The Kissing Tree

Professional Photos

2010-06-15T16:44:00.002+10:00

Hey there! *waves*

It has been a while. Winter is the wedding off season and I have enjoyed a bit of a break (and still a bit more of it to come), so that is why you haven't heard from me. Through this time off I have made a big decision to cut down on the amount of weddings I take on, so I hate to say that bookings will be limited from now on.

I have got so many photos to show you! When I show you photos of the bouquets that I make, I usually just take the photo on my mobile phone. The flowers never look as good as they do in person. So I have been harrassing some of our wonderful local photographers trying to get some professional photos of the weddings I have done. Here are just some of the weddings form the past 8 months......

Kym: photos by Vibe Photography

Margaret: photo by Pink Lily Photography

Mira: photos by Delisser Photography

Hanna:

Vanessa:

Natalie: photos by One Fine Day Photography

Nina: photos by Delisser Photography

Rebecca: photos by Impact Images Newcastle

Louise:

Polly: photos by Vibe Photography

Francine: photos by Impact Images Central Coast

Megan: photo by Bella Photo Art

Kylie: photo by Jim Picot

Clare:

Chrisse: photos by Photography By Victoria

Kimberly: photos by Delisser Photography

Kate: photos by Photography By Victoria

So many pretty photos! I hope you liked them.

I want to say a big thanks to all of my beautiful brides. And a special thanks to the wonderful photographers who have shared their gorgeous work with me. I get to hear about so many wedding plans from my brides and I love getting to see it all come together.

Local Wedding Magazines

2010-05-18T16:46:00.001+10:00

Hey there!

I have noticed that the new editions of a couple of local wedding magazines have come out in the last few weeks.

White is a wedding magazine that covers the Central Coast, Newcastle, Hunter Valley and even further. The one thing I especially love about this magazine is all of the real wedding stories.

Another magazine that came out recently is the Newcastle & Central Coast Wedding magazine. If you are planning a wedding in the area, you should get this one as a starting point. It only comes out once a year and has so many suppliers in it for you to look at.

I advertised in it this year. You may remember me the photo shoot that I posted about in November and me showing you the bouquet I had made for it. Well here is how it looks through the lens of a professional...

And do you know what was even more surprising when I flipped through the magazine? There are a few photos from my wedding in there! Even the page that introduces the 'flower' section is a full page of my actual wedding bouquet! So unexpected!

After: Lyn's wedding

2010-05-02T11:51:00.001+10:00

One last wedding to show you and it's only a little one. I met a Lyn last year when she was helping to organise her daughter's wedding flowers. You may remember our beautiful bride Louise who was married in February? Well now it was Lyn's turn to get married.

When she was looking through my wedding flower magazine's trying to find something that Louise would like, she actually saw a bouquet that she loved! Little did she know at the time that she would be back to see me in a few months to order that bouquet for her own wedding.

This is the picture that Lyn wanted to base her bouquet on. She loved how different it was:

And this is how it turned out..... I probably should have taken the photo from the same angle as teh magazine picture above so that you could compare it properly

Bride Bouquet: posy of cream roses, cream kale and fuchsia feathers (Lyn's dress was fuchsia)

And she also had a couple of wands of pink mini roses made up for her GrandDaughters (so cute!):

It was so interesting to use kale in a wedding bouquet. Kale is also known as 'Ornamental Cabbage' and it has the same scent as a cabbage too. This is what they looked like before I stripped them back to put in the bouquet:

Lyn absolutely loved her bouquet! It was so great to work with you again Lyn. Congratulations!!

After: Elizabeth's wedding

2010-05-02T10:30:00.000+10:00

Another wedding we had this weekend was for Elizabeth.

Bride Bouquet: posy of white roses, white tulips, hot pink gerberas, hot pink freesias, hot pink vanda orchids and privet berry (the photos of this bouquet just don't do it justice as the hot pink flowers were really vibrant and bold)

Bridesmaids Bouquet: the bridesmaids had an all white version of the bride (and they were wearing the fuchsia coloured dresses), posy of white roses, white tulips, white mini gerberas, white freesias, white singapore orchids and privet berry

Elizabeth absolutley loved her bouquets! It's so nice to be able to deliver something that the bride is so happy about and gushes over.

Congratulations Elizabeth! I hope you had an amazing wedding and I look forward to seeing some pics!

After: Jacqui's wedding

2010-05-02T09:15:00.000+10:00

I love how Jacqui's bouquets turned out. She was after an unsrtuctured style and the colours she chose were so pretty together. I only have pictures of the bouquets to show you - but I'm sure by now you all know how my buttonholes and corsages look.

Bride Bouquet: posy of ivory roses, mauve roses, purple lisianthus, purple freesias, white freesias, mauve hyacinths, privet berry and dusty miller

Bridesmaid Bouquets: they had a smaller version of the bride, a posy of ivory roses, mauve roses, purple lisianthus, purple freesias, white freesias, mauve hyacinths, privet berry and dusty miller

Jacqui held her wedding ceremony in the cutest little church. It's the Holy Cross Church at Kincumber.

Church Arrangements: two tall arrangements were made and placed at the front of the church. They consisted of ivory roses, mauve roses, purple lisianthus, purple freesias, and white freesias

I hope you had teh most lovely day Jacqui! I can't wait to hear about all of the details.

Before photos

2010-05-01T19:42:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I have been flat out this week so there will be no 'before' pictures for this weekends weddings. So sorry. But I will have some 'after' photos coming up shortly.

This is actually the end of my busy season and I have a couple of months off before my next lot of weddings start again. I haven't had a weekend off since February so I am actually looking forward to a little break. Although I still have one more weekend to get through as I'll be working at my former boss's shop for Mother's Day next weekend. It's all fun.

I hope you are all having a great weekend.

After: Kate's wedding

2010-04-26T15:24:00.001+10:00

We had another wedding on the weekend for Kate. Here are some photos of what we put together for her wedding..........

Bride Bouquet: ivory roses, mauve roses and white lisianthus

Flower Girl Bouquet: Kate didn't have any bridesmaids, instead having 2 flower girls. They carried a smaller version of her bouquet with ivory roses, mauve roses and white lisianthus

Hair flowers: ivory mini roses

Buttonholes: the groom had a single ivory rose whilst everyone else had a mauve rose

Corsage: Mum had a dress corsage of ivory mini roses

We hope that Kate had an absolutely wonderful wedding day. Congratulations!!

After: Hannah's wedding

2010-04-26T11:23:00.001+10:00

It was a perfect sunny day for Hannah's beautiful Hunter Valley wedding. Perfect!

Here are some photos of her flowers..... and there are lots of photos....

Bride Bouquet: posy of ivory roses, white roses and white lisianthus

Bridesmaid Bouquets: antique coloured roses

Flower Girl Bouquet: posy of ivory roses, white roses and white lisianthus

Hair Flowers: white lisianthus

Buttonholes: the Groom had an ivory rose with some dodda vine, the Groomsmen had a simple antique rose and the Dad's had a simple ivory rose

Corsages: the Mum's wore a wrist corsage of mini ivory roses

Ceremony: the wedding was being held at Peppers Creek chapel and The Barrel Room. We didn't have to do anything to the little chapel but it is too pretty to not show you... and it's the chapel I was married at 16 months ago!! The first pic is where I was actually standing when I was waiting to walk down the aisle. Awwwww I was soooooooo excited to think of Hannah doing the exact same thing :-)

Reception: this is a gorgeous and very popular reception venue. All that we had to do to decorate the venue was to scatter some rose petals on the tables

That is all to show you from Hannah's wedding. Our Congratulations go out to the newlyweds. We are sure it would have been a perfect day for you both!

Before: Kate's wedding

2010-04-23T20:15:00.000+10:00

This order of wedding flowers has been done over the email. I haven't met Kate at all and can't wait to finally see her when I deliver her flowers.

She has picked something simple and based her bouquet on one that is on our website. These are the flowers we are using:

White lisianthus, mauve roses, ivory roses and ivory mini roses

Come back through the week and see what we do with them! :-)

Before: Hannah's wedding

2010-04-23T20:09:00.001+10:00

Hannah is one of those girls that you just fall in love with. Such a sweetheart. She came to see me in the studio a few months ago and we could have talked forever. And once I heard the details of her wedding we bonded over the fact that I was married in the same chapel that Hannah is getting married in! It's so pretty!

These are the flowers we are using for Hannah's wedding:

Antique coloured roses, white and ivory roses, cream mini roses and white lisianthus

I'll be back after the weekend to show you Hannah's flowers.

After: Kellie's wedding

2010-04-19T10:55:00.005+10:00

This is the last wedding to show you from the weekend. Kellie kept it very simple and only needed a few bouquets made and a cake top.

Here are her flowers...

Bride Bouquet: white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias, privet berry and dusty miller

Bridesmaids Bouquets: white roses, ivory roses, white lisianthus, white freesias, privet berry and dusty miller

Cake Topper: Kellie had given me a picture of what she was basing her cake on and needed me to do a cake topper of roses just like it (but without the vine). She gave me the top tier of the cake as it was just styrofoam decorated like the rest of the cake, and I was able to put some white and pink roses on it

We hope that Kellie had a wonderful wedding day and send out our best wishes to the new Mr and Mrs!

After: Kimberly's wedding

2010-04-19T09:19:00.001+10:00

Now this wedding was a big job! And the results were amazing. There is going to be a picture overload here but there is so much to show you.

Bride Bouquet: white roses, pink roses, mauve roses, white lisianthus, pink lisianthus and white singapore orchids

Bridesmaids Bouquet: mauve roses, white roses, pink roses, mauve lisianthus, purple lisianthus, white singapore orchids and purple vanda orchids

Flower Girl Bouquet: she had the same as the bride with white roses, pink roses, mauve roses, white lisianthus, pink lisianthus and white singapore orchids

I didn't get any photos of the buttonholes or corsages! In the late night finish and very early morning start, it's something that I just missed out on. Sorry!

The ceremony was held in the most beautiful little church called St Mary's Heritage Church and is located in Gosford.

Ceremony Arrangements: we placed two tall vases of white roses at the front of the church

The reception was held at the Copacabana Surf Life Saving Club. It's right on the beach and the views go forever! Kimberly made full use of the view by having a lunch time reception.

Bridal table: an arrangement of white roses, pink roses, mauve roses, white lisianthus, pink lisianthus and white singapore orchids, and rose petals scattered along the table

a closer view:

Guest tables: the long tables had vases on them filled with clear water pearls, and with posies of mauve roses, white roses, pink roses, mauve lisianthus, white singapore orchids and purple vanda orchids. And rose petals were scattered along the entire length of the tables. They looked so gorgeous that I couldn't stop taking pictures of them......

Cake Table: we didn't do much to this, just scattered some rose petals along the table

And one final look at the reception room all finished

Thank you so much for trusting us with this Kimberly. Your flowers looked amazing and we hope they helped to make your day everything you had dreamed of.

After: Chrissie's wedding

2010-04-19T07:09:00.009+10:00

We had a massive weekend so there will be no small talk from me... just straight to the photos

Bride Bouquet: white roses, white singapore orchids and blue singapore orchids

Bridesmaids Bouquet: white roses, white singapore orchids and blue singapore orchids

Hair Flowers: white roses and white singapore orchids

Buttonholes: the groom had a white rose and blue singapore orchids, the groomsemn and one of the Dad's had a plain white rose, whilst the other Dad had a white singapore orchid

Corsages: one Mum had a dress corsage of white roses and the other Mum had white singapore orchids instead

The wedding was held at Rafferty's Resort in the beautiful Lake Macquarie. It's a great venue for weddings. We didn't have to do anything for the ceremony but I thought I would include a picture so that you could see how pretty it is to have a ceremony by their lake

Reception: this is the reception room with a beautiful lake view in the background

Bridal Table / Guest Tables: all of the tables had a bowl on them with blue water and floating candles in them. We added some white singapore orchid flowers to them and then white rose petals surrounding the bowls

Cake Table: and lastly, we placed some white rose petals on the cake table as well - and you can see the little bridal toss posy in there too

We hope you liked Chrissie's flowers! Congratulations to the gorgeous newlyweds!

Before: Kellie's wedding

2010-04-17T10:26:00.001+10:00

One more wedding to show you.

Here are Kellie's flowers:

For Kellie's wedding we are using: ivory roses, white roses, (the pink roses are only for the cake), white freesias, green berries, and dusty miller

We will be back with some photos of the finished product soon.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Before: Kimberly's wedding

2010-04-17T09:55:00.001+10:00

We have alot to do for Kimberly's wedding and we can't wait to see it all come together. It's all going to look beautiful.

We are doing flowers for the bridal party, the church and the reception so we have heaps of flowers as you can see:

One photo is taken from one end, and the other photo from the other end. We are using: singapore orchids, lisianthus, roses and vanda orchids in various shades of mauve, purple, pink and white

Kimberly found this picture of a bouquet in a magazine and loved it so we are using it as our inspiration. We aren't using all of the same flowers or the same colours but it will look something like this:

She loved the flowers we did for a wedding ceremony a few months ago, so we will be doing something similar to

this for Kimberly's church:

And when Kimberly came across this picture when she was searching the internet, she knew she had to have something like it for her long reception tables:

Aren't they gorgeous? We will be keeping them in Kimberly's mauve/purple theme.

Well we have alot of work ahead so we better get to it. We will be back after the weekend with many pictures to show you how it all looked.

Before: Chrissie's wedding

2010-04-16T09:18:00.000+10:00

We have a big weekend ahead, with 3 weddings to show you!

The first one is Chrissie's. She is an absolute sweetheart!

Here are the flowers we are using for Chrissie's wedding:

We are using white roses, white singapore orchids and blue singapore orchids.

We will be back after the weekend to show you how Chrissie's flowers looked.

After: Elly's wedding

2010-04-13T08:58:00.001+10:00

I love how these bouquets turned out. There is nothing more simple and elegant than calla liliy bouquets!

I won't keep you waiting for the pictures. Here they are.........

Bride bouquet: white calla lilies with tropical leaves

Bridesmaid Bouquets: the bridesmaids had just a few stems of calla lilies in a posy style

Hair flowers: they were all having white singapore orchids pinned into their hair

Buttoholes: the groom buttonhole includes a calla lily with singapore orchids whilst his groomsmen and the Dad's had singapore orchids only

Corsages: the Mum's had a dress corsage of white singapore orchids

Cake flowers: the last thing on the list was to make a small cake arrangement of white singapore orchids to sit in the corner of the cake

Our congratulations go out to the newlyweds!! We hope you had an amazing day Elly!!

After: Clare's wedding

2010-04-13T08:31:00.001+10:00

Oh what a beautiful weekend for weddings!

Our first wedding was Clare. She had beautiful, simple rose posies. Here are some photos of her flowers.....

Bride Bouquet: posy of ivory roses and camellia leaves with diamante accents

Bridesmaid Bouquets: posy of ivory roses and camellia leaves

Flower Girl bouquets: posy of ivory roses and camellia leaves

Hair flowers: the bridesmaids had some ivory roses and mini roses to put in their hair

Buttonholes: the groom had an ivory rose with a couple of mini roses, and the groomsmen had a single ivory rose

Corsage: the Mum's had a dress corsage of mini roses

The reception was held at Terrigal Surf Lifesaving Club and we kept the decorations minimal because there was already a gorgeous ocean view to look at. This is what it looks like on the inside:

Bridal Table, Guest Table and Cake Table: a scatter of ivory rose petals and blue delphinium heads

The blue delphinium added the touch of colour that Clare really wanted at the reception - and of course the blue went with the blue bridesmaid dresses and the beach feel.

Best wishes to Clare and her new hubby! We hope the wedding was fantastic!

Before Elly's wedding

2010-04-09T17:50:00.000+10:00

I met Elly recently at my studio to dicuss her wedding flowers. She wanted to keep things simple and we decided to use just a few arum lily stems for the bouquets. However we found out that we couldn't get the arum lilies after all, but were lucky enough to get a few bunches of calla lilies instead - which look extremely similar.

We found this picture on the internet and are using it as the inpiration for Elly's bouquet. She liked the calla lilies at different levels:

Here are the flowers we are using for Elly's wedding:

we have some tropical leaves, some calla lilies and some singapore orchids for the buttonholes, ceremony and reception decorations.

Come back after the weekend and see what we put together!

Before: Clare's wedding

2010-04-09T16:24:00.000+10:00

When Clare came to see me, I knew I recongnised her name. We worked out that she was a couple of years below me at the same schools. We clicked straight away, and spent half of our time in the consult just talking like long time friends. She was great and I can't wait for her wedding this weekend.

Here are the flowers we are working with for Clare's wedding:

From the bottom left (clockwise): we have white mini roses, blue delphinium, white roses and camellia

Clare is keeping very simple. We will show you her bouquets after the weekend.

After: Laura's wedding

2010-04-06T10:05:00.002+10:00

Laura was also married on the weekend, and here are her flowers..........

Bride Bouquet: white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and white singapore orchids

Bridesmaid bouquet: white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and white singapore orchids

Flower Girl bouquet: white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and white singapore orchids

Buttonholes: the groom had a buttonhole with a white rose and white singapore orchid, whilst the groomsman and Dad's had a single white rose

Corsages: the Mum's and VIP's had a dress corsage of white singapore orchids

Now off to Laura's reception. It was held at the Avoca Beach Surf Life Saving Club which is absolutely STUNNING! The view is just sensational. I've taken some extra photos of the actual venue (not just the flowers) so that you can see how lovely it is.

The bar area: In this area we wanted to keep it simple so we placed three vases of white singapore orchids (one on teh bar and one each on the low tables)

Reception Room:

Guest Tables: the bride provided her own accessories (mirror/vase/rocks/candle), and I just placed a couple of stems of singapore orchids around the vase bowls

Doesn't it all look so beautiful?!

Congratulations to Laura. The day looked like it was going to be gorgeous and I am sure all of the guests were extremely impressed. I hope you had the best day!

After: Denai's wedding

2010-04-06T09:44:00.001+10:00

Here are some photos of Denai's flowers................

Bride bouquet: wired teardrop bouquet of white roses

Bridesmaids bouquets: white roses and purple lisianthus

Flower Girl bouquet: white roses and purple lisianthus

Buttonholes: the groom and the Dad's had a single white rose buttonhole and the groomsmen had a white rose and purple lisianthus

Corsages: the Mum's had a wrist corsage of white spray roses

Bridal table: for the bridal table we had an arrangement to sit in the middle of white roses, white oriental lilies, white singapore orchids and purple lisianthus

Cake: the cake was very simple and just had small sprays of purple lisianthus in the corner of each tier

Congratulations to Denai and Jon . I hope your wedding day was everything you had ever dreamed of. I can't wait to hear about it.

After: Kylie's wedding

2010-04-06T09:30:00.000+10:00

We had three weddings on the weekend so I have plety of photos to show.

Here are Kylie's flowers.......

Bride Bouquet: white roses, ivory roses, white lisianthus, white freesias, white singapore orchids and pearl accents

Bridesmaids bouquet: white roses, green roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and green singapore orchids

Buttonholes: the groom had a buttonhole with a white rose and white singapore orchid, the groomsmen had a white rose with a green singapore orchid and the Dad's had a plain white rose

Corsage: the Mum's had a dress corsage of white lisianthus

Congratulations to the beautiful newlyweds! I hope your wedding day was absolutely perfect.

Before: Laura's wedding

2010-04-05T19:18:00.000+10:00

Laura's flowers are going to prove to be a slight challenge. You see, my natural style is to be very neat. My posies are always compact and very very neat. Laura is after her bouquets to look completely unstructured with lots of buds and pieces sticking out. You'll have to come back and see what my 'unstructured' looks like. I promise you that I can do it, but messy bouquets don't come naturally to me and are something that I have to work at!
Here are the flowers we are using for Laura's wedding:

From the top clockwise: white singapore orchids, white roses, white freesias, more white singapore orchids and white lisianthus

I'll be back soon to show you the 'after' pics from this weekends weddings.

Before: Denai's wedding

2010-04-05T19:05:00.001+10:00

Oh the gorgeous Denai! Such a sweetheart. You know when you meet someone and just click? Well that was Denai and I. I felt like we could have babbled on forever, and as soon as I left her place, I was already excited for her wedding.

Here are the flowers we are usnig for her wedding:

From the bottom left: white spray roses, white singapore orchids, purple lisianthus, white roses and white oriental lilies

Before: Kylie's wedding

2010-04-05T19:01:00.001+10:00

I hope everybody has had a wonderful Easter!

Well I am running behind on my 'before' and 'after' shots because I wanted a chance to enjoy some of the long weekend after working all of Friday and Saturday. So I am going to get straight into it.

Kylie came to me with ideas of what flowers she was after for her wedding, but by the end of our consult she had completely changed her mind. Instead of something vintage looking, she went with whites and greens which will look so fresh. I love greens, especially against black bridesmaids dresses which is what Kylie's girls are wearing. I hope she likes her flowers!

Here are the flowers we are using for Kylie's wedding:

From the top clockwise: green roses, white lisianthus, white roses, ivory roses, white singapore orchids, green singapore orchids, and white freesias

After: Cathy's wedding

2010-03-29T08:48:00.000+11:00

Our last wedding of the weekend was for Cathy. Cathy was after a soft and pretty looking bouquet and she was very happy with what we delivered. We knew that she was after bouquets of white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and another white soft flower. The soft flower that we were able to get was hydrangea. Ooooohhh so pretty.

See what you think. Here are Cathy's flowers.......

Bride Bouquet: white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and white hydrangea (Cathy wanted the foliage to be just peeking out so that it wasn't really noticeable)

Bridesmaids Bouquets: the bridesmaids had a smaller version of the bride bouquet with white roses, white lisianthus, white freesias, and white hydrangea

Buttonholes: the groom, groomsmen and the brides sweet little nephews had a rose on camellia leaves

Corsages: Cathy's Mum had a wrist corsage of white roses and ivory lisianthus

Cake Topper: and lastly we made a little posy to go on top of the cake. It has white roses, white lisianthus and white freesias in it. We left the hydrangea out as the cake topper was completely wired and hydrangea doesn't last well out of water. The last thing we wanted was for it to look limp when the cake was cut later in the night.

That is all we have to show you from Cathy's wedding. We hope you liked them.

To Cathy - We hope you had and absolute blast! Congratulations to you and your new husband xx

After: Megan's wedding

2010-03-29T07:34:00.002+11:00

We had another beach wedding on the weekend so thank goodness for the beautiful day!!

When I delivered Megan's flowers she had just slipped into her wedding dress. And...... WOW. WOW WOW WOW!! She looked so completely gorgeous and I hoped that Ricky was prepared to have his breath taken away.

Here are the flowers we made for their wedding......

Bride Bouquet: posy of white roses and white lisianthus

Bridesmaids Bouquets: smaller posy of white roses and white lisianthus

Buttonholes: the groom and the groomsmen had a white rose and white lisianthus buttonhole on camellia leaves (but to make the grooms a little bit different, his leaves were placed differently). And the Dad's had a plain white rose on a camellia leaf

Corsages: the Mum's had a dress corsage of white spray roses on camellia leaves, and a ribbon to match the colour of the bridesmaids dresses

Our congratulations go out to Megan and Ricky! We hope your wedding was everything you dreamed of and more.

After: Diana's wedding

2010-03-28T12:31:00.000+11:00

Diana had a small and intimate beach wedding, and it has been the most beautiful weather for it. I have always thought that March is the nicest time of year to get married. It cools down just a touch after summer, and the days are comfortable and sunny. Beautiful!

This was a very simple wedding and we didn't have to do too much, here are the flowers.......

Bride bouquet: posy of white freesias and a touch of gardenia foliage

Flower girl: small basket of white rose petals

Groom Buttonhole: white freesias on a camellia leaf

See - simple but very pretty and elegant. One of the best things about the bouquet is how gorgeous the smell was. Freesias have a very strong sweet scent and I wish that I could send it through the computer screen to you. Soooooo yummy!

Before: Cathy's wedding

2010-03-26T20:41:00.000+11:00

This week you get a third wedding to check out! We are also making Cathy's wedding flowers. Cathy is pretty relaxed about her flowers. She has kept the colours to white (just like our 2 other weddings this weekend), and is specifically after something soft and pretty.

We decided on roses and lisianthus for certain with a touch of some freesias in there, and we also wanted something else soft like a david austin rose, sweet pea or hydrangea - all of which are just out of season. We had to wait and see what flower would be available that would fit the soft, fluffy and pretty description.

Here are Cathy's flowers......

Clockwise from the top left: white lisianthus, white roses, camellia, white hydrangeac, and white freesias

Yep we were able to get a tiny bit of white hydrangea! These bouquets are going to be beautiful. I'll show them to you on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Before: Megan's wedding

2010-03-26T17:45:00.002+11:00

I met Megan and her partner a few months ago to talk wedding flowers. They are such a sweet couple and planning a wedding by the beach. Recently I was checking out a local photographers blog, and saw their familiar faces as they had just had their engagement photo shoot. You can see the photos here. I love how relaxed, happy and excited they look and can't wait to see how great their wedding photos are going to be.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should show you the flowers we are using for their wedding....

From the left: white lisianthus, white spray roses, white roses, and camellia leaves

I'll be back on Monday to show you how the flowers looked!

Before: Diana's wedding

2010-03-26T15:36:00.001+11:00

I have had alot of last minute bookings over the past month. One of them was Diana. I met her exactly a month ago to talk about her wedding flowers. She came to me with a couple of ideas but as she looked through my gallery of photos, she fell in love with a freesia bouquet that I did last year. She decided to have the exact same bouquet, a small posy of all fressias.

Here are the flowers we are using for Diana's wedding...

White freesias and a touch of gardenia foliage.

It is going to be a small wedding so I am only making a bouquet for the bride and a buttonhole for the groom. I'll be back after the weekend to show you Diana's bouquet.

After: Karina's wedding

2010-03-22T07:14:00.002+11:00

What an absolutely beautiful day it was for Karina's wedding on Saturday!

The lead up to the day was another stressful one for me. The bride really wanted fresh frangipani's in her bouquet and I had no luck sourcing them. So I used the artificial ones instead and was extremely worried that Karina wouldn't like them.

I needn't have worried. When I delivered the flowers, Karina loved them so much that she got all teary! It was so sweet. That kind of reaction really makes all the stress, time and effort you put in completely worth it.

Here are the wedding flowers.....

Bride bouquet: posy (with a vine trail) of white roses, ivory roses, white singapore orchids, white artificial frangipani's, green privet berry, dodda vine and magnolia leaves

Bridesmaids bouquets: posy of white roses, ivory roses, white singapore orchids, white artificial frangipani's, dodda vine and magnolia leaves

Buttonholes: the groom had a different buttonhole to everyone else (which is something I like to do), he had a white rose and white singapore orchids with some vine, and the groomsmen had an artificial white frangipani with some vine, and lastly, the Dad's had a single ivory rose with some vine

Corsages: the Mum's had wrist corsages of white roses, white singapore orchids and vine, whilst the Nan's had a dress corsage of the same thing

Cake Topper: Karina wanted some flowers for her cake so we used the artificial white frangipani's and vine to sit on the top of the cake as well as on the corner of each tier. (You can also see Karina's little throw-away bouquet in this pic)

I hope you all liked Karina's flowers.

Congratulations to the newlyweds!! Karina looked amazing and I am sure a fantastic day was had by all!

Before: Karina's wedding

2010-03-19T17:07:00.001+11:00

We have a very easy weekend ahead with only one wedding on!

Karina is having a lovely mix of flowers. Here they are:

From the top left (clockwise): white roses, ivory roses, green privet berry, magnolia leaves, green dodda vine, white singapore orchids and some frangipani's

The vine is going to be used throughout the bouquet, but for the brides bouquet we are also going to add a little vine drop as seen in this picture (ignore all of the flowers)...

And Karina has requested that the leaves sit unevenly around the bouquet - so not an even frame right around the posies like we usually do, more something unstructured like this.....

I can't wait to see how these bouquets look. I'm a sucker for anything with berries in it, and the magnolia leaves with their green glossy front and rusty back are devine! I don't get to use either of them very often so it's a real treat when I do.

Come back after the weekend and I'll show you how the bouquets turn out.

After: Kathy's wedding

2010-03-16T10:42:00.000+11:00

This was our native wedding!

Kathy gave me a pretty free reign with her wedding flowers. I kept her informed along the way at what I was looking at and got her feedback, but she mostly just trusted me with it. She had her parents in law come and pick up the flowers the morning of the wedding so I didn't get to see her reaction and know wether she loved her bouquets or not. Mind you her parents in law were extremely happy with them so I was pretty confident that Kathy would feel the same. It was so so sweet when she called me before the wedding to tell me how happy she was and how much she loved them! Getting that feedback makes you feel all gooey inside.

Here are Kathy's flowers.......

Bride bouquet: a posy of white paper daisies, tetra nuts, sparsa, pittostrum, ficifolia nuts, kangaroo paw, tea tree, silver dollar gum, crenulata, emu grass and wooly bush

Bridesmaid bouquets: they had a smaller version with the exact same flowers as the bride (but with less of the white paper daisies as we wanted the bridesmaids to be a little bit less white than the bride)

Buttonholes: the groom had a ficifolia nut with some tetra nuts at the base and a touch of dodda vine, and the groomsmen and Dad's had just a plain ficifolia nut with the vine (sorry about the blurry picture)

Corsages: the Mum's and Grandmum's had a dress corsage of small ficifolia nuts, tetra nuts and a touch of tea tree

So what did you all think of our first native wedding? I hope you liked them.

Congratulations to the newlyweds! I hope you had an amazing day Kathy. And I want to send out my sincere thanks for giving me so much of your trust. You were a delight to collaborate with.

After: Alicia's wedding

2010-03-16T10:12:00.001+11:00

Well how do you think I went with Alicia's wedding? Did my lilies open in time for the wedding or not?........ oh the stress!

Well the day before the wedding the lilies had started to split - this is a good sign as it shows that the lilies are in the process of opening. Another good sign was that the weather was no longer cold and rainy, but fine and sunny - still not the hot and humid I needed but it would do.

Usually I make wedding bouquets the day before the wedding. All of my orange tiger lilies opened so I was able to make the bridesmaids bouquets, but with not a single white oriental lily open, I would have to leave the bridal bouquet until the day of the wedding! Are you feeling my stress? I went to bed knowing that the lilies had split and with the confidence that I would wake up in the morning with the 3 open white lily flowers that I needed.

I was wrong. I woke up very early to see that they hadn't budged at all. So after a few tears I regained my composure and set off to find some lilies I could use. Luckily it didn't take long at all. My former boss came to my rescue as she had some open ones in the shop. Relief....hooray!!!!!!

So it all worked out well in the end. But the lilies and I now have a fragile relationship and it's going to take some time for them to get on my good side again.

Alicia had a beautiful beachside wedding at Toowoon Bay. The surf club there is gorgeous with the most amazing views over the beach!

Here are how Alicia's flowers looked.....

Bride Bouquet: teradrop of white artificial frangipanis with a few white oriental lilies and cordyline leaves draping and folded around the head of the bouquet

Bridesmaid Bouquets: posies of white artificial frangipani's and orange tiger lilies

Flower girls: the flower girls held baskets of rose petals (the ribbon around the handle is the same colour as the bridemaid dresses)

Buttonholes: the groom had 2 white artificial frangipani's on camellia leaf and the groomsmen had 1 white artificial frangipani flower on a camellia leaf

Corsages: the Mum's had a corsage of white artificial frangipani's on camellia leaves

If there are any other florists out there reading - I bet you all have a lily story or two! Isn't it the worst feeling just waiting to see if they are going to come through for you - and knowing that there is nothing you can do? It's the one thing I don't like about my job - I can't control nature. And that is hard for a perfectionist like me to accept. LOL!

Alicia - I hope that you had a beautiful wedding and would love to hear all about it!

Before: Kathy's wedding

2010-03-12T18:08:00.000+11:00

This is our very first native wedding!! Exciting!

Confession time - I have worked with natives for years in the florist shops, and whilst I know the varieties pretty well (eg: protea, banksia, waratah etc) I get completely lost on the gazillion different species each one of them has (eg: Banksia Baxterii, Banksia Menziesii, Banksia Praemorsa, Banksia Prionotes, Banksia Occidentalis etc).

So when Kathy came to me to discuss her wedding flowers, I knew it was going to be a learning curve.But Kathy kept it very simple for me. She didn't mind what was in her bouquets but she had 3 requests: that we use natives that are specifically Australian in origin, that if we were going to use colours we would stick to white and oranges, and that the bouquets have a 'just picked from the yard and whacked together' unstructured look to them. The only thing she really wanted included were paper daisies, but unfortunately they are out of season. Kathy was happy to leave it to me and didn't even mind if the bouquet was just full of different textured foliages.

So I began doing my research. I hear alot about brides who want an 'Australian' bouquet and so they pick natives. For any brides out there who are thinking the same thing, please be aware that some of our most popular natives are not Australian in origin. The popular things like your proteas and leucodendrons whilst they are grown in Australia, they actually originated in South African (gasp)!

We ended up with alot of beautiful natives to pick from. Here is what we got:

From the back (clockwise): we have some teatree, kangaroo paw, eucalyptus (silver dollar), sparsa, wooly bush, emu grass, eucalyptus crenulata, pittostrum, eucalyptus tetra nuts, ficifolia nuts, and some white paper daisies (yay I managed to get a little bit)!

I can't wait to see how these bouquets are going to look with so many different textures in them. I'll come back and post some pictures after the weekend.

Before: Alicia's wedding

2010-03-11T22:23:00.001+11:00

Alicia is having a beautiful beach wedding this weekend - and wouldn't you know it? It has been cold and raining all week. Hopefully it will improve in time for the big day.

This cold snap has provided me with one huge problem - this wedding includes lilies. Lilies arrive as a closed bud so you have to order them in advance to give them enough time to open. With the heat and humidity we have had for the last few months, it only takes a couple of days for them to open into a flower. However when it is cold, it can take a week or more.

When I ordered the lilies, it was hot and humid so I didn't think there would be a problem. And I only need 3 white lilies for the bride bouquet and 16 orange lilies for the bridesmaids so that should be easy right? Well I have been watching and tending to my lilies all week and whilst the orange ones are great, the white ones just aren't budging! And did I mention that I only need 3?! It's probably time to put a backup plan in place.

Here are Alicia's flowers: (you can see how tightly closed the white ones look)

Alicia's flowers are white oriental lilies, orange tiger lilies, some cordyline leaves and camellia leaves. She is also having some white artificial frangipani's too.

I'll be back after the weekend to let you know how I went. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me that these white lilies open!

After: Simone's wedding

2010-03-09T10:55:00.002+11:00

This is the last of our 3 weddings from the weekend. And there are quite a few pics to get through!

Simone wanted colourful and bright wedding flowers and that is exactly what she got. Unfortunately my camera didn't pick up the vibrancy in the colours very well, but hopefully Simone's photographer was able to.

Here are her flowers.....

Bride Bouquet: the shape of this was more of a posy but with some drapes hanging from it. The flowers used were hot pink roses, orange roses, yellow roses, blue hyacinths, blue delphinium, yellow freesias, hot pink vanda orchids, purple lisianthus and lilliana grass

Hair flowers: Simone wanted some flowers to scatter through her hair so we made some yellow roses and a few hot pink vanda orchids, and there was also a tiny little orchid hair clip for her beautiful baby girl

Buttonholes: the groom had a buttonhole of an orange rose with a touch of the lilliana grass, and Simone's dad had a yellow rose

Corsages: the Mum's had dress corsages of roses - ivory roses for the Mother of the Bride and peach roses for the Mother of the Groom

Reception Arrangement: And lastly, we made an arrangement to sit on the bridal table which included a mix of all of the flowers used in the bridal bouquet

Simone - I hope you had the most amazing day. Conratulations to you and your new husband!

Well that is all I have to show you from our weekend full of weddings. We have another two coming up this weekend, one of which is a bit different from the bouquets we have done before so I can't wait to show you. Talk to you in a few days!

After: Corrine's wedding

2010-03-09T07:20:00.001+11:00

I finally got to meet Corrine. She was so sweet and I loved how excited everyone was when I delivered the flowers.

These are how Corrine's flowers turned out....

Bride Bouquet: posy of pink and white/yellow artificial frangipani's

Bridesmaids Bouquets: posy of white/yellow artificial frangipani's

Buttonholes: the groom had a pink frangipani whilst his groomsmen had a white/yellow one

Corsages: the Mum's had dress corsages of pink frangipani's

I hope you liked teh flowers from Corrine's wedding. And I also hope that we are proving that the artificial frangipani's look fantastic!

To Corrine, it was so lovely to meet you. I hope you all had a fantastic day!

After: Danni's wedding

2010-03-08T18:16:00.007+11:00

Well it was a big weekend and I have 3 weddings to show you!

The first wedding we had was Danni's. The poor thing had to deal with the stress of the uncooperative weather. They were supposed to have an outdoor ceremony, but the weather was doing an all seasons in one day routine and a decision couldn't be made on whether to hold it inside or out until the last minute. I hope it all went OK.

Here are the flowers......

Bride Bouquet: posy of pink roses

Bridesmaids Bouquet: posy of ivory roses

Buttonholes: the groom had a pink rose buttonhole and his groomsmen had an ivory rose

Hair Flowers: Danni wanted an open rose to pin in her hair for the reception (after she had taken out her veil)

Ceremony Arrangement: I wish I could have taken a photo of the ceremony all set up, but when I delivered the flowers it was still uncertain if the weather would allow an outdoor ceremony or if they would have to move it indoors. Two large urn arrangements were made to sit at the end of the aisle on either side of the bride and groom. There was also some petals to scatter over the aisle. Here is one of the rose arrangements (the two of them were the same)

I hope you liked Danni's flowers! I'll be back to show you some pics from our 2 other weddings soon.

My big congratulations go out to the newlyweds! I hope your day was magical!

Before: Simone's wedding

2010-03-05T20:40:00.000+11:00

Isn't this a treat? Another wedding!

I met Simone a few months ago to discuss her wedding flowers. This isn't a very big wedding with only a bridal bouquet, some hair flowers, buttonholes, corasges and a bridal table arrangement. Simone is after a bright and colourful bouquet with a mix of flowers that looks like it has just been picked out of the garden. We want to keep it a little bit messy and this picture is the inspiration we are using:

We have chosen different flowers to use in the bouquet so it will look different, however the style and shape of the bouquet will remain the same.

Here are the flowers we are using for this wedding:

Starting on the left is some purple lisianthus, blue hyacinths, then some roses in orange, pink, ivory. peach and yellow, then there is some blue delphinium, some hot pink vanda orchids and some yellow freesias.

So many flowers and colours to work with!

Well you know the drill - I'll be back after the weekend to show you how it all turned out! :-)

Before: Corrine's wedding

2010-03-05T09:22:00.000+11:00

Another wedding for the weekend.

Corrine and I have not met... yet! But I will see her tomorrow when I deliver her flowers. We have organised her wedding flowers pretty easily through emails.

Corrine is having artificial frangipani's. At this time of year real frangipani's are a bit iffy. If it has been a very strong season and the weather conditions are still good then they should still be around. However, this year I found the frangipani season to be extremely weak. I think the constant changes of temperature hindered the season (you know what I mean... how it was hot for a few days, then a bad day or two, then hot again, then cold again.... and the cycle continued like that throughout the Summer).

Anyway, this is what we are starting with:

Artificial frangipani's in white and some in pink.

This is what the flowers look like when they arrive in their packets

And on the right of this picture is what they look like when you remove the plastic packaging, and then on the left is what the franigipan's look like once you open the flower up.

I'll be back after the weekend to show you how Corrine's bouquets looked.

Before: Danni's wedding

2010-03-05T07:11:00.001+11:00

I met Danni a few weeks before Christmas to discuss her wedding flowers. She was so sweet, and of course we clicked straight away - it had nothing to do with the fact that we both have the same first name ;-)

Danni is keeping it simple by having beautiful rose posies. The bride will have pink and the bridesmaids will have ivory. The pink rose is called Sweet Avalanche and it is my favourite rose from my fantastic rose supplier.

Here are Danni's flowers:

Ivory roses and pink roses

We are also going to make a couple of arrangements for teh ceremony using both the ivory and pink roses. It will (hopefully) look something like this:

I'll be back on Monday with some photos of Danni's wedding flowers.

After: Jacqueline's wedding

2010-03-01T19:48:00.001+11:00

And now for Jacqueline's beautiful wedding flowers!

Jacqueline had some posies of roses. Simple, but elegant! Here are some photos.....

Bride bouquet: posy of ivory roses

Bridemaids bouquet: smaller posy of ivory roses

The buttonholes were of ivory roses and the dress corsages were of ivory spray roses:

The flower girls carried mini posies of ivory roses (I don't know how I missed getting a photo of those), and they wore a halo of ivory spray roses on their heads. They don't look so great like this but if you actually see the little flower girl's wearing them, they look so adorable.

That is all the flowers from the day. Congratulations Jacqueline! I was so excited for you and hope your day was perfect. I can't wait to hear all about it!

After: Francine's wedding

2010-03-01T19:22:00.000+11:00

The weekend was just perfect for the two weddings we had on.

Francine's wedding was held at the Japanese Gardens at East Gosford, so the wedding had a Japanese theme. Instead of a usual bridal bouquet of flowers, Francine had a fan arrangement. It looked great and really suited her. Here are some pics of the flowers from the day.....

Bride Arrangement: fan (provided by the bride) of dodda vine with singapore orchids threaded throughout and some phalaenopsis orchids

There were no bridemaids, but Francine had some VIP's who received buttonholes and corsages. These are the buttonholes for the groom and the male VIP's: singapore orchids and vine on camellia leaves

and the female VIP's had pearl wrist corsages of singapore orchids:

Thank you so much Francine for trusting me with your wedding flowers. You knew that I had never done an arrangement like this before but you had faith that I understood what you were after and I hope I made you proud. Congratulations! You made a beautiful bride.

Before: Jacqueline's wedding

2010-02-25T21:13:00.000+11:00

The other wedding we have this weekend is for Jacqueline. I have been following Jacqueline's journey for aaaaggees and am really excited to see all of her planning come together! Only 2 more sleeps to go!

Jacqueline is keeping it really simple and having rose posies. I love them. I think they are pretty, elegant and they will never date.

Here are the flowers:

On the left of the photo are some small spray roses which we will use for the corsages and flower girl halos - yes the flower girls are having halos... how cute!! And on the right of the photo we have some ivory roses called Vendella. Beautiful!

I'll be back on Monday to show you Jacqueline's flowers.

Before: Francine's wedding

2010-02-25T20:54:00.000+11:00

This weekend we will have 2 weddings to show you.

The first one is a little bit different and I can't wait to see how it turns out. Francine is having a fan arrangement instead of a regular bridal bouquet. We are using a fan backing, then placing vine on the front of it with orchids wired through it and a focal area at the base of the fan of some phalaenopsis orchids. Does that sound interesting?? I haven't made anything like it before and I'm looking forward to getting in to it. We wanted to use water lilies for the focal area but had to change to the phalaenopsis orchids when we weren't able to get them. I think it will look fantastic.

Francine had such a bright and bubbly personality and I just know that her wedding is going to be amazing. Here are her flowers:

From the left we have some vine, behind that some singapore orchids and then to the right in teh little vases are the phalaenopsis orchids. Here is a closer look at the orchids:

The first picture is of the Phalaenopsis Orchids, they are a white variety with hot pink lips

The middle picture is of a Singapore Orchid variety called Chanel
And the picture on the right is of another type of Singapore Orchid called Red Lip (although I don't know why they are called that when they look to be more of a purple colour).

I'll be back on Monday to show you how the fan arrangement turns out. I am excited and nervous about it all at once! :-)

After: Louise's wedding

2010-02-15T09:44:00.002+11:00

It was an early start on Saturday morning for Louise's wedding. She was having a lunch time wedding at the most gorgeous wedding venue - Bells at Killcare.

I met Louise at her hairdresser to give her some flowers for her hair, and drop off her bouquet (there were no bridesmaids so only one bouquet to drop off). Then I made my way to Bells to set up the wedding venue. I hope you are ready for a photo overload because I have a few to show you....

Bride bouquet: Louise specified that she wanted her posy to be more of a ball shape - so there was no frame of foliage around it. The colours aren't right in the first photo as the reflection from having the lights on in the studio threw a yellow tinge on the bouquet. The flowers were ivory david austin roses, white lisianthus, white freesias and white singapore orchids

And I had to show you how we finished off the stems with white ribbon and a thin black ribbon criss-cross pattern:

These are the hair flowers, white singapore orchids:

Buttonholes: the groom had 2 ivory david austin roses, whilst the best man had 1 ivory david austin rose

Ceremony: the ceremony was supposed to be held outside in the beautiful grounds at Bells. Unfortunately the weather wouldn't cooperate and it looked like the ceremony was going to be moved inside. This is where they usually hold the wedding ceremonies:

Petal Cones: we made some petal cones for the ceremony. These were supposed to sit on each of the chairs along the aisle so that the guests could throw petals over the newly married couple as they walk up the aisle together

Reception: Louise wanted to keep the reception flowers very simple, just a couple of vases of white flowers on each table.

Bridal Table: a low vase in the centre of white dahlias surrounded by little tealights of white lisianthus flowers

Guest Tables: there were four long guest tables. On each of these we put two low vases of white dahlias

The view of the reception room with the round bridal table in the centre, and two of the long guest tables on either side:

Cake: the cake topper included white dahlias, ivory david austin roses, white freesias and white singapore orchids. And we added a spray on the bottom using the same flowers

Congratulations Louise! I hope you had an amazing wedding day. The venue was absolutely stunning and I am sure everyone had a great day there.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T07:38:00.002+11:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved one xxx

Me? Hubby and I have the day off together (yay!) so I think we are going to the local cinema to watch a movie. I have been dying to see 'Valentine's Day'. But if it's a rainy day, we could just as easily curl up on the couch and watch some DVD's instead.

After: Polly's wedding

2010-02-13T16:41:00.003+11:00

I finally got to meet Polly! She loved her bouquet and the bridesmaids wrist corsages!

I've got quite a few photos to show you so I'll get straight to it.

Bride bouquet: posy of green hydrangea, pink david austin roses, champagne david austin roses and white lisianthus

Bridesmaids wrist corsages: pink david austin roses and a touch of green hydrangea on a pearl wristlet

Buttonholes: the groom had champagne david austin roses and a touch of green hydrangea, the groomsmen had pink david austin roses and a touch of green hydrangea, and the Dad's had a simple pink david austin rose

The Mum's had a dress corsage of pink david austin roses:

The wedding was held at Linton Gardens in Somersby and here is what we did while we were there....

Ceremony: there is a large grassed area on site for wedding ceremonies. Polly had a carpet set up for the aisle, but we scattered some petals across the lawn leading up to the carpet. We also scattered some petals on either side of the carpet, and then had a little circle at the end where the bride and groom stand throughout the ceremony:

Then for the reception, Polly had purchased some vases to sit across the bridal table. In these we just put a few stems of the hydrangea:

Congratulations to Polly! I hope you had a wonderful wedding day..... and I was glad to see that the rain stayed away until after the ceremony!

I hope you all liked the flowers from Polly's wedding. I'll be back soon to show you some photos from the other wedding we had this weekend.

Before: Louise's wedding

2010-02-12T15:00:00.001+11:00

This weekend we also have Louise's wedding. Louise is originally from the Coast but doesn't live close anymore. Luckily she had her Mother - who definitely knows a thing or two about flowers - to help organise things.

I went to visit Louise's Mum for an initial consult to get some ideas together for Louise, only to find that she lived in the same street as the childhood home I had grown up in for 20 years. And not only that, but she was only 2 houses away! It's such a small world.

Louise is having a small wedding so there is only one bouquet to make as well as a couple of buttonholes, a small cake posy and spray, and some flowers for the reception tables.

This is what we are starting with:

From the front left hand side - anticlockwise: ivory david austin roses, whhite freesias, white singapore orchids, white dahlias and up the back are some white lisianthus

I'll show you what we do with them after the weekend!

Before: Polly's wedding

2010-02-11T17:33:00.001+11:00

I have alot of brides that email me or call me about their wedding flowers and are a bit worried because they live far away and can't meet me in person to go through their flowers - actually I had one today from Canberra! Well there is no need to worry, it really can all be done by phone or email and Polly is proof of that.

I haven't met Polly yet, we have done most of our talking through email. By asking lots of questions and sending pictures back and forth, we were able to organise all of Polly's wedding flowers.

These are the flowers that we are using for Polly's wedding:

From the left there are pink david austin roses, cream/champagne david austin roses, behind those some white lisianthus and some green hydrangea and petals for the ceremony aisle.

I'll show you the photos that we are using as our inspiration:
Polly is having a bouquet similar to the picture on the left. Hers will have green hydrangea (we couldn't get the same colour as what is in the picture so we got the darker green colourwhich is in the picture above), pink and cream/champagne david austin roses and white lisianthus

And the bridesmaids are having wrist corsages of pink david austin roses, like the picture on the right:

Hydrangeas and david austin roses are 2 of my absolute favourite flowers! I can't wait to see what Polly's bouquet looks like. I'll be back to show you when I am done.

Gosford Golf Club Bridal Fair pics

2010-02-05T15:27:00.000+11:00

Last Sunday I was an exhibitor at the Gosford Golf Club Bridal Fair. It was a lovely day meeting new, excited brides. I have to thank my wonderful husband for coming with me so that we could spend the day together (awwwwwww), as well as Gerri from I Do Cupcakes, and Lisa from Lisa Lent Photography who had stalls on either side of me and kept me entertained in between talking to all of the lovely brides.

I had a very busy weekend with an engagement party in Sydney to attend, and a wedding order for Monday to make, so I kept it very small and simple for this expo. This was my stall:

I didn't take a photo of one of the bouquets because it was a last minute addition - it's the one on the left of the picture, just a simple hydrangea posy. Here are the other 3 bouquets:

Posy of white roses and white spray roses

I love how this one turned out. Actually I love anything that has berries in it! This is a grouped posy of mauve roses, purple calla lilies, purple vanda orchids and berzellia berry

And lastly, this bouquet is a posy of artificial frangipani's

I hope you like them!

For anyone that was at the expo. did you find it fun, helpful? Let me know if it was worthwhile.

Happy Birthday to my blog!

2010-02-02T17:35:00.000+11:00

Well it has been exactly a year since I started my little blog about the business I was just about to start. Back then, I hadn't seen a bride or booked a wedding, I was still thinking about setting up the studio and what colour to paint it.

Well what a difference a year makes! The studio still isn't completely finished *hangs my head in shame* but it only really needs some light fittings and photos for the walls. But rather than focus on what I haven't done, how about I focus on what I have accomplished in the past year?

-I have been excited to meet lots of wonderful brides

-knowing that it would take a bit of time for my name to get out there and to build a reputation (and also because couples book their wedding vendors in advance, I was prepared that I probably wouldn't actually do a wedding in the first 6 months), I set a modest target of 20 weddings for my first year. I am happy to say that target was accomplished quite easily! :-)

-I exhibited at 3 wedding expos

-created facebook and twitter accounts (see the links to the right of the page if you would like to follow me on either site)

-I have met some great vendors that I would recommend to any bride: *waves to Julie, Lisa, Odette, Jean and Melli* (well, I haven't met Melli yet but I have seen her work and love it and hope to meet her soon)!

-I have had emails from aspiring florists telling me how much they enjoy my blog and how I am inspiring them to pursue their passion for floristry

-and had over 3000 visits to my website and over 3500 visits to my blog

It has been a great first year of business for The Kissing Tree. I have to say a massive THANK YOU to all of my wonderful brides, to the family, friends and fans who have supported me, and to those of you who have been following me through here, facebook or twitter. I wonder what is ahead in year 2?!

After: Rebecca's wedding

2010-02-02T11:22:00.002+11:00

Well yesterday I was in the beautiful Hunter Valley to deliver flowers for Rebecca and Kristian's wedding. I had never been to their wedding venue before - the lovely Tuscany Wine Estate. I especially loved the courtyard with it's big fountain that is perfect for wedding ceremonies, and the deck that came off the restaurant so that you could go outside and dance. If you are looking at wedding venues in the Hunter Valley, make sure you add Tuscany Wine Estate to your list of places to check out.

Here are the flowers for the day......

Bride bouquet: small posy of David Austin roses

Bridesmaids Bouquet: smaller posy of David Austin roses

There were no buttonholes or corsages for the bridal party or family members. However there was one special VIP guest that got one, and that was Kristian and Rebecca's dog Pugsley (sorry about the blurry photo):

These are the flowers that were used to decorate the ceremony. The petals were used to line the aisle, whilst the dahlia flower heads were placed in the fountain:

This is a picture from the Tuscany Wine Estate website to give you an idea of how it would look:

Next for the reception. These were kept very simple and pretty with a low vase of white hydrangea in the centre of every table, surrounded by small tealight candles. It would have looked so pretty at night:

Well the weather was gorgeous, the venue was gorgeous, the flowers were gorgeous and the couple were gorgeous. It's hard to imagine that this wedding was anything less than absolutely stunning! Congratulations Kristian and Rebecca! I hope you both had a great time.

Before: Rebecca's wedding

2010-01-29T18:54:00.000+11:00

I met the sweetest couple Rebecca and Kristian just before Christmas. They live in Sydney and are planning a wedding in the beautiful Hunter Valley.

I was slightly nervous when meeting this couple as they had made a special detour to the Central Coast just to see me! Rebecca had made an appointment to talk to a Hunter florist, but then she came across my website and loved my work so much that she cancelled the meeting and had to come and visit me instead. I was really hoping that I would live up to their expectations, and when they booked me on the spot - I was thrilled.

I just adore the flowers that Rebecca and Kristian have chosen:

From left to right: white david austin roses, white dahlias and white hydrangea

The wedding is on Monday... (yes you read that right - a Monday) so I won't be able to show you any 'after' photos until next week. Hope you can handle the wait ;-)

Gosford Golf Club Bridal Fair

2010-01-27T11:56:00.000+11:00

This Sunday I will be exhibiting at the Gosford Golf Club Bridal fair. There will be plenty of exhibitors to visit, so feel free to pop in and meet us. Here are the details:

What: Gosford Golf Club Bridal Fair
Where: Gosford Golf and Function Centre, Racecourse Rd, Gosford
When: Sunday 31st January 2010
Time: 10am - 4.30pm
Price: free

There is plenty of parking on site too! See you there!

After: Amanda's wedding

2010-01-24T19:27:00.004+11:00

When I was planning for my wedding there was one thing that everyone kept telling me - 'you can't control the weather'. And that was surely the case for Amanda's wedding this weekend.

She had an outdoor ceremony and reception planned at a beautiful property in Mirrabooka (up in Lake Macquarie). It started as a boiling hot, sticky and uncomfortable 40 degree + day, and ended in a crazy windy, rainy day. I hope everything managed to go well even if the plans had to be changed around at the last minute!

Here are the flowers..........

Bride bouquet: a heart shaped posy of white artificial calla lilies

and a side view: Amanda bought some diamante letters for me to attach to each of the bouquets and some of the corsages (so she had an 'A' for Amanda on her bouquet). They looked great!

Bridesmaid bouquet: a posy of white artificial calla lilies

Groom and Groomsmen buttonholes: white artificial calla lilies (the groom one is slightly different with an extra touch of leaves)

Then we had some VIP buttonholes: white roses

The Mother of the Groom got her own artificial calla liliy corsage, whilst the Mother of the Bride (and some other VIP's) had a corsage of white spray roses:

Amanda - it was such a pleasure to meet you and I hope you had an amzing wedding day! xxx

Before: Amanda's wedding

2010-01-22T15:22:00.001+11:00

It is our first wedding of 2010!

Amanda is getting married this weekend and we have been planning her wedding flowers for quite a while. She always knew she wanted to have calla lilies and she had a particular image in her mind that her bouquet would be in the shape of a heart. Here is a picture of the type of thing she had in mind:

Amanda really wanted to be able to keep her bouquet after her wedding day so there was a little bit of a debate about whether to use fresh calla lilies and have them preserved, or if we would try to use the artificial type. Once I sent Amanda a sample of an artificial calla lily to look at, she was happy to go with them. And can I say that with the heat that is expected over the weekend, I am soooooo happy that she decided on the artificials.

Here is what we are using this week:

These are the artificial calla lilies - some still in their wrapping. We are using these for the bridal party bouquet and buttonholes.

And these are fresh roses, and spray roses for some other buttonholes, corsages and bracelets. And some rose petals to be used for the aisle and petal cones.

I'll be back on Monday to show you the results. Have a great weekend everyone!

It's been a while!

2010-01-16T18:36:00.004+11:00

So we are a couple of weeks into the New Year, and I'm only just getting around to my first post of the year. You must think that I have been having an extra long and relaxing Christmas break! I wish!!! I have been absolutely flat out since Christmas with many consultations. It's been fun meeting so many new brides and hearing all about their plans.

Next week we get back to normal with our first wedding of 2010. And just for something a bit different, it is mostly artificial flowers being used! I'll be back through the week to show you more details.

Other than that, we have just joined the world of twitter. If you have a twitter account, there is a link to the right of your page >>>> (you may have to go down the page a little bit) that you can click to follow us or follow this link here http://twitter.com/TheKissingTree.

We have also been planning for the Gosford Golf Club Bridal Fair coming up in a couple of weeks, as well as some more weddings. Phew... there is alot happening at the moment.

Catch you all around soon.

After: Nina's wedding (part 2)

2009-12-30T21:32:00.001+11:00

It's my final post of 2009!

Let me start by saying that I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! And best wishes for an amazing 2010!

To finish off the year at The Kissing Tree, I am going to post some photos from the last wedding I did. They are photos from Nina's wedding a couple of weeks ago. Nina used the same fantastic photographer that I had for my wedding so I was able to get a few professional photographs from their day.

Here are some flower photos from Nina's wedding. The wedding was held at Leaves and Fishes in the beautiful Hunter Valley and the photos were taken by the talented team at Delisser Photography:

Thank you Julie from Delisser Photography for sending me the images, and special thanks to Nina for letting me post them so that everyone could see how beautiful your wedding was! The colour of the flowers looked so great against the dresses. You chose well!

Thank you to all of my brides in 2009! I have felt so lucky to take part in such a special day of your lives, and have been so impressed with all of the great people that I have met. My brides are honestly the best and most lovely brides I could ever ask for!

Talk to you all next year! Bring on 2010!

Wedding Magazine photoshoot

2009-12-21T11:15:00.002+11:00

Every year around easter time the wedding bible comes out. It is the Newcastle Central Coast Wedding magazine and covers everything you will need to plan your wedding anywhere in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, The Hunter Valley or Central Coast.

Last week I needed to make a bouquet to appear in the next edition of the magazine. I decided to keep it simple and use flowers that are available at all times of year. But at the last minute, I was tempted by some gorgeous garden roses that have just come into season. Oops - there goes the 'available all year' theory out the window.

I drove my bouquet up to Redhead where a professional photographer took a photo of my bouquet. You will have to wait to see the great photo he took in next years magazine, but until then you can see the dodgy photo I took instead.

It has cream and champagne roses, cream garden roses, white lisianthus and cream lisianthus.

After: Nina's wedding

2009-12-14T19:24:00.002+11:00

Well this is the last wedding of the year! I have a break of about a month so I will start the 'before' and 'after' wedding stories when my weddings commence again next year.

Nina was married on Saturday in the Hunter Valley and it was a perfect day. Here are how her wedding flowers looked.

Bride bouquet: small posy of ivory roses, white freesias and berzellia

Bridesmaids bouquet: small posy of ivory roses, pink roses, pink freesias and berzellia

Here is how the flowers are packed before they are delivered. There is a brides bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquets and a small bridal toss bouquet:

The bridal toss bouquet is a mini posy of the bride bouquet. I usually call it a throwaway and include it complimentry in each order. This is what it looked like:

Now for the buttonholes. There are no corsages to show this week as the Mum's didn't want to have one.

Groom buttonhole: an ivory rose, white freesia and berzellia on camellia leaves

Best Man buttonhole: an ivory rose, pink freesia and berzellia on camellia leaves

Dad's Buttonholes: a single ivory rose with berzellia on a camellia leaf

That is all of the flowers for this week. Hope you liked them!

And to Nina - congratulations!!! I hope you had the most perfect wedding and I look forward to hearing all about how special it was.

Before: Nina's wedding

2009-12-10T17:41:00.002+11:00

A few months ago I got an enquiry on my email from Nina. The funny thing was that I recognised Nina's name straight away. She was a girl that I went to high school with! She had just filled out a random enquiry for a random florist and had no idea that I was on the other side.
We arranged a consultation and it was so much fun catching up. Nina is hilarious and we spent ages talking before we even got to organising her wedding flowers. She is planning a small casual wedding in the Hunter Valley and it sounds beautiful.

Here are the flowers that Nina will be having:

From the back there are ivory roses, pink roses, berzellia, camellia leaves, and at the front are white freesias and hot pink freesias.

Aren't these gorgeous roses? I love my rose grower.

I'll be back after the weekend to show you Nina's flowers.

After: Natalie's wedding

2009-12-07T18:06:00.003+11:00

On Saturday I had the absolute honour of attending Natalie's wedding. She is such a beautiful girl and I knew she would make a stunning bride - but even I was gobsmacked when I saw how gorgeous she looked!

Here are the flowers that I made for Nat.

Bride Bouquet: posy of white peonies, ivory david austin roses, white roses, ivory roses and white lisianthus

Bridesmaids Bouquet: white peonies, ivory david austin roses, white roses, ivory roses, red roses and white lisianthus

I've just realised that I didn't take photos of the bridal party buttonholes or the Mum's corsages. The groom and groomsmen had rose buttonholes, and the Mum's had singapore orchid dress corsages so you have seen both of those before, but it probably still would have been nice if I had taken a photo of them to add here.

I did get a photo of the Dad's buttonhole which included a white rose and white lisianthus flower. And we also had some extra corsages of white spray roses for a couple of extra special guests.

Nat was so excited to see her flowers and her, her maid of honour and her Mum all greeted me at my car when I arrived. I was so happy that Nat loved her flowers. She didn't just love them, she LLLLUUURRVVEEDD them!! And so many people commented on how beautiful they were. It was a very rewarding day.

To my gorgeous Nat - I was always looking forward to your wedding and was completely stoked when I was asked to attend. Thanks for having me, it was a great night with lots of great people. I hope it was everything that you ever dreamed for it to be, and that you and Jeff live happily ever after xxx

Before: Natalie's wedding

2009-12-03T16:28:00.005+11:00

Now this is a wedding that I have been waiting for forever!! Natalie and I first 'met' on a wedding forum over 12 months ago when we were both planning our weddings. Now you may wonder what on earth a wedding forum is about and why anyone would join it. But there was a cool little group of us from the Central Coast on there, and we would all help each other out with advice and recommendations, and discuss our ideas and plans for our days.

Whilst my wedding has been and gone, now it is Natalie's turn. She was so excited when my wedding came around and I am just as super excited for her. She is such a gorgeous girl (inside and out), and I am looking so forward to being at her wedding ceremony to see the beautiful bride that she will be.

Here are Natalie's flowers (I have included a few extra shots because I know that Natalie's Mum was looking forward to seeing these - hi Denise):

From the back left we have: white spray roses and white singapore orchids for the corsages, in front of those are some ivory David Austin roses, behind those are some white lisianthus, next to those are big fluffy white peonies, and next to those are some normal roses in white, ivory and the red is for the bridesmaids.

I'll be back after the weekend to show you Natalie's flowers all made up!

After: Sarah's wedding

2009-11-30T09:11:00.005+11:00

So here are Sarah's wedding flowers. We ended up going for something more structured with only a few flowers and lots of foliage.

Brides bouquet: pink oriental lilies and buds, rolled happy leaves, anthurium leaves and camellia leaves

The other bouquet was for Sarah's junior bridesmaid and she had a small version of the brides bouquet. Because the bride only had three lily flowers, we used only one for this bouquet (notice how florists mostly work with odd numbers?), with some rolled happy leaves and some camellia leaves:

It was great delivering Sarah's flowers because she loved them. And she even said that the image of the bouquet she had in her head that she had tried to explain to me - was exactly what I delivered. Yay!!!!!! Congratulations Sarah, I hope you had a beautiful wedding!!

After: Tamara's wedding

2009-11-30T08:06:00.016+11:00

I have a few pictures to show you from Tamara's wedding so I will get straight into it.

Tamara really wanted roses for all of her flowers and only wanted small posies so that she didn't look and feel overwhelmed by their size.

Bride bouquet: posy of champagne roses and frame of camellia leaves

Bridesmaid bouquets: small posy of 'Cezanne' roses with a frame of camellia leaves (sorry the picture is a bit blurry)

The flowergirl had some petals for her little flower girl basket:

The groom and the parents had a buttonhole of a champagne rose on camellia leaf:

The ceremony was held at the 'Our Lady Star of the Sea' which is a Catholic church in Terrigal. We made a few arrangements for the church.

Here is an arrangement for 'Our Lady' using champagne roses and foliage:

We also made 4 tall arrangements to sit behind the altar using champagne roses and foliage. The arrangements were made in an upright, all round style so that they could be taken and displayed at the reception too:

There was also another arrangement we made for the front of the altar using champagne roses and foliage:

And a view of the front of the church showing the five main arrangements:

I was invited by Tamara's Mum to stay for the wedding ceremony. It was so lovely of her and such a shame that I couldn't because I still had another wedding to deliver. I am sure it was a beautiful wedding and I can't wait to talk to Tamara's Mum again to see how it all went.

Before: Sarah's wedding

2009-11-28T09:55:00.002+11:00

Our next bride is Sarah.

Sarah came to see me a few months ago and she described the kind of bouquet she wanted as loose, unstructured, and not traditional. She found a picture in one of my flower magazines (pictured right) as the inspiration for her bouquet, but the only flowers to be used were the lilies with all of the foliages and draping grass.

For those of you who aren't my clients, I usually send my brides a confirmation of their order about a month before their weddings (and before I actually have to place my flower orders with suppliers). It gives them an opportunity to give everything one last look and make sure they are happy. It was at this time that Sarah had a few misgivings about what she had chosen so we made some minor adjustments.

Sarah knew what she wanted in her head and was trying to describe it to me so I would understand. Instead of all of the draping and messy kind of look of the bouquet, we changed it to something more structured with no draping bits. Sarah really liked the look of some folded thick leaves around the bouquet so I knew I had to include those. I think by the end of our conversation I said 'so 3 pink lilies with a few buds and then some folded leaves and other foliage'. It sounded good to Sarah so that is what I will be making for her.

Here are the flowers we are starting with:

Some camellia leaves, happy leaves and anthurium leaves, and pink oriental lilies.

I'll come back after the weekend to post some photos of how the bouquet turned out.

Before: Tamara's wedding

2009-11-28T09:22:00.003+11:00

I have another 2 weddings this weekend to show you.

The first one is Tamara's. Tamara lives in Perth so her family (who are based on the Coast) were helping her to organise all of the details for her wedding. Tamara's Mum rang me a while ago to make some enquiries, and through talking, we found out that we knew some of the same people, which then led us to realising that I went to school with Tamara. She was in the year above me. It's such a small world!!!

Anyway, Tamara's wedding flowers are of roses, and we are also doing a few rose arrangements for the church.

Here is what we are starting with:

At the back of the picture is lots of greenery which we need for the church arrangements, and the camellia leaves to frame the bouquets. The champagne roses at the front will be used for the bride bouquet and church arrangements, whilst the two toned rose called 'Cezanne' will be used for the bridesmaids.

I'll be back after the weekend to show you how they look.

After: Vanessa's wedding

2009-11-23T10:51:00.004+11:00

I never got a chance to meet Vanessa until her wedding day. She held her wedding at The Treetops resort at Avoca Beach, but she had to organise it from where she currently lives, which is all the way in Bourke. We managed to work out the flowers that Vanessa wanted through sending pictures on the email.

Here are Vanessa's flowers.

Bride bouquet: white oriental lilies, white singapore orchids and light pink roses with a frame of camellia leaves

Bridesmaids bouquets: the bridemaids had a smaller version of the bride - white oriental lilies, white sinagpore orchids, and light pink roses with a frame of camellia leaves

The boys had buttonholes of white singapore orchids on camellia leaves and the Mum's had corsages of white singapore orchids on camellia leaves.

I hope you had a wonderful wedding Vanessa!

After: Joanne's wedding

2009-11-23T08:33:00.016+11:00

Just reporting back from our 2 weekend weddings.

I'll start with Joanne.

Joanne was a gorgeous bride. She chose the simple but absolutely elegant phalaenopsis orchid to have as her wedding flowers. For anyone thinking of these flowers, they are extremely expensive (at the flower market we are charged by the flower instead of by the bunch), and they are very fiddly to work with. But it is all worth it because they look gorgeous!

Here are Joanne's flowers. She wanted a really small posy that she could hold as she walked down the aisle, and then wanted to swap to a wrist corsage for the reception.

Bride bouquet: white phalaenopsis orchid with camellia leaves

Bride and bridesmaid wrist corsages: white phalaenopsis orchid on white pearl wristlet

The 3 year old flower girl just needed a flower to hold:

The groom, groomsmen, Dad's and Mum's wore a single white phalaenopsis orchid on camellia leaves:

The couple held their reception at one of my favourite venues - The Reef Terrigal.

We decorated the reception tables by scattering white and hot pink singapore orchid heads down the centre of each table:

And the cake had a few white phalaenopsis orchids and a few little white singapore orchids:
(cake by The Sweetest Things)

That is all from Joanne's wedding. Congratulations Joanne! I hope you enjoyed your special day.

Come back soon to see a couple of photos from the other wedding we had on the weekend.

Happy Anniversary!

2009-11-22T08:01:00.003+11:00

A completely self indulgent post from me today, because this time last year I was getting ready for my wedding day.

To my gorgeous husband - Happy 1st Anniversary!!! xxxx

Photo by: Delisser Photography

Before: Joanne and Vanessa's wedding

2009-11-19T13:29:00.005+11:00

Another weekend and another couple of weddings approaching! Here are the flowers we are using: clockwise from top left - camellia leaves, white singapore orchids, light pink roses, white oriental lilies, hot pink vanda orchids and white phalaenopsis orchids. The phalaenopsis orchids are a fragile flower so you will notice all of the cotton wool on the floor that was used to protect them. Our first bride Joanne is having a very small posy of phalaenopsis orchids to hold through the ceremony, and then she will swap to a wrist corsgae for the reception. Her bridesmaids will also be wearing phalaenopsis orchid wrist corsages, while the groom, groomsmen, Dad's and Mum's will wear one each as a buttonhole.

We are also using some of these flowers for Joanne's reception. A few phalaenopsis orchids will be used on top of and around the cake. Some of the white singapore orchids, and all of the hot pink vanda orchids will be used to decorate the tables. We are going to take all of the orchid flowers off the stems and scatter them down each table.

Our next bride Vanessa is having posy bouquets of white oriental lilies, white singapore orchids and light pink roses. The boys and Mum's will have buttonholes / corsages of white singapore orchids.

I'll make sure I take lots of photos and come back after the weekend to show you how it all turned out. :-)

After: Isabel's wedding

2009-11-17T09:52:00.007+11:00

Here is the second wedding order that I had on Saturday. I had never met Isabel before so it was great to see her reaction when I delivered the flowers. She loved them! Here are the flowers from Isabel's wedding. Bride bouquet: teardrop bouquet including cream roses, lemon roses, peach roses, orange roses, yellow spray roses, lemon mini gerberas, orange calla lilies and cream lisianthus.

Bridesmaid bouquets: they held small sprays of orange calla lilies and lemon mini gerberas

Here are all 5 bridesmaids bouquets together

Groom buttonhole: lemon rose and yellow spray roses on camellia leaves. The groomsmen had a single lemon rose on camellia and the dad's had a single peach rose on camellia (both not pictured)

I loved how the bridesmaid bouquets were so simple but very effective. For anyone on a tight flower budget, little sprays like that are a really good option and look so good.

Anyway it was such a beautiful day on Saturday, and I hope Isabel's wedding was amazing in every way!

After: Hanna's wedding

2009-11-17T09:21:00.006+11:00

Well I had quite the busy weekend. My husband and I had to attend a wedding in the Hunter Valley on Saturday, and it was the first time we had been back there since our wedding last year. Awwwwwww........ there was alot of reminiscing going on. Conveniently, I also had one of my beautiful bride's getting married in the Hunter that day too, so on our way to the wedding we were attending, we had to make a slight detour to deliver Hanna's flowers. Hanna and Ryan were married at the beautiful Tatler's winery. Here are the flowers they had for their special day. Bride bouquet: posy of white peonies

Bridesmaids bouquets: smaller version of the bride, posy of white peonies

Buttonholes: white peony buds on camellia leaf

The parents had buttonholes and corsages also, but they used a different flower.
Dad's buttonholes: white lisianthus and bud on camellia leaf

Mum's corsages: one Mum had a dress corsage whilst the other had a wrist corsage (not pictured) of white lisianthus on camellia leaf
I loooovvvvee peonies! They are only available for a very short season starting in late October until early December. When they are closed they look like tight white balls, but they open into a massive fluffy flower. Hanna liked the look of the tighter flower, but I bet with the heat we had on Saturday that the flowers would have opened by the end of the day.
I hope you had a gorgeous wedding day Hanna. Congratulations to you and Ryan!

Before: Isabel's wedding

2009-11-15T19:34:00.007+11:00

There is another wedding to show you from the weekend! I actually never met my bride Isabel at all! We planned all of her wedding flowers over the email. There were lots of questions from my side, and many pictures going back and forth so that I could understand the look she was trying to achieve. Isabel chose a full teardrop bouquet for herself and just something small and simple for her bridesmaids. Here are the flowers we are using - it's another dodgy iphone pic sorry! : From the top (clockwise): cream lisianthus, orange roses, ivory roses, peach roses, yellow spray roses, lemon roses, lemon mini gerberas and orange calla lilies. I'll post some pictures from this wedding soon so come back and see what I was able to do with these.

Before: Hanna's wedding

2009-11-15T19:26:00.005+11:00

I met a lovely couple, Hanna and Ryan a few months ago. They were planning a Hunter Valley wedding (where I was married last year), so of course I got all excited at the prospect of working with them. And then it got even better when Hanna chose the same flowers for her bouquets that I had in mine! Here are the flowers we are using for their wedding (sorry for the dodgy iphone pic):
From the top of the photo there are white peonies in different stages of bloom. These will be used for the bridal party posies and buttonholes. And at the bottom of the photo are some white lisianthus which will be used for the parent buttonholes and corsages.
I'll post some photos of the finished product soon.

After: Jasmyn's wedding

2009-11-10T08:02:00.002+11:00

Here are a couple of photos of Jasmyn's bouquets. As I said earlier, it was my first wedding using artificial flowers because the frangipani's that Jasmyn were after are not in season yet. She was so happy when she saw her bouquets and that always makes me feel so great! Brides Bouquet: posy of white frangipani's and tropical frangipani's: A side view with silver ribbon:

Bridesmaids Bouquet: the 4 bridesmaids held posies of white frangipani's.

My congratulations go out to the gorgeous newlyweds!

After: Margaret's wedding

2009-11-10T07:38:00.003+11:00

Here are some pictures I took of Margaret's wedding flowers before I had to run off and deliver them. The bride had a wired cascading bouquet of white oriental lilies and white singapore orchids:

This is such a dodgy picture of the next bouquet! I didn't realise that I was holding the bouquet on an angle so it looks kind of lopsided. I promise that I am a much better florist than photographer! LOL!!

Anyway, it is a wired cascade bouquet for the bridesmaid of red tiger lilies, red vanda orchids and red roses:

Now for the buttonholes. The groom had a white singapore orchid on camellia leaf and his groomsman had a red vanda orchid on camellia leaf:

The church that Margaret and Neil were being married in was a cute little church at Mangrove Mountain. The 2 arrangements I made for it included red roses, white singapore orchids, white oriental lilies and some foliage (both arrangements were the same to be placed on either side of the church):

So that is all I have to show you from Margaret and Neil's wedding. I hope they had a great day!

Before: Jasmyn's wedding

2009-11-09T12:10:00.007+11:00

The other wedding I had on the weekend was for Jasmyn. We originally organised all of Jasmyn's flower details while talking on the email. Jasmyn fell in love with frangipani's which unfortunately are not in season right now. So after briefly meeting her and showing her an example of an artificial frangipani and the colours available, she decided to go ahead with them instead. This was my very first artificial wedding! And it turned out great. This is what the artificial frangipani flowers look like when they first get unpacked from the box. The 2 colours used were tropical and white:
And once I wired them and opened them all up, they looked like this:

I must admit that I have never been a big fan of artificial flowers. But when I saw the frangipani's, I thought they looked fantastic. What do you think? Would you have known that they were artificial if I hadn't of said anything?
I'll be back later to post some pictures of what they ended up like.

Before: Margaret wedding

2009-11-09T11:02:00.001+11:00

I had two weddings on the weekend and fell a little bit behind with my blog posts. So hopefully it is OK if I catch up on it now.

The first wedding was for Margaret and Neil. This couple came to meet me a few months ago and they were soooooo lovely. Margaret had fallen in love with one of the bouquets on my website so she knew what she wanted for her bouquet before she even came through the door. We just had to work out the bridesmaid bouquet, buttonholes and a couple of arrangements for the gorgeous little church that they were getting married at.
Anyway, here are the flowers we are using this week:

We have white singapore orchids, red vanda orchids, red roses, camellia leaves, white oriental lilies and red tiger lilies.
Check back later and see what I got to turn them in to.

After: Nina-Jay's wedding

2009-11-03T12:14:00.009+11:00

Oh my gosh I have a photo overload! But you all like looking at pictures don't you?

I said in my previous post that I wouldn't get the opportunity to meet this wonderful couple, but I actually did get to meet the groom on the morning of the wedding. He is great - and so is his family, I just love them!

Nina-Jay was an absolutely gorgeous bride, and from what she has told me, it was a perfect day for everyone! Congratulations to the newlyweds. You really deserved a wonderful wedding and I am so happy that you have such great memories to look back on.

Anyway, here are some of the photos that I took of my arrangements on the day. Lisa from Lisa Lent photography was the photographer for the wedding and you can visit her site to see some of her stunning photos from this beautiful wedding: http://www.lisalent.com.au/

The bride had the same style of bouquet that I made last week, a small elegant posy of white calla lilies:

The buttonhole for the groom and the Father's was of a single white calla lily on camellia leaf:

Dress corsages for the Mum's were of champagne singapore orchids on camellia leaf:

The ceremony was held at the house of the grooms parents. It was a beautiful property with stunning ocean views over Terrigal. Ruth (the Mother of teh groom) asked me to make up some arrangements to decorate the house.

This one was to sit on a table at the front entry of the house. Ruth wanted something bright so we decided on pink oriental lilies, white singapore orchids, hot pink roses and blue cornflower with some foliage and palm:

This arrangement was made to sit on the long dining table. It has the same flowers in it as the previous arrangement:

This is the arrangement we made to sit on the signing table. It is slightly different to the others as it was going outside in the garden where the ceremony was being held, and we wanted it to include the same flowers / colours that were being used to decorate the reception. It has pink oriental lilies, white singapore orchids, and white roses with foliage and palm:

These are the entry and dining table arrangements set up in the house:

Now on to the reception. This was held at 'The Letterbox Restaurant' in Terrigal. The staff there were extremely nice and genuinely excited to hold Nina-Jay and Russell's wedding there.

Here is the flower spray I did for the wedding cake. It is of pink oriental lilies and white singapore orchids:

And all of the tables had an arrangement on it of pink oriental lilies, white singapore orchids, white roses with foliage, and a candle in the middle:

And here is the reception all set up:

I'm all done. Told you there would be alot of photos! :-)

Before: Nina-Jay's wedding

2009-10-31T10:44:00.001+11:00

Nina-Jay and Russell are getting married this weekend, and even though I am doing their wedding flowers, I will never get to actually meet them! This couple is from QLD and unfortunately due to an illness in the family, they have had to change all of the wedding plans they had organised for next year, and quickly put together a wedding to be held on the Central Coast. Luckily they had the mother of the groom Ruth who stepped in to help organise a few things, and one of them were the flowers! Ruth is someone that I just 'clicked' with straight away and I enjoyed working out all of the flower details with her. Nina-Jay was able to send me a photo of what she wanted for her bouquet and Ruth took care of the rest so it all ended up being a simple process. This is what we are working with this week: We have some roses, singapore orchids, calla lilies, lots of vibernum and heaps of pink oriental lilies. The calla lilies are going to be used for the bridal bouquet and buttonholes, whilst all of the other flowers are for the ceremony and reception arrangements. I'll be back to show you how it all turned out.

After: Mira's wedding (part 2)

2009-10-29T08:15:00.010+11:00

I managed to get some photos of Mira's wedding bouquets! Yay!

My favourite wedding photographer, Julie from Delisser photography, sent me a few images of Mira's flowers last night. Thanks Julie, they look great!

Here we go.......

Mira's bouquet of calla lilies:

The bridesmaids only carried 3 stems of calla lilies but it looked so elegant:

More of Mira's flowers:

I love how Mira's mantilla veil falls around this one:

And a couple more from the reception.

Vases of the calla lilies were at the entrance of the restaurant:

Just looking at this picture of the white freesias is making me relive the smell. Their fragrance is gorgeous:

The tables: