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 :)

Big Sur, a fever, and an amazing wedding...

This past weekend was Botanique's first official wedding! It was for two good friends of mine, Katie and Jeff, who got married at an incredible ranch in Big Sur, CA. I say incredible because that is the closest word I can find to describing a living dream: it was so beautiful and so magical up there, perched at the top of a long, winding dirt road, engulfed in passing clouds half the day, and clearing to reveal the ocean beneath the bluffs on which the ranch sat the other half.

We drove up to the ranch from LA on Thursday, and unfortunately, by Thursday night I was plagued with a horrible fever! Not exactly the best way to start the weekend. I had an insanely feverish sleep, complete with bizarro hallucinations in the middle of the night, but as they say, duty calls, and the next morning I was back out in my "studio" getting down to business!

I don't know what I would have done without that yellow vest, lent to me by Lygia, the woman who runs the ranch and my guardian angle for the time I was there: she brought me tea, goat cheese made fresh on the farm, and all the warm cloths I needed to stay bundled up.

Lucky for me, two of Katie's bridesmaids (Michelle and Sidonie) had experience working for an event florist, and they swooped in to help that afternoon. By the end of the day, we had made all the bridesmaid bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages, two big arrangements for the buffet table, six smaller arrangements for the bars, a really sweet flower crown for the flower girl, and (with the help of another set of friends) table arrangements for 18 tables! I was so thankful to have help from such talented friends!!! I don't know what I would have done without it. I did, however, feel very possessive over Katie's bouquet- I wanted it to be dreamy, romantic, fun, whimsical... I had to make sure it was just perfect.

The next day, I woke up feeling just as lousy as I had the previous two days! I couldn't believe I was so sick not only for my first wedding, but for the wedding of a dear friend! Before I had to go back to bed (the sickness was getting worse!) I managed to wrap the bridesmaid bouquets and Katie's bouquet (in gorgeous lace, I really hope the professional photographer got a shot of the handle wraps, because I sure didn't!), made up an example of how I wanted to the corsages and boutonnieres wrapped, left detailed instructions on the chuppah decorations, and crossed my fingers that Katie's two friends would do a good job finishing everything. I feel SO FORTUNATE that Michelle and Sidonie were such talented florists in their own right: they did a GREAT job, and everything really looked wonderful for the wedding.

The day of the wedding, everyone was shuttled up to the ranch. Though I was so sick that I couldn't stay for the party (I still have not quite gotten over that!) I did manage to make it through the ceremony, which was extremely heartfelt and beautiful. And Katie looked absolutely STUNNING. It was so, so wonderful to see such a good friend looking so beautiful and happy, on such an important day in her life, carrying a bouquet I had made especially for her! I managed to take one good photo of her before I went back to my little cabin and fell asleep.

I am sure there will be plenty of lovely shots from the professional photographers that were there that day, and when they come out I will share them! Until then, I am savoring this shot of Katie with her bouquet like it was the last flower on the planet.