You want the honest truth about floral design?  Behind the scenes, it's not so glamorous. The work starts before the rooster is even dreeeaming about crowing. It involves doing things with your hands that leave them cracked, and when the chlorophyll in the plants gets in those cracks, as it inevitably will, you're left with hands so stained, even the most vigorous esthetician cannot remove them (I discovered this during one "recovery" manicure where the poor gal threw her hands up in the air and said, "there's nothing else I can do..." and shoved off, rolling away on her little salon stool in exasperation). ​ 

​The reason I need you to know that it's not so pretty behind the scenes, is that my photographer friend, Nicole Hoefer, sure made it look dreamy when she popped by to capture us getting ready for a wedding here at the studio. We look so calm and collected, you can almost hear Ingrid Michaelson playing in the background. 

Smells good!

The studio

Jess working on garland

This princess themed baby shower was definitely fit for royalty!  If the luxurious flower mix didn't clue you in, the gold crowns would certainly bring it home. It helps that the backdrop was a gorgeous home in Los Altos Hills, and it fell on a sunshiny, California day. 

Guests were greeted by a pink flower wreath on the front door, and arrangements of Peonies, Rosita Vendela Roses, Tulips, Calycina, Ranunculus, Button Mums, Lisianthus, Jasmine, Dusty Miller,  Silver Brunia and Camelia Leaves.  Pale pink roses set under glass cloches accented the collection.  

What a beauty this bride, Zizi, was on her big day at the Menlo Circus Club in Atherton.  You might have mistaken her bridal party for models, and boy, did her photographer, Bret Cole, know how to do a dreamy job of capturing the softness of our floral arrangements in action!

The decor consited of blue, green and white hydrangea, with green trick dianthus, and masses of lanterns suspended from the grand oak trees at the Menlo Circus Club in Atherton.

We have been incorporating succulents into wedding flowers for several years now, and the trend does not appear to be waning anytime soon!  They are labor-intensive, becuase each one has to be individually wired & taped, and many varities have fragile parts.  But they are renewable, hearty, textural and spectacular, and definitely well-worth the work! 

It's a real art, working with Peonies.  These coveted, luxurious blooms can be temperamental. Don't be deceived by the small, tight ball-shape buds they start out as. When they are ready, they will burst open like a firecracker and expose their feminine beauty in furls of scalloped petals.  The problem is, once they burst open, they do start to expire, which means you have limited time to capitalize on these beauties for your event. In the wedding industry, the bloom needs to be just right for the bride's bouquet, so selecting them at the perfect stage, and removing them from the chiller at the right time, takes precision. Check out the variety of ways we've incorporated Peonies in some of our past events...

Sweet little wedding at Ardenwood Farms incorporated ever so soft pink and white Peonies against David Austin's English Rose, Juliet, and some local California blushing garden roses, with dusty miller, stock, seeded Eucalyptus, and Queen Anne's lace.  

Wendy Harrop Events http://www.wendyharropevents.com/ helped to seamlessly transition the elegant ceremony, into a lighthearted reception at a local Mexican food restaurant, where we lined the tables with rustic wood planter boxes filled with a variety of succulents. Glittered table numbers tucked into the centerpieces added the final touch before the guests streamed in to get the party started. 

"Rise" was the title of the series that overlapped the Easter Celebration at this local place of worship. The artists at PCC folded congregation prayer cards into birds and suspended them, and white roses, from a golden net which originated from the foot of the large cross above, where an angel watched on. Under the podium on the platform we created a scene from nature with a lush collection of daffodils, hydrangea, hyacinth, ferns, and lilies, lined with strips of fresh wheatgrass and moss. The hundreds of feet of planters along the back of the worship center were planted with wheatgrass and white tulips for a very fresh rendition of spring.

Some people celebrate the unseasonably warm start to spring by donning flip flops and taking lunch outside to start working on their tan.  Floral designers are a little less enthusiastic, because we know it means the season for spring flowers will be over before it really begins.  80-degree weather in March ushered in summer flowers, so it was just in the knick of time that we held our Spring Bulb workshop here at Royal Bloom.  We procured some of the last daffodils, narcissus, and amaryllis of the year, along with tulips, which are available year-round.  

A great time was had with the amazing ladies attending this month's Royal Bloom Workshop! We learned about true bulbs and the difference between bulbs and corms, rhizomes, and tubers.  Students experienced hands-on how delicate bulb stems can be, and did a great job gingerly working with materials to create their own whimsical arrangements to take home. 

I splurged a little on the bulbs because I have a hard time passing up my favorites. They selected from a variety of tulips (parrot, French, double, fringed, standard), a hybrid ivory daffodil with peach center, a bright yellow daffodil, peachy pink hycinth, blue muscari, apricot amaryllis, and fragrant lily of the valley. They chose between two projects: a tall arrangement with  a dramatic branch of blooming dogwood as it's structure, or a cheery patch of wheatgrass filled with "planted" bulbs.