J + D Wedding | Peninsula Golf & Country Club | San Mateo

I love spring weddings.  You get all of the lovely flowers you can imagine in the soft pastel colors.  This wedding had soft pinks, lovely shades of cream, bright coral accented with lime green.  We used vintage gold candelabras for the ceremony and reception which looked amazing in the room.  And did I mention that this room had HUGE windows?  It was a gorgeous backdrop for the ceremony.

Venue: Peninsula Golf and Country Club, San Mateo
Invitations and Paper Goods: Christine with Stella Bella Invitations
Florals: Huckleberry Karen Designs

I also received a very sweet thank you note for the bride just the other day!
"Dear Karen,
Things have finally settled down after the wedding and honeymoon  I just wanted to thank you so much for all your hard work doing my flowers!  They were soooo beautiful and they made the wedding.  So many people have told me how they loved the flowers. I will send you some photos as soon as I get them.  Thanks again."  --Love, Judy

Bride's Bouquet: Patience garden rose, Juliet garden rose, freesia, spray rose, ranunculus

hydrangea, vendela roses, and lisanthus

Mom Posy: spray roses, Pink avalanche rose, peach avalanche rose, sahara rose

green hydrangea, pink ranunculus

 One of the benefits of holding your ceremony and reception in the same place is the ability to re-purpose flowers.  These flowers used for the ceremony were then moved to the reception tables during the cocktail hour.

Ginger's 1st Birthday

It was Ginger's 1st birthday a couple months ago and it just so happened to occur a day after the Mag Rouge photoshoot featured here.  So I "recycled" some of the arrangements for my Ginger's birthday party.  The birthday had a woodland theme so I added some toadstool mushrooms in there to make it slightly more whimsical and fun.

I have to say, throwing parties and events when you are floral designer is really hard.  It's almost like you have too many choices.  At first, I wanted to have the party at a restaurant but after researching some venues it became apparent that I would be spending $1000+ to rent the space and to pay for food.  I just couldn't justify spending that amount on a kid who won't even remember it.  I rather put it in her college fund.  So we went to plan B which was throwing a small party at our house and renting a jumpy house for the kids.  The party really was for my husband and I cause Ginger surely was not going to remember it.  She barely ate her cupcake!  So we called it a Survival Birthday Party where we celebrated the fact that we (the parents) survived our first year with 2 children.  If that doesn't earn you the right to throw a party, I don't know what does.

Here is the birthday girl.  She has no hair.  We aren't sure what to do about it.  But at least she's cute.

 Here are the centerpieces that were made for the table scape for the photo shoot.  I just pulled out the poppies and replaced with the red tulips.  I also added cute little toadstools I ordered from etsy.

 I had a large grapewreath branch laying around from a Hipstamatic event I did last year so I put it on the table along with some clusters of moss and flowers.

 And here is Ginger giving you a kiss.

K + B Wedding | Murietta's Well | Livermore

I loved the bright and fun colors for Kathy's wedding.  She hung lanterns with lights for the reception and it really brightened the room and I'm a sucker for anything with twinkling lights.  Kathy had a lot of details which added a personal touch to everything. The Groom's cake was super cute too!

S + A Wedding | Casa Real | Pleasanton

Beautiful, vibrant wedding at Casa Real.  Seleene and Anthony planned their wedding from the east cost.  Not an easy thing to do.  But as you can see, everything turned out beautifully.  I also have to say that when I dropped off the personal flowers before the wedding, I saw so many smiling faces from friends and family and everyone was just SO happy.  I love that about weddings.  Families and friends coming together to celebrate.  That's what it's all about.

And here is the sweet note that Seleene left me after the wedding!

Happy new year!  I never got a chance to email you and thank you for doing such a wonderful job on all of our wedding flowers - thanks!  Everything turned out lovely and we were both so happy with all of the bouquets, arrangements and other flower.  Thanks again for making our wedding so wonderful and good luck with all of your work this year!:)

Venue: Casa Real
Photography: Tyler Vu Photography

Check out that smile on the flower girl.  Adorable!

Photo Shoot: Botanical Beauty

I had the pleasure to work with Meg Perotti and Yelena of The Stylish Soiree for this awesomely fun photo shoot for a magazine called Magnolia Rouge. Honored to be featured in their 2nd Issue! It's a beautiful magazine with great ideas and inspiration - definitely check it out.

Meg took so many awesome images, I have no idea how Magnolia Rouge was able to narrow it down.  Here are (quite) a few of my favorites!

I found these awesome mushrooms at the Asian Food Market.  Love them!

Credits:

Photography: Meg Perotti
Styling: Yelena of The Stylish Soiree
Rentals: One True Love Vintage Rentals
Make-Up: Jane from The Glamourist 
Stationery: The Aerialist Press

Florals: Huckleberry Karen Designs
**And a special thank you to my father in law who let us borrow the awesome microscope, petri dishes, flasks, beakers and "biology sciency stuff".  Thank you Ed!