Petaled: When there's a florist in the family Part 1

When my sister announced her engagement a few years ago I was so excited for her! She wanted me to be the Matron of Honor and only attendant, and of course, her floral designer! The tricky part- we live 6 hours apart. We planned everything via phone, email, text messages and one or two visits face to face. I love my sister dearly and she made my job easy. She liked orchids. The color scheme was white, green and touches of lavender. Other than that, she left everything up to me!
The logistics of designing a wedding out of town is 1.) where to get the flowers from and 2.) WHERE to design the flowers. Do I do everything here in Virginia and transport it? Not as practical as finding a location in Columbus (OH) to design everything. Thankfully after being a member of the floral community in C-bus (as locals call it) for so many years I have wonderful friends who I can count on to help me out. My good friend David works for a local wholesaler and they have plenty of space so I was able to order all my flower through him and design everything at the wholesale house. GREAT. Now, how am I supposed to do my Matron of Honor duties, get ready, dressed and deliver flowers to the ceremony & reception?

Now here comes my love of orchids. Not only are they versatile but long lasting. I did the orchids on the pew candle holders the night before, right after the rehersal. The rest, well, remember my good friend David? My wonderfully generous friend David?!! He delivered the rest to the ceremony and reception locations.

Orchid personal flowers are great because, again, they last and also they are *almost* crush proof and light-weight. This is my brother-in-law's.

The rosary you see is attached to my sister's bouquet. It is a very special rosary, from Ireland, belonging to our great great aunt Mary and is made from the green Conemara marble only found on the west coast of Ireland.

Now I want to make a point about lighting effects. The photographer was wonderful. And the two pictures above illustrate how the same flowers look completly different indoors with incandescent lighting versus outside in natural lighting. Brides beware of this when you see that "perfect" shade of flower online...it may just be the lighting giving it that fuschia glow and not the actual flower!

Me and my sister :)