Studio 3 Floral Design: Natalie and Elliot

Yay! A post on Natalie and Elliot's wedding from this past weekend! Natalie was a super sweet bride, wanting an elegant, formal yet fun affair! They are super sweet and so obviously in love. It's always an honor to contribute to a wedding of people like this! Don't you just LOVE this photo from Tracy Adams Photography? Perfectly captures their romance! Their colors were blue and white and Natalie wanted all blue flowers for her bridesmaids to carry, and her bouquet to have a touch of white. Natalie was set on having irises as her main flower, and we decided to add in some delphinium, tweedia, veronica and thistle to add more dimension and texture.

They were married right after Valentine's Day, which with flowers it can be dicey. Valentine's Day is like Christmas to florists. They are swamped! Did you know 1/3 of Americans send flowers on Valentine's Day? This means that all growers cut just about everything they have, even if it's not quite ready. Our wholesaler had boxes of flowers stacked 5 feet high all over the warehouse getting ready for the big holiday. Florists are there picking through the flowers and buying more flowers then they will all year. Not only that, the flowers can cost nearly double because of the demand. For weddings I always place the order for the flowers at least a month in advance. I want to be sure everything I order is set aside, especially with Valentine's Day where florists are out for the best looking blooms! But this time, things didn't go as planned.

When I got to the wholesaler, they didn't have what I ordered. Gah! What!? I took a deep breath. Don't panic, don't panic. Mistakes and accidents will happen, it's how you respond to them that will set you apart. They had the irises, (phew!) but no veronica, no tweedia, and the thistle that was to be used on the bouts were all about the size of my hand. And I have HUGE hands! They were just about the size of a hydrangea head. I've never seen them so big! I had to scour through the white mums because they were bruised and brown, which of course would not make their way into this wedding! I knew the bridal bouquet needed something extra special, and I found the last two heads of imported blue hydrangea. In the end, it all worked out.

The bridal bouquet consisted of white irises, two shades of blue irises, two shades of blue belladonna delphinium and blue hydrangea. The bridesmaids were 2 shades of blue iris and 2 shades of blue delphinium.

Delphinium was used in the bouts, the massive thistle moved to the alter arrangements, which also held white spider mums, white china mums, hanging amaranthus, and just a touch of curly willow.

The wedding was held at the Rainier Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This venue gets the award for longest name as well for the prettiest historical venue I've ever seen. Everything has been maintained to keep the 1920 feel. Down to the tiniest detail. Loved it!