Bouquet Shapes: Cascading bouquet

This is the last of our series of bouquet shapes.

OK so this is the cascade bouquet. It is also known as a multiple-trail bouquet or a shower bouquet.

This bouquet can be quite large and even though it is a wired bouquet, it has more of a loose, unstructured feel to it. It is different to the trailing and teardrop bouquets because the trail does not lead to one point. It has various trails that fall from the top of the bouquet and flow down towards the floor. The trails are in random positions and can be various different lengths which can make it look as neat or as messy as you would like.

The trails can be formed by flowers or foliages. One of the easiest flowers to use for this style of bouquet is the singapore orchid. But you can use many different flowers such as roses, tulips, gladioli, hyacinths, jasmine, stephanotis and tuberoses. And the same look can be achieved through foliages such as ivy, asparagus fern, dodda vine, berries and tropical leaves.

After: Tammy's wedding

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

I'll get straight into it and show you a few of the flowers we had to start with.

We had dark purple lisianthus, white roses and white tulips which were to be used in all of the bouquets, and then we also had some purple kale as a special extra to use in the brides bouquet.

This is what they ended up like.

The flower girl posy:

The bridesmaid posy:

The bride posy:

This is how we decorated all of the bouquet stems:

And lastly the buttonholes and corsages:

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

Before: Tammy's Wedding

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

Flower Of The Month

One of the most popular wedding flowers used throughout Winter and Spring is the Tulip. Tulips are actually one of the most popular cut flower varieties to be used worldwide, coming third after roses and chrysanthemums. It's not hard to see why, they are an extremely elegant flower and it makes them very versatile in bouquets and arrangements.

Tulips can be a bit fiddly to work with. They have a thick bendy stem, and from personal experience, when I am making a natural stem bridal bouquet, sometimes it is hard to fit my hands around the whole base of the stems. The other issue you face when using tulips, is that after they are cut, they keep on growing towards the light. A tulip can grow up to 20 centimetres from the time they are picked, to the end of their life span. So when you are using them in bouquets or arrangements with other flowers, you need to place them slightly lower than where you want them to sit because they will grow.

Once you know how to handle them, tulips are fantastic to work with. They like the colder weather, so even though they are available all year round, I will only work with them in the cooler months when I know they can withstand a wedding day. When it is too warm for them the flowers will blow completely open and the stems will droop over. It's not a good look for one of the most important days in your life so I won't risk it.

Flower: Tulip

Botanical Name: Tulipa

Origin: Turkey

Season: their natural season is late winter and spring, however they are grown all year round

Colour/s: white, cream, red, orange, yellow, pink, purple and lots of variegations

Meaning: perfect love (and depending on colour, fame or declaration of love)

More of my non wedding work

We are right in the middle of the off peak wedding season and it's a little bit quiet, so I was happy when my old boss asked me to cover a shift at her shop. I love getting asked to help out because it's a way for me to stay in touch with the every day side of floristry.

Here are a couple of arrangements that I did while I was there.

Bouquet Shapes: Trailing bouquet

The trailing bouquet is a fully wired bouquet. It is very similar to the teardrop shape but the difference with the trailing bouquet is that the top posy part is more narrow, and the tail flows down into a single, long, thin point.

Many different flower combination's can be used for this style of bouquet. It will work well with roses, lilies - using lily buds for the tail, tulips, orchids, lisianthus, gladiolus, and frangipani's.

Flower Of The Month

Every season there are a few of flowers that become available that I am just busting to use. And a couple of weeks ago, one of my favourites came out. I love to use it for wedding work and with a name like Blushing Bride, it would be a sin not to use it for weddings!

Blushing Bride is a native flower, however like a lot of our natives, it did not originate in Australia. It is not limited to just being used in native flower bouquets, it actually looks great with roses or tulips too. I love how delicate and fluffy they look.

Flower: Blushing Bride

Botanical Name: Serruria

Origin: South Africa

Season: Mid winter - Mid Spring (July to Sept)

Colour/s: white and pink

Meaning: NA - however with a name like Blusing Bride, I think it speaks for itself.

Here are some examples of some Blushing Brides being used in wedding bouquets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Counting down to the next wedding expo

One week to go........ On Sunday 21st June 2009, I will be exhibiting at the Getting Hitched expo. The expo will be held in the showroom at Mingara Recreation Club from 10am until 3pm. There will be lots to look at and with over 100 vendors there will be plenty of people to see (but most importantly meeeeeeeee). Entry is free and there is plenty of parking available. Make sure you come and visit, and feel free to introduce yourself. I would be so happy to meet any supporters of my little business.

Bouquet Shapes: The Arm Sheaf

Oops. It's been a while since I started the 'bouquet shape' series. So to get back on track I am going to tell you about the Arm Sheaf. Arm Sheaf bouquets are usually long stem flowers that the bride can carry cradled in the nook of her arm. It can be extremely stylish by using just one variety of flower in a simple and neat manner, or it can be more elaborate and messy with more flowers and trailing bits spilling over the arm.

The most common flower used for an Arm Sheaf is the Arum or Calla Lily. It doesn't take many stems at all and gives such a stylish and contemporary appearance. Other long stem flowers that are suitable for this style of bouquet are roses, tulips, orchids, lillies, iris, heliconia, molucca balm, delphinium and gerberas.

The Arm Sheaf can also be held hanging downwards instead of across your arm, the same way as you would hold a teardrop style bouquet.