the Diggers at The Entrance wedding expo. It was my very first expo so I was a little nervous, especially when everyone kept telling me about the few hundred people that were queued up outside waiting to get in. I needn't have worried though because it was easy. I had fun, spoke to alot of brides and met other exhibitors who were also at their first expo so I was in good company. Here are some photos from the day. Me all set up at my first expo:
And here are some close ups of the bouquets I made
and the photo of this purple one looks a bit dodge, but its because I was holding the bouquet on a bad angle towards me. It makes the bouquet look like it's a weird shape but I promise you that it was actually round. Thanks to everyone that came to see me. I really appreciate your support. Now I need to start thinking of ideas for next months Getting Hitched expo at Mingara. If you have any suggestions.... let me know.

Busy weekend ahead!

Look at my studio! It's full of flowers!

My friend Jenny from Pink Lily Photography is getting married tomorrow. I will be working on her wedding flowers today and I'll be using the white freesias you can see in the bottom of the photo. I'll post some photos of her wedding bouquets when I'm finished.

Today is such a beautiful day and I pray that it stays this nice for her tomorrow. I remember when we were teenagers, Jenny and I used to hang out alot. We worked at the same place, we would have Melrose nights (remember them?) at her place with her house mates every Tuesday night, she helped me develop my U2 obsession and we would talk about our futures and wonder what it would hold, and when we would meet a great guy to share it with. And 13 years later, we are both happy and we have our great guys.

Good luck Jenny, I hope your wedding day is absolutely amazing.

The rest of the flowers are for the arrangements I am making for the Diggers Wedding Expo on Sunday. Remember it's free entry, free parking and goes from 10am to 3pm. Again, I'll make sure I post some pictures of how it all went.

Flower Market Visit

So yesterday I had to go down to the flower market to pick up some flowers for Jenny's wedding this weekend. I'm not a good morning person - I can't even string together a proper sentence before 10am, so as much as I love the flower markets, I never actually look forward to waking up early for a visit.

Here is how a typical market morning goes:

4am - (yes that is right! 4am!!!) alarm goes off. My poor husband gets woken up so I have to try to be very quiet so that he can roll over and go back to sleep.

I wash my face and my teeth and throw on some clothes. I usually don't like to leave the house with no makeup on but seriously at 4am - I don't care how I look.

You would think that at that time of the morning it would be freezing cold. But funnily enough it's not so cold........ yet.

4.15am - get in the car and because I am so aware of how quiet it is at that time of the morning, I try to start my car quietly (seriously how do you do that)? Then I start the long drive to Flemington, turn some music on and try to find a song I can sing along to and wake me up a bit.

5.25am - arrive at market and pay for my parking. Then I have to fight for a carpark amongst all of the big Sydney florist vans. By this time the sun has come up and as soon as I get out of the car, I notice how much colder it is.

I don't know why, but market actually makes me feel a little intimidated. The place is just buzzing, there are people everywhere and there are many trolleys that you have to dodge to save yourself from injury.

The flower market is one massive warehouse. Every grower has a stall and they are set up in rows. It's fun to go around to each stall and see if something new has come into season.

By about 6am, some of the growers start packing up so all of a sudden you feel the pressure to stop looking and just buy what you need.

Yesterday I had to buy some freesias for Jenny's wedding bouquets, and some white oriental lilies for a friend who is making her table arrangements. The flower growers were shockingly still going with their Mother's Day pricing so I wasn't very happy with the price of the lilies. Oh well - not much you can do about it.

6.30am - get in my car full of flowers and start the trip home. It smells beautiful.

7.40am - just as everyone else seems to be waking up, I get home and unpack the car. You might think that I would jump straight back into bed by this stage. But the work isn't done yet. For every flower stem, I have to strip half of the leaves from it and recut the stem and then place it into clean, fresh water.

By the time I finish doing that, my husband is usually awake and I get to sit with him for breakfast and a cuppa before he goes to work. I can't go back to sleep so I have a shower to freshen up and then just lie on the couch for the rest of the day in a dopey daze.

So Jenny's wedding flowers are in my studio making my house smell gorgeous. I had to get some flowers early as you can see they are mostly still in buds and need time to open. They take a while to open in the cold weather. I'll take another trip to market on Friday morning to pick up the remainder of the flowers I need and I'll make sure I post some photos of how they turn out.

Flower Of The Month

Freesia's are very popular and they have an extremely strong perfume scent. Beautiful, but watch out if you or any of your guests suffer from allergies because they will probably be a bit too fragrant. Freesias are commonly used in wedding work and look good combined with roses, tulips, orchids or lisianthus.

Flower: Freesia

Botanical Name: Freesia

Origin: South Africa

Season: Available most times of the year

Colour/s: white, yellow, orange, deep pink, mauve and purple Meaning: Innocence