A Festive Wedding: Behind the scene with Juniper Flowers
A Festive Wedding: Behind the scene with Juniper Flowers
In December, we took on a small wedding to be held 3 days after the Christmas holiday. Here is what we learned from that experience.
Due to the incoming flower schedule of certain products, I had to order almost everything to come in a week prior to the wedding. Our wholesalers were closed over the holiday weekend, no trucks were coming in with new product until the day of the wedding and it couldn’t be guaranteed they would have what I wanted, etc. etc.
So I did something new….I had almost ALL of the flowers come in a week early and I dry packed them. What does this mean? I did not process the flowers as usual – meaning strip the lower leaves, cut stems and hydrate them in water. INSTEAD, I made sure all the flower bunches were dry, wrapped them in newspaper and packed them into large dry cardboard boxes. I then stacked the boxes in my cooler at a 40 degree temperature and that was it.
You know what else? I didn’t sweat it. I relied on and trusted Science. And you know what, I slept well. I knew that I would go to work on Monday, the day after Christmas to process the flowers per usual. The next day, flowers were perfectly hydrated and we were able to make centerpieces, bouquets and boutonnieres exactly the same way we normally do.
The relief of dry packing flowers was HUGE because we had some pretty specific guidelines to adhere to regarding the flower colors. I worked solely with the mother of the bride and we came up with a beautiful palette consisting of red, crimson, purple and plum, however- trying to not go too dark seeing the Corson Building has very low, ambient lighting. Agreeing to adding in some pale and sage greens to these jewel tones, the outcome was absolutely beautiful. The M.O.B. sent paint chip swatches of the color palette, see below for what we did.
WE ALSO BABYSAT some very stubborn flowers! For 3-4 days in a row we forced Lilies and Amaryllis to open by recutting stems and putting them into fresh, almost hot water.
Oh yes, another challenge was the vessels we were using for the centerpieces! Long wood boxes from a local supplier…HOWEVER the colors available were too dark! So….we bought “natural” boxes and stained them ourself!
Take a look at the final outcome of this wedding, I just loved it!!! And so did the wedding couple, their guests and our Mother of the Bride!