Another batch of June photos to share! For Sharon and Matt’s flowers I drew lots of inspiration from their wedding location, the Conservatory of Flowers, and from the colors and textures of the surrounding park and gardens. Golden Gate Park is my favorite place to wander (usually in the fog, but Sharon and Matt were lucky enough to get sun!), and I love the dreamy old-fashioned feel of the Conservatory, so I had a lot of fun putting together these designs. You can read more about the flowers and plants we used here. The photos pictured below are by Ryan Anson. Congratulations, Sharon and Matt!

Ooo, this is so exciting! The first batch of professional photos from my spate of June weddings has come in… and they are gorgeous! You’ll remember Sara’s bouquet, which I shared with you just a few posts ago, but I figured it was worth a little more real estate on the blog. I really love the way everything came together here. Photos by Lili Durkin.

Julie Benjamin of Little Lane Studios made Jason’s crazy-cute boutonniere. I keep trying to tell you how brilliant she is, but doesn’t that little bad boy speak for itself?

We brought in tillandsias for Sara and Jason’s favors, and she made them into amazing place cards with aluminum plant tags.

More to come soon, I hope, from our other June weddings!

Gorgeous dahlias are in full swing now, and I’m ridiculously excited about it. For Mandy and Justin’s wedding on Saturday, I used some vibrant coral pink ones. The lovely Mandy started out wanting earth tones for her bouquet and centerpieces, but eventually decided she wanted something brighter, with more saturated color. I think we came up with a nice compromise: the succulents, raspberry buds, and cosmos contribute some soft, muted tones, while the dahlias and sweet peas give the bouquets an incredible festive energy. Here are a bunch of different angles on Mandy’s bouquet and Justin’s boutonniere:

I love the freshness and fragrance of mint for a bridal bouquet. And I couldn’t believe what a near-perfect color match those sweet peas and dahlias were. Usually I don’t go in for anything matchy-matchy, but somehow it worked, I think because of the contrasting textures of the flowers.

Mandy and Justin got married in the WPA Rock Garden in Sacramento, then they had a small reception on the garden patio at a little tapas restaurant nearby. We did the centerpieces in pretty vintage canning jars. I’ll share more photos when they come my way!

Here’s another wedding from a couple of weeks back. Sara and Jason wanted lots of tillandsias! They left one at each guest’s plate as a party favor (hope to have more photos to share soon!). Sara did her own centerpieces, so we just put together these sweet little bouquets and boutonnieres, with various lovely echeveria rosettes, more tillandsias, and some silvery dusty miller leaves.

I could not resist that gorgeous showpiece of a tillandsia for the focal point in Sara’s bouquet; the slight lilac tint of the leaves picked up the color of the echeveria ‘perle von nurnberg’ (and of Sara’s purple’s shoes!) perfectly.

The bridesmaids wore lilac, so we went with silvery-green for their little nosegays. The poppy pods and the bunny grass added a nice freshness, perfect for the meadow/garden setting of the ceremony.

Eucalyptus holds up so well, making it great for boutonnieres. In yet another genius maneuver, Julie created that beautiful criss-cross ribbon wrap. Soon I’ll post a how-to for her technique!

Yesterday I had the honor of creating the flowers for the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends to a really fantastic person. It was so lovely to watch two people get married who are both such wonderful individuals and also so well-matched. Congratulations, Rachel and Christian!! Love you guys.

Here is the bride coming down the aisle with her parents. Doesn’t she just look stunning?

Close-up of the bouquet (modeled by Julie Benjamin of Little Lane Studios, who contributed her talent yet again to this event):

We did the whole wedding in mixed vintage milk glass vases, compotes, and bowls. They got married in the old Officers’ Club at Fort Mason, and they had a fantastic gypsy jazz band with an accordion, so the old-timey vibe of everything really came together beautifully. Here’s a centerpiece we shot at the store before loading it up for delivery:

A couple of nice little echeveria corsages:

At some point I will share more great photos from the wedding, but for now I’ve got to go take a nap. It was a big job, followed by a great time!

Another weekend, another wedding! I was so excited when this sweet couple hired me to do their wedding at the Conservatory of Flowers, one of my absolute favorite places in San Francisco. The galleries there are so inspiring, full of layered textures and smells and unexpected, dazzling bursts of color. The design for the wedding flowers was meant to evoke the sensory experience of wandering through the Conservatory itself and the surrounding park. Here’s Sharon’s bouquet (modeled by the amazing Julie Benjamin of Little Lane Studios, without whose help there would have been no wedding flowers at all):

The pitcher plants are a nod to “Chomp!,” the Conservatory’s carnivorous plant exhibition, going on now through the end of October. Because the Conservatory’s collection contains so many amazing orchid species, too, I chose this little locally grown catteleya orchid, with some dark, velvety chocolate cosmos for contrast, wispy smokebush, Japanese maple, smooth green philodendron leaves to evoke the tropical feel of the galleries, and of course eucalyptus, for a hint of Golden Gate Park’s emblematic fragrance. Sharon and Matt wanted succulents, as well, to incorporate living plants that they’ll later add to their garden to commemorate the wedding.

Little sempervivum plants, potted up by a generous relative, waited for the guests at their plates.

Believe it or not, those ruffly red single-headed flowers (there are two of them just above the spray of orchids in the lower right) are the flowers of pitcher plants. Wow! If I were a pollinator, I’d make a beeline for those things (ack! forgive the cheesy pun).

Congratulations, Sharon and Matt! I hope you’re off on a fabulous honeymoon. More weddings to come this weekend.

First in a long string of summer weddings this Memorial Day weekend… congratulations, Chae and Brian! I hope to have more photos to share eventually, but in the meantime, here is Chae’s bouquet.

As you can see, I used several different echeveria, some gorgeous tillandsias, poppy pods, an amazing dark scabiosa, silvery leucadendron, and those ethereal blue viburnum berries, with a few dangling strands of senecio “string of pearls.”

Hope you are all enjoying the glorious weather. More wedding shots next weekend!

I’m so excited to finally share these photos with you. Flora’s brother Jonathan Grubb was married to Kestrin Pantera back in April in Carmel, with a big amazing party the next day here at the store. They wanted tons of tillandsias, and when we discussed the décor for the seaside reception, Kestrin declared her inspiration to be “Victorian-era marine science.” I could not have been more excited about the idea! I’m a huge lover of all things coastal and under-sea, so we came up with these little abstract seascapes made out of tillandsias, succulents, and mossy, lichen-crusted branches.

The stunning, ethereal photos are by Noa Azoulay-Sclater of Feather Love Photography. Scroll down through them for some more wedding details…

Aren’t these two so sweet? I used a big xerographica tillandsia for Kestrin’s bouquet, with some begonia leaves tucked inside it, and for the boutonnieres we paired tillandsias and little sprigs of trailing succulents with the dark eggplant begonia leaves.

For a few arrangements I used glass bell jars to evoke that “marine science” mood. I sent down a bunch of sea-inspired plant material (the fruits of our guadalupe palm, as well as some extra xerographicas), and Flora created this lovely landscape on-site.

A tillandsia waited at each guest’s plate as a wedding favor. Such a lovely idea! I was proud and honored to be a part of this celebration, with so many talented, creative people involved. Thanks to Noa at Feather Love for the use of these images; you can see more (including more shots of the ceremony on a bluff over the sea) at her blog. The wedding was also featured yesterday on Style Me Pretty, where you can check out how fabulous the gardens looked for the next night’s party as well.

Julie and I were hard at work on two events last week: the Mayor’s Earth Day Breakfast at City Hall, and a big benefit dinner and fashion show for the San Francisco Ballet. We took some photos of the succulent bowls for the ballet all lined up in nice rows before we loaded them up for delivery.

We used the tulip-shaped heads of Leucadendron “Maui Sunset” as filler, and added a few tillandsias for pops of contrast. I love the way they look like little undersea worlds. They were so beautiful against the simple white linens at the event. Apparently Michael Kors was in attendance (they showed his collection at the benefit), and as a big Project Runway fan, I was pretty excited about this. He ate next to my flowers!!

Now on to Mother’s Day… if you haven’t ordered your mom’s bouquet yet, there’s still time! We’re taking orders for Sunday delivery until midnight tonight. Just scroll back to the top of the page to place your order. And do come in and see us this weekend; unfortunately our flower arranging workshop is sold out, but we’re also having a coffee and tea tasting in the gardens on Sunday — should be a fun way to spend the holiday!

Here are a few arrangements I did for a luncheon last weekend. I took these photos at the end of the day in the nursery, which explains why the light is so blue and dusky. But I think it was actually perfect for the energy of these bouquets. Who knew lilacs could be so moody and mysterious? Not I.

My original plan for this event was to work with a much more muted palette, but when we decided to bring in the tillandsias, I fell in love with the way they looked against the deep purple of the lilacs. If you’ve got lilacs outside in your garden and tillandsias (air plants) in your house, try them out together in a vase! I actually wired up the tillandsias just the same way I do the succulents, by inserting a length of thick-gauge wire into the plant’s root area (no taping needed). You can do it that way for something more permanent, or try just nestling the tillandsias among the other flowers once you’ve got your arrangement in place.