El Cortez

This is my most recent wedding...it was held at the El Cortez on May 10th and was an absolute pleasure to put together. The main flowers of the entire wedding were cymbidium orchids and were used in every aspect of the wedding. Half of the centerpieces for the reception were dark Manzanita branches in tall vases which were filled with coffee beans and topped with little green button chrysanthemums. On the branches we place mini white and pink cymbidium orchids and hung votive candles for a glowing effect. The other half of the centerpieces were a trio of vases that incorporated food since the groom is a chef. The first vase was a tall cylinder with a white cymbidium orchid stem floating in water. The next vase was a medium cylinder with a shite candle surrounded by split peas. The last of the vase trio was a short square vase which was filled with 2 green apples and 2 limes filled with water and topped with a white floating candle.

My favorite part of the wedding was the bouquets but unfortunately we forgot to take pictures of them before we dropped them off to the bride and her bridesmaids. The brides bouquet was a mixture of white hydrangea, green cymbidium orchids, white cymbidium orchids and white roses. I wrapped it in white satin ribbon and added a silver and CZ broach to match the brides dress which was white with silver embroidery on the bodice. The bridesmaids wore dark brown dresses so Angie, the bride, wanted to lighten their bouquets up so that they would pop in the pictures. Their bouquets consisted of white hydrangea, white cymbidium orchids, tiny little pink-ish purple wax flowers and pink-ish purple mini calla lilies. They were wrapped in champagne ribbon and were very pretty. Hopefully I will get the pictures from the photographer soon so that I can post the pictures for everyone to see.Everything turned out beautiful and I hope that you all enjoy the pictures. I hope to have more up soon. :)

Stone House in Temecula

So you might recognize the design of the centerpieces from a previous post. This is the wedding for the 2 landscape architechts that I did up at the Stone House at the Temecula Creek Inn. I ended up using purple and white spider mums, orange/red cockscomb, orange, white and yellow rananculas, circus roses and purple chrysanthemums. I carried the flowers over to the arbor arrangement and added some large calla lilies and white roses. The bride and groom were very happy and loved the mix of colors.

Lily Lesson

Well I know that I haven't posted in a while but I have 3 new posts to put up. Tonight I will probably only get this one up and then look for the lother 2 in the coming days. This wedding was one that I did back in February and recently got the professional photos from the bride.

This was a simple wedding with orange asiatic lilies as the main flower and white flowers to accent with very minimal green or other colors as requested by the bride. The wedding was at Harrah's RIncon Casino in Valley Center and it was one that taught me a great lesson on asiatic lilies. The lesson learned was that asiatic lilies need to be ordered way way way in advance to ensure that they will be open. I ordered and picked up the lilies 3 days prior to the wedding but they did not open until 2 or 3 days AFTER the wedding...OK so here is the story, I ordered the lilies to be picked up on the Monday before the wedding which was on Friday. When I went to pick them up they had not been delievered. It had been very rainy and the trucks were behind schedule. So I came back the next day and out they bring 60 or so stems of orange asiatic lilies, only they weren't orange...they were closed tight and they were completely green!!! By wednesday when I realized that there was no way that they were going to open I had to have a new batch hand picked and brought overnight from Arizona where I picked them up Friday morning and rushed home to make the flowers.

It was a little stressful but it all turned out fine and I loved the contrast between the brown suits that the guys wore and the orange flowers. The reception centerpieces were very sleek and simple, just 5 large calla lilies in tall rectangular vases; they were very simple but very elegant.