Saturday, August 29, 2009

Bouquet Shapes: Cascading bouquet

This is the last of our series of bouquet shapes.
OK so this is the cascade bouquet. It is also known as a multiple-trail bouquet or a shower bouquet.
This bouquet can be quite large and even though it is a wired bouquet, it has more of a loose, unstructured feel to it. It is different to the trailing and teardrop bouquets because the trail does not lead to one point. It has various trails that fall from the top of the bouquet and flow down towards the floor. The trails are in random positions and can be various different lengths which can make it look as neat or as messy as you would like.
The trails can be formed by flowers or foliages. One of the easiest flowers to use for this style of bouquet is the singapore orchid. But you can use many different flowers such as roses, tulips, gladioli, hyacinths, jasmine, stephanotis and tuberoses. And the same look can be achieved through foliages such as ivy, asparagus fern, dodda vine, berries and tropical leaves.

Monday, August 10, 2009

After: Tammy's wedding

I said I would be back with some photos of Tammy's wedding flowers and here I am.

I'll get straight into it and show you a few of the flowers we had to start with.
We had dark purple lisianthus, white roses and white tulips which were to be used in all of the bouquets, and then we also had some purple kale as a special extra to use in the brides bouquet.
This is what they ended up like.
The flower girl posy:

The bridesmaid posy:
The bride posy:

This is how we decorated all of the bouquet stems:

And lastly the buttonholes and corsages:

I'm not a good photographer so my photos never look that great. But hopefully Tammy will send me some of her professional photos after the wedding so that you can see them in all their glory!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Before: Tammy's Wedding

It's a wedding week for me and I can't wait to get into it. I have a client Tammy who is getting married this weekend. I'm pretty excited to make her wedding bouquet because she has picked something that I don't often get to use for wedding flowers. This picture from a wedding flower magazine is the inspiration we are using for Tammy's bouquet. It includes: white roses, dark purple lisianthus and kale. Kale is also known as 'ornamental cabbage' and whilst I have used it often in day to day floristry, I have never had an opportunity to use it in a wedding bouquet. We will also include some white tulips in Tammy's bouquet and different foliage so the overall look will be the same , but different - if that makes any sense at all. LOL!! Tammy's bridesmaid and flower girl will have bouquets of white roses, white tuips and just a touch of dark purple lisianthus. No kale for them as that will be a special feature in the bridal bouquet. I'll make sure to post some photos of how they turn out.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Flower Of The Month


One of the most popular wedding flowers used throughout Winter and Spring is the Tulip. Tulips are actually one of the most popular cut flower varieties to be used worldwide, coming third after roses and chrysanthemums. It's not hard to see why, they are an extremely elegant flower and it makes them very versatile in bouquets and arrangements.
Tulips can be a bit fiddly to work with. They have a thick bendy stem, and from personal experience, when I am making a natural stem bridal bouquet, sometimes it is hard to fit my hands around the whole base of the stems. The other issue you face when using tulips, is that after they are cut, they keep on growing towards the light. A tulip can grow up to 20 centimetres from the time they are picked, to the end of their life span. So when you are using them in bouquets or arrangements with other flowers, you need to place them slightly lower than where you want them to sit because they will grow.
Once you know how to handle them, tulips are fantastic to work with. They like the colder weather, so even though they are available all year round, I will only work with them in the cooler months when I know they can withstand a wedding day. When it is too warm for them the flowers will blow completely open and the stems will droop over. It's not a good look for one of the most important days in your life so I won't risk it.
Flower: Tulip
Botanical Name: Tulipa
Origin: Turkey
Season: their natural season is late winter and spring, however they are grown all year round
Colour/s: white, cream, red, orange, yellow, pink, purple and lots of variegations
Meaning: perfect love (and depending on colour, fame or declaration of love)