03.01.14

A big congratulations goes out to this weekend's couple who were married on Saturday morning.  The bride and her mother were a joy to work with, bringing beautiful ideas about color and flowers to the table.  One afternoon, we even delved into decorating ideas for my dining room as we shared a cozy cup of afternoon tea!  Here we were, ready to talk about ribbons for the Bride's bouquet, and instead they talked me through making a decision on wall color.  (Preppy it is! I chose a blue somewhere in between midnight and navy over the much debated more modern, charcoal grey I had originally picked.)

They introduced me to a new variety of flower that was requested by the Bride's mother, Tweedia.  This beautiful light blue flower grown in Japan was the perfect compliment to the golden tones used elsewhere in the flower arrangements.  The flower is seemingly delicate, although the stems were quite hardy and needed to be cauterized to keep the milky white latex in their stems from making the other flowers wilt. I do this by lighting a candle and holding the tip of each stem in the flame for roughly 15 seconds.  This cauterization keeps latex from leaking into the water and clogging the stems of other flowers in the vase. The key is to do this once you have determined what length you want the stem to be, and not re-cut it again.  If you must re-cut the stem, then you have to sear the tip all over again.    Although this process makes it a little more time consuming to work with, Tweedia is so pretty that I will be sure to use it again soon!  

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC, Image of Brides Bouquet

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC, Image of Brides Bouquet

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC,  Image of Bridesmaids' Bouquets

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC, Image of Bridesmaids'  Bouquets

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC, Image of Silver Tray with Pin-On Corsages and Boutonnieres

Photo by Catherine G. Damwood LLC, Image of Church Arrangement