Floral Verde LLC

It’s that time of year again! I have been nominated as one of Detroit’s top wedding florists in the “Vote 4 the Best Guide” hosted by WDIV Channel 4! To view my listing, just click here: http://wdiv.cityvoter.com/floral-verde-llc/biz/96912.

If you’ve enjoyed my flowers, I would LOVE your vote. To vote, just click on the VOTE button located at the top of my listing. “4 the Best Guide” will then send you an email to confirm your vote - be sure to click the link in that email to make your vote count.

The contest runs until August 31st, so be sure to vote for all of your Detroit favorites!  Thank you so much for your time and support!

Last month I did some sketches and put together a board for a bride who wants to combine blue, green and orange for her wedding. It was a bit of a challenge, but I think I’m ready to tackle this wedding!

One of the sketches I came up with was for a cake. A simple cake with copper bands around the bottom of each layer is made extraordinary by elevating it with a floral ring and topping it with a matching copper urn.

The board describing the personal flowers looked like this. I love interesting color palettes, so I can’t wait to have the flowers in my hands for this wedding!

I met Terri, Matthew, and Terri’s father while setting up Sara and Jeff’s Warwick Hills reception in October of 2008. I was thrilled when they gave me call a month later, after booking Warwick Hills for their reception. Warwick is one of my favorite places to work because the staff is incredibly gracious and hospitable.

In our initial consultation Terri gave me a swatch of rich olive green fabric from her bridesmaids’ dresses and proposed a yellow/green color palette. Together we decided to add a hint of blush as an accent color.

Terri carried a hand-tied bouquet in shades of white, green and blush. I loved that it was white enough to feel “bridal,” yet not so white as to get lost against her dress.

The bridesmaids’ bouquets brought yellow into the mix, and complemented their olive dresses perfectly.

Thanks to Lorrie and her team at Special Occasions, the reception at Warwick Hills was already gorgeous before I even brought the flowers in! She provided the incredible olive pintuck linens and the layered chair ties. The linens completely transformed the room. Lorrie was easy to work with. She was able to sort through the linen suggestions that I had given to the bride, and found the most attractive option available.

The reception set up consisted of tall and short centerpieces. The tall centerpieces were elevated on 32 inch cylinder vases to allow discussion across the tables.

The low centerpieces were arranged in six inch cylinders wrapped in lemongrass silk, and were surrounded by matching silk-wrapped votives.

As a final touch, rings of roses were added around custom Bullfrog candles. The monogrammed candles were a surprise for Terri from her father.

Congratulations Terri and Matthew!

This weekend I had the pleasure of working with Heather and Neil to create a vintage-romantic-garden themed wedding. The ceremony was held in the beautiful Walled Renaissance Garden at Garden Park of Holly.

Heather’s bouquet was a hand-tied cascade in shades of pink, blush and ivory. It contained peonies, sweet peas, astilbe, lisianthus, dahlias, roses, spray roses, and foliage cut from the garden. The stem wrap was a beautiful vintage ribbon provided by Heather.

The romantic bridesmaids’ bouquets were a mix of open roses, spray roses and peonies.

The low centerpieces were a textural symphony of soft foliage and delicately ruffled flowers. The heavy, rustic urns (provided by Heather) were a perfect foil to the delicate flowers.  The color and texture of these centerpieces reminded me of a Rococo garden painting, “The Swing,” by Jean-Honore Fragonard.

The tall centerpiece “trees” were constructed of bleached mitsumata branches and accented with hanging votives. I wish I had been there to see all of the votives lit! Hopefully I will have some of the professional photos in a few weeks!

Congratulations Heather and Neil!

On June 4th I was honored to be included in an article on the Pink Blossom List. The “Reality Check” series is the brilliant idea of Nancy Liu Chin, to demonstrate the prices of fresh flowers in different areas of the country. Check out the article here.

Then on June 10th I was featured on Pink Blossom List again! Read the article here.

If you haven’t been to the Pink Blossom List, it is an excellent resource for planning a stylish and modern wedding. Nancy Liu Chin, one of the many authors, is a prolific blogger and trend-setting event florist in San Francisco, CA. She currently writes for the Pink Blossom List, Wedding Bee Pro, Flights of Fancy on Tuesdays, and for her own blog, Brown Bag. I’m sure this isn’t a complete list, but if you can’t tell, I totally stalk her work!

Thanks again Nancy!

This weekend I had the pleasure of helping Megan and Will create beach-themed wedding flowers. The beach theme was inspired by Will’s romantic proposal to Megan on a sailboat under the Mackinac Bridge. How sweet is that?!

Megan’s bouquet was a delicate mix of pale blues, greens, silver and ivory. It contained tweedia, hydrangea, dusty miller, Vendela roses, bunny tail grass, tuberoses and leucadendron cones. I was really excited about how the bridal bouquet came together - the bunny tail and leucadendron really completed the coastal feeling.

The neutral bridesmaids’ bouquets effortlessly complemented their pool blue dresses, and were made with fragrant Polar Star roses, hydrangea, dusty miller and leucadendron cones.

I actually used two species of the South African native leucadendron in the personal flowers. Leucadendron argenteum (silver tree) is the slender silver foliage used as the base of the corsages and boutonnieres. You might recognize it from the Silver Tree Composite Bouquet that I posted in April. The smaller, greener foliage with cones is a Leucadendron cultivar named “Pisa”.

I made a variety of boutonnieres for this wedding. The first was Leucadendron “Pisa” accented with silver tree and seeded eucalyptus.

The boutonnieres for the fathers were made of Viviane spray roses, silver tree, dusty miller and Leucadendron “Pisa” foliage.

The groom and groomsmen wore boutonnieres of fragrant tuberose florets, silver tree and dusty miller.

Finally, I made a pair of conch shell arrangements for the reception. Megan’s mother provided the shells, which were souvenirs from her travels, and I filled them with flowers. The Sarracenia leucophylla, or pitcher plant, was my favorite part of these arrangements.

I would like to send many thanks to Megan, Will and their wonderful family. Thank you for being open to my suggestions and last minute additions. You were an absolute dream to work with!

Best wishes and congratulations to Megan and Will!

On the last Saturday of April I drove down to Columbus, Ohio to deliver flowers to a very special couple, Kate and Chris. It was an unseasonably warm and sunny day, and the air was sweet with crabapple blossoms – a perfect day for their outdoor nuptials.

Kate’s bouquet was made up with Freedom roses, Peter Pan spray roses, waxflower, lunaria, lycopodium and myrtle. The stems were tied off with red silk and ivory lace.

The bridesmaids’ bouquets were similar, with Escimo Roses, Viviane spray roses, waxflower, lunaria, lycopodium and myrtle

Kate’s attendants were her three brothers and her sister (Hi Joy!). I love how both Kate and Chris had male and female attendants stand up for them. My favorite part of the ceremony is when Kate’s brother, Bryce, played guitar and serenaded the couple with the song “More Than Words.”

I would like to thank Kate and Chris for inviting me to be a part of their beautiful and intimate ceremony. And I would like to send out deep gratitude to Kate’s family for their hospitality during the weekend, and the fantastic Sunday morning brunch!

Congratulations Kate and Chris!

Every year my favorite gardening project is planting a container garden for my front porch – just a little something to welcome guests and brides. Last week I was driving home from lunch with Diane (my MIL), and I got the itch to stop in at Bordine Nursery. After an hour of wandering the grounds, surveying everything that was available, I ended up with one ‘Asao’ Clematis, one ‘Powis Castle’ Artemisia, two ‘Sweet Caroline’ sweet potato vines, six little dusty miller, and a tray of ‘Goldilocks’ Lysimachia.

For the front porch I whipped together this design. I stuffed a fiberglass urn with the Artemisia, one sweet potato vine, four dusty miller and a third of the Lysimachia. I’m hoping that the Artemisia will get large enough to shade the ‘Goldilocks’ Lysimachia, because my south-facing porch gets really hot in the summer. Even though green is my favorite color, I am inexorably drawn to silvery-blue and chartreuse foliage. Also, I never seem to do flowers up on the porch. I don’t know why, but I tend to leave those for the mulched beds around the house.

This is the first year I have also put together a planter for the back porch. Here I’ve used the ‘Asao’ Clematis (Woo-hoo! A flowering plant!), the other sweet potato vine, two dusty miller and another third of the ‘Goldilocks’ Lysimachia. It looks like I already need to build a larger trellis for the Clematis!

This ‘Asao’ variety of Clematis is definitely a show stopper, with each bloom measuring six inches across! I would like to use a couple of blossoms in a bridal bouquet for one of my June brides. (What do you think Heather?) Hopefully it is still blooming in Mid-June.

Not surprisingly, Clematis is closely related to a few of my other favorite flowers - ranunculus, anemones, helleborus, columbine, nigella and delphinium are all in the same Family. And it is a bit more distantly related to poppies and bleeding hearts, which are in the same Order.

It would be a blast to put together some mini container gardens for wedding centerpieces. They could be planted ahead of time, and enjoyed after the wedding for the rest of the growing season. If there is an interested bride out there, shoot me an email, I’d love to design some miniature gardens for your wedding!

Overall, I think it was a successful container gardening year for me. I made an effort to pack as many plants into each urn as I could. I think that this will give me an “overgrown” look a lot faster than my previous years. What are your favorite plant combinations and techniques for container gardening?

We got in some great flowers for Mother’s Day this year: bleeding hearts, peonies, lilacs, anemone, scabiosa, ranunculus, tulips and roses.

We also got in some show-stopping cymbidium orchids with 20+ blooms per stem! This next arrangement went to my fabulous mother-in-law, Diane.

A Mother’s Day brunch just isn’t complete without a corsage for the VIP.

After an excellent brunch and a cozy afternoon chatting in the family room, the in-laws sent me home with a box full of fragrant and delicate lily of the valley to plant in my own yard. I can’t wait until all of the little bell-shaped blooms open up! Thank you Bill and Diane!

Happy Mother’s Day Mom (I miss you!) and Diane!

Last Thursday I drove out to Grand Rapids for a swanky open house hosted by A Modern Event. A Modern Event is a collaboration of experienced wedding and event professionals who have joined together to create an event design boutique. The rockstar team is made up by Modern Day Floral, In Any Event, Ben Harrison Photography, and Sweet Cakes Design. The boutique is breathtaking, and is the one stop shopping destination for wedding and event planning in Grand Rapids.

When I stepped in, I was immediately greeted by my friend Jennifer Ederer (Jenn), owner of Modern Day Floral. Isn’t she just radiant! She guides the talented team at Modern Day Floral, who consistently amaze me with their fresh, yet timeless designs.

Here are a few photos from the party that I borrowed from the A Modern Event blogsite. I’m going to focus on the flowers, but be sure to check out the rest of the swoon-worthy pictures here. (All of the photos in this post are by Dusty Brown Photography.)

The first tablescape I spotted was this little number. I love the pinks paired with a deep eggplant. It’s such a sophisticated take on feminine colors. And the feather topiary is to die for!  What a great collaboration by Jodi Bos of In Any Event and the team at Modern Day Floral.

A gorgeous model (Jenn’s daughter!) carried the matching cascade bouquet.

Then, I look to my right and I am bowled-over with another amazing collaboration by Jodi and Jenn. The theme of this tablescape is “Asian-Mod meets Botanical Chic.” You can read Jenn’s description here. I love the way all of the natural textures complement each other – the jagged branches, smooth river rocks, fluffy reindeer moss, and delicate phalaenopsis orchids are harmonious together in this centerpiece.

The corresponding bouquet is a totally eclectic - just like the centerpiece, and it works so well.

Congratulations to everyone over at A Modern Event! The open house was AMAZING!

***update***

You’ll never believe where Jenn got those fabulous feather topiaries!  Check out this post at the Modern Day Floral Blog to find out where…