Cafe au Lait Workshop Recap

In October, we hosted a workshop that was all about Cafe au Lait dahlias, the absolute queen of late summer and early fall arrangements. We started in the Cutting Garden talking about growing and harvesting tips, then moved into the studio for lots of time arranging with these beauties.

Jess Hunter was there to photograph all the magic, and as usual, she blew me away with her images.

Here's the cafe patch in the garden, blooming like crazy!

And the group out in the garden learning about growing these beauties:

And the group inside, starting to learn about arranging with cafes:

I start all of our workshops by demonstrating techniques for arranging, then set everyone loose to create their own work of floral art. During this time, I float around the room answering questions, helping everyone with their arrangements, and making sure everyone is getting what they need from the experience. Keeping the workshops to a six person maximum ensures there is a lot of time for this personal attention, which I think is so crucial to learning.

It was amazing to see everyone's arrangements come together! They were all so beautiful, unique, and artful...

It was such a wonderful day!

I'll be announcing our spring workshops in the next few weeks- if you're interested in attending, send me an email (kelly@botaniqueflowers.com) and I'll put you on our workshops list!

Hope to meet you soon!

Melissa and Jeff

It's fairly rare that we take on a really small order for wedding flowers.... but occasionally the right people come along and we do! Melissa come to the studio with a very open perspective. I remember during our consultation saying, "It sounds like you would be happy with somewhat of a surprise," and she said yes, she would! She didn't want to pin down too much about her flowers, she wanted to leave the door open to our creativity and what really looked amazing the week of her wedding. The only strong request she had was nothing too tropical looking, and a slightly vintage feel. It was so fun to have so much freedom in creating this bouquet for her, weaving in ideas of what would really pop and also look at home in the landscape where she would be married, and also fit with her personality and the vibe of her wedding.

As usual, Jess Hunter took the most beautiful photographs of the couple, the bouquet, and the landscape.

Congrats Melissa and Jeff! Thanks for being so open-minded about your flowers!

Amanda and Matt's Magical Forest Wedding

Nestled in the forest, at the foothills of the Cascades, Amanda and Matt chose an incredibly picturesque setting for their wedding. Amanda loves large, soft blooms and all shades of pink, so we combined these textures and tones with lots of green and a hint of burgundy to blend well with the surrounding forest. It was late June, and somehow, amazingly, all four of the "rockstar" flowers were blooming at the same time: peonies, ranunculas from Janet Foss (she had literally one bunch), garden roses from Peterkort, AND cafe au lait dahlias (the very first bunch of the year from Jello Mold Farm)! So Amanda's bouquet was the stuff of dreams- as soft, billowy, and romantic as it gets.

As usual, Jess Hunter knocked it out of the park with her unbelievably beautiful photography. There are a few non-flower portraits in this post that I had to include because they are just SO beautiful! Be sure to check out her website if you are not already familiar with her work.

Congratulations Amanda and Matt!