Mingara 'Getting Hitched' Expo Aftermath.....

I think I have finally recovered enough from the Mingara bridal expo that was held on Sunday, to actually write a post to tell you about it. So lets start from the beginning......... (get ready for a photo overload)

It all started on Monday last week when I had some Oriental Lilies delivered. Because the weather is so cold, these flowers need to come in earlier than everything else so that they have an opportunity to open. Well that is supposed to be the plan anyway.... more on that later.

These are the rest of my flowers that arrived on Friday...Clockwise from the top left hand corner we have: pink oriental lilies, white oriental lilies, white and cream roses, molucca balm, orange tulips, pink and hot pink and cream roses, white singapore orchids, pink blushing brides, white lisianthus, green hydrangea and some dusty miller foliage.

It was up to me to actually turn these flowers into something beautiful. My only problem was that my lilies weren't opening. So on Saturday when I needed to start making the bouquets, my lilies looked like this...

Aaaauuuuuugggghhhh! Sometimes working with lilies is an absolute nightmare. In winter, it is so cold that the flowers don't want to open, and in summer, they open way too quick and don't last well in the heat. If any of you have ever chosen lilies in your wedding bouquet and can't understand why they are such an expensive flower for bridal work, it is because we need to order two to three times more flowers than what you actually need in your bouquets to make sure enough flowers open in time. They are also a flower that usually needs to be wired for use in bouquets and wired flowers are more costly.

So I left the lily bouquets until last and just hoped for the best. These are what I came up with...

Bouquet 1: posy consisting of 40 cream roses and a frame of camellia leaves

Bouquet 2: posy consisting of 30 pink roses and 1 bunch of pink blushing brides, with a frame of vibernum leaves

Bouquet 3: posy consisting of 30 hot pink roses, 10 orange tulips, 1 bunch molucca balm and a frame of vibernum leaves

Bouquet 4: teardrop bouquet consisting of 30 white roses, 2 bunches white lisianthus, 2 stems white sinapore orchids and 1 bunch of dusty miller foliage

By the time I had done all of these I had a few more lilies open but not enough to fill the bouquets. I made up as much of them as I could and planned to wake up early hopefully to many more open lilies.

I woke up early and found that I had just enough flowers to finish off the bouquets. Phew - how lucky was that?!

Bouquet 5: wired posy of pink oriental lilies and magnolia foliage

Bouquet 6: I did this same one at the last expo and it was so popular amongst the brides that I decided to make it again for this expo. And again it got alot of special attention. This is a wired cascade bouquet of white oriental lilies, white singapore orchids and magnolia foliage

After only 4 hours of sleep and finishing off all the bouquets, it was time to head off to the expo. My poor hubby spent his day off work, helping me in my stall. He was such a great help, handing out my pamphlets and talking to people when I was already busy talking to other people. I was so proud of my gorgeous man and felt really lucky that he was there to help me out.

It was a great day. There was over 1200 people that came through and I got such a positive reaction to my stand. People were just so lovely and saying the nicest things. I've even had quite a few enquiries already!

Thanks to everyone that came in. You made the expo a great success.

I ended up giving away the natural stem bouquets which left me with the wired bouquets to take home. And can you imagine that when I looked at them today, 2 days after the expo, they still looked pretty good? Flowers love this cold weather. Take a look.....