Sarala's Bouquet

It has been so busy around here that I am way behind on my blogging. There is so much to share! Before March is a completely distant memory, it seems important to share this shot of Sarala's bouquet. From that magical time when fritillaries, hellebores, muscari and ranunculas were all blooming together. Magic, I say, magic!

This lovely photo comes courtesy of Ish Ishmael. Stay tuned for lots more photos coming to this blog in the near future.....

Polly and Chung's Wedding Flowers

A few flower details from Polly and Chung's wedding in late March at the Sorrento Hotel..... hellebores, narcissus, pieris, dogwood, roses.........

And..... a few shots of the beautiful couple, taken by the awesome Rich Leighton......

I loved these two! Such a sweet couple :) Happy married life to you Polly and Chung! It was a pleasure to create these designs for you.

The Vintage Wedding Fair

Come visit us this weekend at the Northwest Vintage Wedding Fair! We will be set up with a gorgeous display of spring flowers, and would love to meet you and talk about your wedding!

The event takes place this Saturday, April 6th, from 11am-4pm, at the Fremont Abbey. More info and tickets are available here.

Hope to see you there!

Spring Bouquets

Spring flowers are so pretty.... so undeniably pretty!!! The delicate petals, the buds and blooming branches, the vibrant green of all the new foliage.... it's like all the flowers are saying "Hey! We're back! And we're glowing more brightly than ever before...."

It's how I feel too- like I am waking up, stretching my legs, and feeling rather bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Spring marks the beginning... the beginning of the eight or so months where amazing botanical materials spill out of every corner of the garden; where I get to create bouquets and arrangements (and this year, some really cool installations too!) for an amazing clientele who value local flowers and artful, graceful and luminous design.... it truly is exciting!

Ready, set, SPRING! Here we go!

Featured in Seattle Bride Magazine!

We are so thrilled to have a bouquet and flower crown featured in the latest issue of Seattle Bride Magazine! This beauty was created for an article about local flowers, which is what we are all about :) It was an honor to be included in an article about something we have so much passion for!

Here is a photo of the page with our bouquet:

And the magazine cover:

Go get yourself a copy, check out the lovely article on local flowers, and our bouquet and flower crown on page 125!!! The actual magazine pages looks even prettier than these photos of the pages.

Many thanks to Seattle Bride Magazine for featuring Botanique, and for encouraging your readership to go local in their flower choices!

Talia & Justin at Fort Warden

Photo by Amanda Rose

Now Talia is a glamorous gal. She is also one of my good friends. When she and Justin married in late September at Fort Warden Park in Port Townsend, we wanted to create a bouquet for her that combined the rustic feel of this gorgeous park with the glamorous, sparkly personality that is Talia. Deep purple calla lilies combined with gomphrena, bunny tail grass, scabiosa pods, spray roses, and both gold and copper silk ribbon did the trick! Many thanks to Amanda and Henry Rose, Kari Champoux, and Derrick Ito for all these beautiful photos!

Photo by Kari Champoux

Photo by Amanda Rose

Photo by Kari Champoux

Photo by Derrick Ito (I know I already posted this photo in my "Favorite Moments from 2012" post, but I just love it... had to post it again...

Photo by Henry Rose

Happy married life Talia and Justin!!!! It was so fun to design these flowers for you.

In Review...

Time for a little yearly round-up of some of my favorite images, arrangements and moments from 2012! I know it's a little bit late for this (as most people might do this right at the turn of the new year), but I figure better late than never. Now seems like a good time.

SO! In no particular order, here are some highlights from 2012:

One of my favorite arrangements/photos/flower combinations- just can't beat the Cafe au Lait dahlias, fall foliage, cosmos, and crabapples. This arrangement was also made in my favorite way: Go out to the Cutting Garden on a whim, and go wild! No color palette or flower requirements, just the inspiration of the moment...

Photo by Derrick Ito

THIS MOMENT, at the wedding of my friends Talia and Justin- one of the best things about being a floral designer is getting to be on the inside of so many friend's weddings- I love doing flowers for people I love :)

And on the topic of friends' weddings.....

Photo by Karin Apollonia Muller

This bouquet from another good friend's wedding- Katie and Jeff, one of the most amazing, creative couples I know, married in Big Sur, one of the most beautiful places in the world! This wedding was truly a labor of love- and a lot of help! I got SICK- as sick as I have been in years- feverish, hallucinating... the REAL deal... but I refused to let anyone else touch this bouquet (just had to be the one that made it!) but two of Katie's bridesmaids (who happened to have previous experience working for an event florist!) gave me a BIG hand with everything else.

Here we are (with me in the middle), working away... on a side note, don't you just LOVE our outfits?!? Ha! Though it's hard to tell from this photo, it was so cold there that the owner of the ranch where Katie and Jeff were getting married loaded us up with all her spare sweaters, vests, and jackets. NOT the best photo ever taken of me, that's for sure! Can you tell how sick I am? I can, by that distant, woozy and pale look... yikes! I am really glad that somehow, magically, no one else got sick at this wedding :)

A new logo! I love this logo, designed by yet another good friend, and amazing designer and jeweler, Kim Williamson of Dottyspeck. (I'm noticing a trend here..... FRIENDS were a big part of this year!)

The Cutting Garden.... I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVED The Cutting Garden.

Picking up buckets upon buckets of locally-grown flowers from the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market. I absolutely LOVE that place, and all the farmers who sell their amazing flowers there.

Looking up and seeing this duck walk across a bright white aisle!!!! Believe me, I was NOT so happy about it at the time!!!!! (a more accurate description would be terrified and furious, thinking that this duck was going to poop on that aisle!!!!) But it all turned out just fine, and now it makes me smile thinking back to it :)

This cake, made by none other than Michael at The Troubadour Baker.

This arrangement, sitting on my worktable pre-transport.

This color palette- peach, orange, silver...

Sweet pea vines...

The first bucket of Cerinthe harvested from The Cutting Garden.

TOMATOES!!!!!!

This bouquet. And poppies, mock orange, garden roses, clematis, and peonies, every time I got to work with them.

And last, but NOT least, getting engaged to this amazing man!!!!! Eli, the love of my life :)

Whew! There are so many more amazing things that happened this past year- it was full! And just a few weeks into 2013, I am already feeling so many wonderful things in the works for this year. Life is exciting! Happy Late New Year to everyone!!!! Hope your 2013 is magical :)