Wednesday, February 27, 2008

a few more flower ideas

So I couldn't get these up earlier but I also love these flower ideas:

This centerpiece I fell in love with after watching this wedding on Platinum Weddings. Square Root Design made it and its gorgeous - the tree is actually made of copper and I think its something like $2K a centerpiece. Crazy right. But so beautiful. Using manzanita branches instead of a fixed copper tree will make mine A LOT cheaper.
Another tree by Square Root. I like the uniform color - it makes it very dramatic. Although the white would be a little scary for a non-winter wedding I think...
Also a really beautiful centerpiece by Square Root that draws on those large full flowers that I like.
This bouquet by Michelle Rago is gorgeous. I love the detail in the wrap the most - it reminds me of a laced up corset.

A bouquet by Square Root that I also really love. Its mostly that really deep blood red that I love - it would be a great contrast to my ivory colored sari. Although, it wouldn't match my wedding colors
I want my flower girls to wear head wreaths. I love these also by Square Root:
Flower girl wings by Square Root - pretty dramatic but maybe on a small scale minus a head wreath? I dunno...
Jennifer at Fiore suggested I have the flower girls carry these cute little baskets filled with flower petals - I think its an adorable idea

Flower inspiration

So, with the wedding rapidly approaching (185 days!), my coordinator Mary put me in contact with a few florists in Los Angeles. My mom, Mary and I met with Jennifer from Fiore Designs and Lisa from Ixora Floral Studios a few weeks ago when I was in California. Both Jennifer and Lisa were really warm and creative. Basically they both had me show them inspiration photos and describe my dream/idea flowers for the wedding, ceremony, bouquets, etc. and then they gave me their input and design ideas. From there, they will send me price quotes and we can cut back on my dream to fit my budget. Of course, now I'm sort of giddy thinking about my ideal flowers for the wedding and anxiously awaiting my quotes.

Basically I have a love for manzanita branches (see example of the orange colored branches with green orchids below), fluffy/romantic flowers like peony's, teacup roses, dahlias, etc but I also love the modern design of orchids, lotus buds, succulents and bamboo. Surprisingly all those things sort of work together.

Here are some of my inspiration photos:

Bouquets

I have been debating fan bouquets, but here are some other bouquets that I absolutely love.

This orchid bouquet was done by Fiore. So pretty and simple.


I absolutely love peony's and teacup roses


I think rananculus and peony's


Centerpieces:
For centerpieces, I want some trees with flowers and hanging candles along with low varied height centerpieces.

Love the orange manzanita branches with the orchid bunches



Not quite what I'm going for, but I like the single flowers and crystals

A baby version of a centerpiece
I love how big and full dahlias are

Love these lotus buds with the dahlias and bamboo
I like the succulents with the calla Lilly's and roses. Not a huge fan of the ivory flowers in here - I think they are too stark but overall I like this for a low centerpiece
I love how the orchids are spraying and sort of look like branches. Very dramatic


Different heights of flowers in bamboo I think look cool and could be inexpensive for the cocktail hour too?
More dahlias
If we do decide to do a few long/rectangular tables - I am in love with this sort of creeping tree and flower look.

Ceremony

To line the aisle for the ceremony I was thinking of getting large copper or dark wood bowls and floating dahlias or plumeria in them

I also love the idea of floating plumeria but they are hard to find in August
For the ceremony, I knew I wanted to have lots of hanging lines of jasmine or orchids. I also know I want a more open simple structure that is circular. The lines of orchids would be similar to this amazing table scape below. I haven't been able to really find any pictures I'm obsessed with until I stumbled upon Michelle Rago. She is nothing short of amazing and probably is insanely expensive. If I had a million dollars to spend on just my wedding, I'd use her in a heartbeat. Anyways, the pictures below are of a wedding she did at Breakers hotel was gorgeous! It had the most beautiful mandap/chuppa-like structure with all the carving it makes it look almost Moroccan.

I LOVE these orchid trees. We wanted to do some type of archway leading into the aisle and I think something like this would be perfect.

Cocktails
We also have to do some kind of decor for the cocktail hour. Since I'd prefer to really wow everyone for the reception, I'm thinking about doing something sort of simple like this. I'm not sure my mom was a fan of using fruit in a centerpiece but I think they look modern and have a little asian culture to them with the jasmine flowers. Thoughts?
Boutonniere
I don't have many boutonniere ideas. But here are two that I thought were cool and different. One of the florists suggested using succulents and I think it looks great and masculine. Not sure how they'll work with Indian outfits though?

I think these stephanotis flower's would look great with indian outfits though. I like the copper detailing a lot.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Bridesmaids fans?!

So, I stumbled across Olivia Oberlin from my daily persual of various wedding blogs (wedding bee, stylemepretty, something old something new...) and I fell in love. Her fans are absolutlely GORGEOUS and I am sure incredibly expensive. Then I thought, it would be so cool to carry one of these fans walking down the asile. I think it would be really unique and beautiful to have all the bridesmaids carry fans that have a string of hanging orchids coming off the handle. Also, we are leaving small straw fans on the chairs for the guests to shield their eyes from the sun, so it might be a cute little theme?

I would also love to carry a really beautiful fan with hanging flowers, but I'm not sure my mom will let me. She's obsessed with flowers and the bridal bouquet I think is a big deal for her. Thoughts?

Olivia Oberlin Fans:














Beautiful decorated wood fan from A Cool Breeze:
Or we could go with Sandalwood. Something simple that I could decorate more if we wanted....


A potential Bridal fan? Maybe I could get one made to match my sari....




Shockingly hard to find pictures of strands of orchids. This is the best I could find for now. Ignore all the lanterns and you kind of get the idea