This weekend I created custom designed floral arrangements for my friend Mary. Her daughter is getting married this fall. Mary is the banquet manager at Stony Creek Golf Course. This little gem of a venue is located in Oak Lawn. It’s a perfect place to have a party. The main dining room seats 100 pple. With the outdoor area (tented) your guest list can go up to 170. They have a beautiful gazebo to get married in.
A simple 5×5 box turned into a beautiful container for the flowers. I painted these boxes purple to match the bridesmaid dresses, and added a satin lavender ribbon, with a rhinestone belt buckle. The green button mums were embellished with lime green accent, the salal leaves held rhinestones.
To complete the look I added a paper mat to each table.

With some spray paint and ribbon a plain white box becomes a floral centerpiece.

A classy mother-of-the-groom contacted me to design centerpieces for the bridal shower she was having for her soon to be daughter-in-law. Of course, the daughter-in-law is a client of Flowers by COLOR. Needless to say the bride and mother-in-law enjoyed the customized box arrangement. Lucky guests got to take the arrangements home and enjoyed them for at least week.

Beautiful Mophead Hydrangeas Headed to Highland Park Today to Strut Their Stuff!

The bridesmaids wore navy, the tables adorned with sheer blue fabric, the bride beautiful!

Centered on each of Sarah’s table was a 5×5 glass square, filled with blue water, and sporting a Blue Holland Hydrangea. These blooms were at least 6 inches across!

The Brides carried 17 white roses, nestled in a light blue Hydrangea. Accenting the rose centres was a blue crystal. The bridesmaids carried 7 white roses nestled in a darker blue Hydrangea.

Cut and paste this link to a simply elegant wedding.

http://stylemepretty.com/gallery/gallery/4392

A dream come true, a spot in the Style Me Pretty gallery.

Mandy and Jimmy-What a beautiful wedding last weekend. One of the cutest details I’ve seen this year-so far-was a chalk message on the sidewalk of Mandy and Jimmy’s ceremony site. At their church in Joliet some kind person drew a large heart, inside of the heart was “Mandy + Jimmy”. It was the cutest detail!
Mandy styled her wedding right! Her girls wore short tangerine colored dresses, for these we used Parrot Tulips to add the color.
Alas, I did not take a picture of the chalking-but it did make me smile when I saw it on the sidewalk of the entrance to the church.
Mandy’s Bouquet was all White Roses, White Mini-Calla Lilly’s, Stephanotis with a collar of Salal. Her roses and Stephanotis were accented with crystals. What a true Bridal Bouquet for a beautiful bride!

Yet again this evening I received a call from a bride-to-be who told me her florist cancelled on her. Apparently this retail florist did not check his calendar. When he finally checked his calendar, he saw this particular bride-to-be was getting married on Mother’s Day weekend. Sooooo he cancelled her. She saw that I was a boutique wedding and event florist, so she called me and we are meeting next week.
I have no issue with retail florists, but come on, this is your wedding! Weddings take a lot of energy, they take concentration and creativity, delivery is a fun and happy time. Retail florists may not have the investment, personalized touches, or the energy to produce a beautiful wedding. They may be tired from making bouquets for birthdays, or anniversaries. They may have had a couple of sympathy arrangements to do the day before your wedding. They may contract out your delivery, how sad someone you never met before delivers the flowers to your wedding and doesn’t know anything about your event or you!
If your florist doesn’t pay attention to you now, what do you expect for your wedding day? If your florist is not on email, that’s just crazy. If you can’t send your florist a picture that inspires you, that’s sad.
Think twice before going to the corner florist for your wedding day. You’ll get better service and beautiful flowers from a boutique wedding florist.

I subscribe to a lot of bridal magazines. One of my favorites is ‘Ceremony’ magazine, out of California. (www.CeremonyMagazine.com). Since lots of good things start in California and make their way East to us, I figure I get a jump on new ideas! One of the latest ideas I read about in Ceremony magazine is a great little company called “Raise the Cake”. The idea here is to design your own cake stand to match your event, or choose one from their couture line. No more dated silver stand! Another part of your wedding that you can be creative with!

www.raisethecake.com

I’m sure a resourceful bride could make her own stand. Check with your baker first for specifics!

The Flower Girls and I designed three beautiful weddings this weekend. All of them as distinct as the Bride and her vision.
Samantha’s wedding colors were Turquoise and Red-awesome! Samantha and I started working together last January. We communicated through countless emails. Let me say ‘this Bride had an eye’. From her table cards made from a Turquoise and Red print, to her place card table-each card decorated with a gerbera daisy cut out.
We did 1/2 the tables with 22″ Eiffel tower vases, arranged on the vases were Red Roses, Red Gerbera Daisys, Red Carnations, and turquoise ostrich feathers. Nicely done! The other tables had a turquoise box, around the box was a red ribbon, with a button
On top of these boxes were presentation style bouquets of Red Roses, Gerbera Daisys, and Ostrich Feather, all tied with a flat red bow….too cute.
The Bridesmaids carried bouquets of Red Roses with Blue Crystals. Samantha carried white Escimo Roses, with teal crystals. Just enough ‘bling’ to show the guests…this Bride has style. Samantha did a lot of DIY which really paid off for her on the look and style of the wedding.
Next up was Jen-she planned a beautiful wedding at Lake Katherine. Chuck’s Bar B Que on 79th Street catered (Chuck was out in the back manning the grill himself when we were there). Jen hired servers, and bartenders, which saved her lots of $$$’s. She bought the refreshments herself. Her linens were white, with a blue and white checked runner. On top of the runner we did different size mason jars filled with Daisy mums, Asters, Gerbera Daisys, and Alstromeria. Lots of the jars held candles which added to the ambieance of the evening. Jen was a DIY bride who provided her guests with a great party, good food, and fun on her wedding day.
Sunday found us at ‘Fulton’s by the River’ with Jill and Colin. Jill’s bridesmaids wore purple. We accented the purple with lime green cymbidium orchids.

Half of Jills tables were Manzanita Branches with mercury glass votives and Cymbidium Orchids, the other half had centerpieces of clear glass squares with White Asiatic Lillys, river rock, and bear grass lined the bottom of the glass. These simple pieces were beautiful.

Three weddings….three happy Brides.

Casey contacted me five weeks ago, she wanted to get married on July 3rd in Chicago. She and her fiance got married yesterday at the Chicago Temple United Methodist church. Her reception for 90 people was held at Gibson’s on Rush.
Casey had two bridesmaids that carried purple Freesia, dark and light purple Stock, dark purple Lisianthus, and ‘Cool Water’ Roses.
Casey’s bouquet was the quintessential bridal bouquet: White ‘Escimo’ Roses, Stephanotis with pearl centers, White spray roses, framed in a collar of Salal.
Dupioni silk wrapped the handle with an accent of pearls.
Rush street was buzzing when we dropped the centerpieces at Gibson’s. Glass cylinders with submerged Hydrangea, finished with a floating candle looked perfect in the intimate room of 12 tables.

Casey and I never met before yesterday, we did all of the floral planning over email.
Congratulations to Casey for planning a beautiful Chicago wedding in 5 weeks.