Florals in Vintage Tin Containers

These sweet little arrangements were photographed by the one and only Lane Dittoe and the tin can pieces were featured on the wonderful Wedding Chicks a few months ago. Amy brought together myself, Lane, and Jeni Maus of Found - Vintage Rentals, to do a few mock-ups and this one included some of Jeni's vintage tin and ceramic containers. If you haven't heard about Jeni and her amazing company Found, you should really look her up. She travels all over the globe finding beautiful antiques, be it furniture, accessories, lighting, etc, and has them available for rental for any type of event in Southern California. She was the first to come up with this brilliant idea and many have tried to follow suit. She has the best inventory though and her taste, especially in upholstered furniture, is right in line with mine. (The Wedding Chicks just posted a really lovely feature on Elizabeth Messina's book launch party where you can see more of Jeni's finds. I want them all in my house, lol.) Anywhoo... She brought these great containers - I put some flowers in them, and Lane photographed them to look effortlessly beautiful.

The flowers used were tulips, hellebores, hyacinth, clematis, ranunculus, astilbe, and a type of grass that I'm not sure of the name.

Korakia Pensione ~ Palm Springs Wedding Shoot

This shoot was featured on The Wedding Chicks yesterday and I wanted to share more of Lane Dittoe Fine Art Photography's beautiful photos (specifically of the flowers of course!). Lane Dittoe is a photography genius, I swear. I become downright giddy when I open a gallery from him. He gets these gorgeous soft tones yet doesn't lose the details in the flowers. Lane's vision was a soft and earthy feel that worked well with the backdrop of Korakia Pensione in Palm Springs. Korakia is this amazing boutique hotel that is a great spot for an intimate wedding. I loved the space for the Indonesian (or Moroccan?) antiques and architectural details that were all over the property. Definitely a spot I want to go to again. Lane put together an awesome group of professionals for this shoot and I'll point out their contributions with specific photos.

The ever so lovely Naomi Goodman of At First Blush & Company styled this shoot and was a blast to work with. She did a beautiful job with the simplicity this shoot called for and also brought on Sarah Bella, our gorgeous model. Sarah wore the Theia dress from Lovely Bridal Shop, located in West Hollywood. If you're getting married and still looking for your dress, you should check them out. They have an amazing selection and really great price points.

The flowers I used for this bridal bouquet were (locally foraged ;-) garden roses, white scabiosa, parrot tulips, pale yellow orinthagolum, white asclepias, and viburnum. I tied it in three different types of rustic burlap ribbon to complement the natural aesthetic we were going for.

Isn't the groom dapper? I love his bow tie by Preston & Olivia. (You should have seen us trying to figure out how to tie it. Thank goodness for iPhone's.)

I made the boutonniere's out of white scabiosa and viburnum. I tied them with a smaller width of the rustic burlap ribbon I sourced at Michael Levine's in DTLA. Love it there.

I love these shots of the bride holding the bouquet. It really shows the intended scale and shape of flowers in comparison to Sarah (as she's pretty damn tiny).

I was so happy to work with Erica Beukelman of 1011 Make-up and Hair again. She's the nicest person and so fun to be around. Her work is also perfection and it looks as good in person as it does on film (which is saying a lot as film beautifies everything).

Here are a few shots of the vase arrangement I made. I wasn't planning on it getting so huge, but I had some tall viburnum that was really pretty and I used it to its fullest extent. I ended up taping the bowl (something I never do) to help the flowers keep their shape. I was amazed at how much easier taping made things, including transport. The flowers didn't move an inch. But I still prefer to do it the more challenging way whenever possible... ;-)

I used a few different types of flowers in this arrangement, including yellow tree peonies and Cafe au Lait dahlias along with the ones mentioned above (garden roses, white scabiosa, parrot tulips, pale yellow orinthagolum, white asclepias, and viburnum) .

The model just about buckled under the weight of this monster. But I love this shot of her holding it and that it shows the opposite side with the peach garden roses. Whatever it takes to get the shot, huh?

This stunner of a cake is from Erica O'Brien Cake Design out of Connecticut. The subtle peach tone on tone effect with a change in texture is gorgeous and worked so well with the flowers. Her work is complete art and I honestly love every one I see from her.

Beautiful architectural details at Korakia Pensione.

My post last week talked about working with flowers in extreme heat and I referenced a Palm Springs shoot where the bouquet looked as though it were melting. Well, the larger bridal bouquet was what I was talking about. After a few hours out of water, I took it apart and made this sweet little posy from the flowers that held up in the bridal bouquet and vase arrangement (tree peonies, garden roses, orinthagolum, and scabiosa).

That's it for today! I hope you enjoyed seeing more of Lane's photos of everyone's incredible work on this shoot. It was so much fun to be a part of. Check back in a couple days for another (small) post of some little pink arrangements I made a while back. 

Thanks for visiting!!

Vendor Credits

Photography: Lane Dittoe Fine Art Photography

Venue: Korakia Pensione

Styling: Naomi Goodman of At First Blush & Company

Florals: Oak & the Owl

Hair & Make-Up: Erica Beukelman of 1011 Hair and Make-up

Dress Designer: Theia provide by Lovely Bridal Shop

Hair Accessory: Tessa Kim provided by Lovely Bride

Groom's Bow Tie: Preston & Olivia

Cake: Erica O'Brien 

Cake Stand: Archive Vintage Rentals

Models: Stephen Gizzi and Sarah Bella

White Peony & Garden Rose w/ Succulent Bouquets

These bouquets were for a Palm Springs wedding this past June. The wonderful Kamee June was the photographer and she sent over a few beautiful shots of the flowers that I wanted to share.The bride requested an all white, lush yet tight, design with a few succulents added in. Enjoy the photos of the bouquets along with the gorgeous Bride and Groom (and their adorable baby girl) below! If you're a flower lover looking for design tips, check the bottom for some tricks I've learned with dealing with succulents and the extreme heat issues working in Southern California can bring about.

I used white peonies, white and cream garden roses from Rose Lane Farms in North Hollywood, white lisianthus, and echevaria succulents. I wrapped the stems in a tight handle with white eyelet ribbon.

The bride and her family put together these cute little succulents as favors for their guests. They worked perfectly with the setting and climate; and they're such a great gift as they can be easily planted once guests return home. I also love the little rustic detail of wrapping them in burlap.

Aren't they a beautiful family? Just gorgeous...

I always love a shot from weddings that show such joy and elation after the ceremony is over. It's like the culmination of so much planning and work is over and now it's finally time to party. From what I heard about this wedding - there was no lack of celebration. My kind of wedding for sure!

Ok, that's it for today! I'll try and have 2 posts ready for next week. Wedding season and my cutie pie Bass have kept me so busy it's been hard to stay up to date on blogging. But... some new and exciting posts are in the works, so keep coming back!! xoxo 

Some design tips...

So... I've learned a few key tricks when dealing with first of all Palm Springs, and second of all, succulents. Having (other than the past year) all my floral design experience in the Bay, I'm still learning how to deal with the - sometimes extremely - high temperatures in Southern California. Palm Springs and flowers, especially spring blooms, are not a good pairing. I did a shoot out there a few weeks ago and after an hour out of water, the flowers looked like they were literally melting. Now I know... A few tricks I picked up are, the tighter the bouquet the better. When the flowers are designed tightly, they can support each other as they start to fade. If you want a loose, more wild, type of design, just know that your bouquets will not hold up and you should get photos of them immediately after taking them out of water. And take them out of water right before your ceremony. The second thing is, I wouldn't keep the flowers overly cold before introducing them to 100+F. That temperature shock can sometimes make them wilt faster with a smaller likelihood of reconstituting them with cutting their stems and putting them back in water. 

Now for succulents... make sure you wire them with a heavier gauge wire and still have them supported by other blooms. They can sometimes have such heavy heads that over the course of an event, the weight will pull on the wire and the bouquet will lose it's shape. If you have a secondary back-up of of the flowers supporting the succulents, your arrangement should last through the wedding just fine. But the problem with a hot climate affects this in that the flowers fade so much faster that they won't support the weight. If this is the case, just make sure you realize this will happen and keep the bouquets in water for as long as possible

Hot Pink and Navy Blue Part 3

Now, when you look at these photos, try and imagine them with the beach as a backdrop with the sun slowly setting. And imagine the frame of the altar about 2' deeper, with 3 of those sunburst mirrors suspended on all three sides, leaving the front open. Then you'll get an idea of what I was going for with this set-up... As I mentioned in the first two posts you can read in Part 1 and Part 2, a huge storm hit the weekend of this photography workshop and my long researched and meticulous plans had to take a back seat to mother nature's idea of a good time.

I was going for a dramatic altar with dark blue as the main color with accents of burnished gold and hot pink. I thought against the ocean and sand, with a bride in a beautiful white dress, it would be striking and something that hadn't been seen before. Well... we're not seeing it now either. But that's ok!! Everyone did the best they could and I can always try this out again in better weather. The lovely photos are from Kamee June Photography and Rebecca Eileen Designs (unless otherwise noted). My friend, Larry Leivas, designed and welded the altar, and the "Starburst" mirror is from Crate and Barrel. The gorgeous midnight blue sequined pillow is from La Tavola and goes with the table cover in the first post.
 

The flowers I used included hot pink anemones, ranunculus, garden roses, parrot tulips, white rambling roses, chartreuse hellebores, snowball viburnum, and maidenhair fern.

This is a shot I took with my camera phone but it's the only one I have of the altar as a whole. I really wanted to show how the entire set-up looked, with the left and right balancing each other out. So, please forgive the quality and editing of this photo as I am not the professional!

I was struggling with coming up with something new for the altar and as I was keeping Bass busy and myself happy cruising through Crate and Barrel, I saw their Starburst Mirror and everything suddenly clicked. After finding the mirror, the whole set-up and design concept came into focus. I was going for a slight Hollywood Regency feel with some natural elements with the beach as a back drop. The vision was lost with the change of venue, but certain aspects still show the original intent.

This wraps the hot pink and navy (or midnight) blue posts. I hope you enjoyed them and perhaps got some inspiration for your own event. It's a fun and bold color scheme and can go funky or super elegant with an easy change of details.

Cheers and I hope you had a great Fourth of July yesterday!