Change is tough, but I’ve said it before, it’s necessary.   Not only for us, but especially for them.

And so we wish a fond farewell to Aubrey and to Angela….

Aubrey, who will forever be remembered as “Aubster Lobster”.  Aubrey is truly a sparkle of sunshine who would come into the shop with her wit and enthusiasm and always put a smile on our faces.   I personally enjoyed her theatrics, so I could join in!

She was eager to learn the flower business and in no time, got the routine of the weddings down.   Aubrey is now working on the Vineyard, back in the food industry which is her expertise, as well as floral.   Who knows, maybe Hana Too will be making it’s way to the island!  No doubt, I feel our paths will cross again.

And Angela, one of my main gals.  With a background of only floral, she knew the industry well.  I was so spoiled having her around,  I could practically speak in half sentences because she knew exactly what I needed or what was next.   Angela was our creator of large scale pieces, centerpieces, and could manage vendors in my absence.   She also packed that cooler like no other!

Her presence is already greatly missed.

Angela recently had a beautiful baby boy and is now enjoying motherhood and finishing her degree.

We will miss you both dearly but we wish you all the success in the world!!!

XOXO,
Yumiko

This lovely gem of a wedding was featured yesterday on Style Me Pretty’s Massachusetts blog.  There are far too many details of this wedding to post, so I suggest you take a look into the gallery to see more!

Elihu Island is one of my absolute favorite places to set up for a wedding.  It’s this little secret (maybe not so much after this wedding!) up here in the Stonington area and only 4 brides a year get to be called “elihu brides”.

This area of CT continues to grow as a destination location because of it’s proximity to both NYC and Boston, and so many of our couples take advantage of a long weekend to spend with their family and friends.

And brides choose Elihu, not only for all of it’s gorgeous natural beauty, but because they can spend Thursday through Sunday with their closest family and friends.  When do you ever get that chance to gather so many loved ones together?

Amy was such an easy going bride!  She enlisted a stellar group of vendors and trusted us to execute her vision, including Lucinda Wesson of Chocolate Creative Design to assist in the overall styling of the wedding.  This was instrumental in keeping all the details and colors cohesive.

Elihu is naturally beautiful and it’s hard to compete with the views, so we kept centerpieces simple with mason jars and vintage pails full of field flowers and textural foliage.   We used waxflowers, freesia, scabiosa, dahlias, berries, and burgundy shades of coleus, which I just loved.

I also loved the pop of wine scabiosa in the maid’s bouquets, and the andromeda draping out of Amy’s bouquet.  It matched her dress perfectly.

This wedding was all about the details and the vendors who made it happen~ from the fabulous paper products and styling of Chocolate Creative Design, planning and design by Ruffles and Tweed, catering by Gourmet Galley, of course, the massive Sperry Tent, beauty by Jennie Fresa, and these lovely images by Anna Sawin.

And if you haven’t had enough, check out this video by Buzz Media!

Last month, we did a bit of a road trip from Arizona to California and saw some amazing scenery in between.

One of our stops in Cali were the Carlsbad Flower Fields.   For this flower lover, it was AMAZING!!!  The sun had just come out by the time we got there as we meandered through the fields and greenhouses checking out all of their glorious flowers.

The fields consist of all ranunculus.  Rows of pink, peach, burgundy, yellow, orange and red lined up and down the 50 acres of land.   We took a little tractor ride around the perimeter while we were able to listen to the history of the Flower Fields , and lucky for us, the flowers were just about at their peak.

Aside from the ranunculus fields, there is a greenhouse full of gorgeous cymbidium orchids, another full of beautiful poinsettias, and there is even a maze made up of sweet peas for the kids!

To say this was a highlight of my trip is an understatement!   If you are near the San Diego area between March-May, be sure to check out the Carlsbad Flower Fields!

The delphinium were almost as tall as Emi!

One of my favorite colors!!!

Spectacular cymbidiums!

Rare varieties of poinsettias

That’s the Pacific in the background.  Not too shabby!

Alana and Justin’s wedding was months and months of planning and we were along for the ride throughout.  Early on, they enlisted Sarah True and throughout many meetings, we perfected the modern chic wedding they were envisioning.

It was the epitome of New York chic~ all white flowers, candlelight everywhere, cool lounge furniture, and insane lighting!

The space itself didn’t disappoint.  Espace is an amazing venue, and they were so helpful to us.  We really appreciated their fantastic team.

Alana and her mom were dolls.  We had a ton of fun planning the flower details.  Although the flowers were clean and simple, we jazzed them up by using mirrored cubes, white vases and glass ice.

Alana and her maid’s carried similar flowers~ white roses, calla lilies, ranunculus, freesia, hydrangeas and stephanotis.  Alana wanted a clean look for her bouquet.  With her stunner of a dress, it made total sense.

One of the floral highlights for us was the place card table~ we used a bed of clear glass and acrylic for the place cards, which was adorned with white phaleonopsis orchids floating out of vases.   I loved the look!

Alana wanted to walk down an aisle of candles.  We used more candles in this wedding!!!  There were over 50 candles on each side of the aisle along with white rose petals.  It was gorgeous!

Centerpieces were a mix of tall trumpet vases filled with hydrangeas, various orchids, roses and branches.  Low centerpieces were white vases filled with similar flowers compactly arranged.  And we layered the tables first with mirrored tiles.

And did I mention candles?  At least a dozen floating candles and a dozen votives for every table!!!

This was one wedding that really challenged us.  We had a very short turnover from ceremony to reception and had to move all those candles onto tables and have all those candles lit in time for the dinner, while cocktails were going on in the next room!   Again, the guys at Espace were so unbelievably helpful moving tables into place.  And my team was incredible!  They really rallied.  Even at 2:30am when we were breaking everything down.  Oh yeah, we were tired alright.

There were plenty of details from this wedding!  Check out the full feature here on Style Me Pretty!

A cute story~ Prior to the ceremony start time, I walked up the street to Ink48 where we were all staying to drop off the bouquets.  I loved seeing Alana getting ready and looking so gorgeous and so happy.

A bit later, as I was going back to my room, a handsome guy happily hopped on the elevator with me.

I asked if he was going to the wedding, he said, he hoped so, he was the groom!  And that’s when I met Justin!  He was too cute and so excited to see his bride for the first time.

I will remember this wedding for years to come.  Thank you Alana and Justin for sharing your incredible day with us.

Gorgeous images by the lovely and talented, Ashley Therese Photography.  Thank you!!!

And for more, click here for part one, the video!

Last September was a whirlwind month, so many beautiful weddings as it’s still the most popular month to get married here in the Northeast.  So, it’s nice for us to look back and see the images from our brides.

I was onsite at another wedding that day, so I didn’t get to personally see Stephanie, but there was no doubt in mind that she was going to be simply stunning!  She is already so gorgeous!

Stephanie and Marcos enlisted amazing vendors to carry out their vision, starting with Ms. True.  Sarah was in heaven with the pops of yellow and modern touches everywhere!

We used yellow ranunculus, craspedia (billy balls), pincushion proteas, football and spider mums throughout the wedding.  These, along with grey brunia berries and dusty miller made up the bridesmaid’s bouquets.

Stephanie carried a bouquet of mostly white flowers with the black centers of anemones creating a more edgy look.

There were truly so many details to this wedding you simply must check out the full gallery here!

Thanks Anna for sharing these beautiful images and thanks especially to Stephanie and Marcos, for sharing your day with us!

Congratulations you two!!!

Here’s our couple Maryellen and Brad from last season, whose wedding was recently featured on Newport Wedding Glam!

We just loved the dreamy images from Victoria Souza Photography!  For more of this wedding, check out the feature here!

More to come, but for now, enjoy this video from Buzz Media!  And check out the post on Style Me Pretty!

I am still pouring through all the beautiful images thanks to Sarah Bastille photography but here’s a few to get started!

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved working on Beth’s bouquet!  I loved the mix of the wine colored flowers and shades of lavender accented with the peach garden roses.  She was not afraid of color!

We carried all of these colors throughout the wedding.  I thought the wine colored flowers were just enough of a nod to Fall’s arrival without getting too dark.

More to come of this beauty soon!!!

We were so honored to be a part of the photo shoot for the app.  In case you haven’t seen the images, I thought I’d share a few of our flowers prior to the shoot and then the fabulous images taken by Johnny Miller.

We brought lots of candles, mint julep cups and ribbons to choose from…

The lavender mauve flowers are ready to go!

Aubrey giving everything a good spritz.  You have no idea how many buckets of flowers we brought!

My white bouquet that Kalin is holding for me so I can check for holes!  Sadly, it didn’t make it in the shoot. Don’t you just love those white anemones?

Final touches at the shop before we headed out.

And here are the final shots for the Romanticist inspiration:

And the finished product for the Traditionalist inspiration:

Thanks again to the Vera Wang team, Anne Chertoff and Eric Hildebrand for the amazing experience to work with you!  We hope to do it again soon!

I’m sad to say that one of our freelancers is leaving before the season begins so I’m looking for a new designer to join the team!

Now, if I had a dime for every time someone waxed poetic about becoming a florist and what a great job it must be, I’d be taking a much needed vacay with that money!

All kidding aside, it is really a great job.  It is also really hard work.

Here is what I expect from our designers:

wire flowers using accurate techniques

create hand tied bouquets and table pieces with little or no hand-holding

capable of working on larger scale pieces

process flowers, wash buckets, vases and the like on a regular basis

have the strength to lift heavy objects when setting up~ some urns weigh 40-50lbs!

set up at event sites with accuracy and in a timely manner

comfortable driving a truck or cargo van to locations

a level-headed personality, team player attitude and presentable appearance

We are a great little team.  The work may be hard, but it’s also fun.  We get to do fun projects in between all of the weddings that are in store for us this season.  All of us work together to get the jobs done.  Divadom does not exist here.

This is a primarily seasonal job.  You’d be working full time during the months of May-October, with some holiday hours afterwards.  Saturdays and Sundays are an absolute must.

Do you think you have what it takes?  Do you want to give it a try?  Email me~ yumiko@hanafloraldesign.com. Let’s talk!