You know, I’m not such a huge fan of using too many colours in one arrangement. Tone on tone is more my thing. But once in a while, I feel the need for something a little more on the crazy side… And small springtime flowers are just the perfect fit for such a bouquet. With their endless colour variations, each one more subtle than the next, they make for a fabulously joyful riot of colour!
Yes, finally… Pictures of an August wedding in February, in my little world this means I’ve been busy for a while now! But I didn’t want to just post pictures of this wedding, so I waited to have enough time to write about it a little bit.
It’s true, I have a tendency to get attached to the couples I work with. What can I say, most of them are pretty cool people. I must’ve done something right in a previous life to have such good karma! Marie-Andrée and Charles-Étienne, who I affectionately nicknamed MACE, were really a lovely couple. They were dream clients, put their trust in me and let me create one of my favourite weddings of the year…
Something magical happens when clients put their trust in you. When they give you a general direction but leave you all the liberty you want to pick and choose colours. flowers, foliage… This enables me to create bouquets and arrangements that are much more original and unique, with flowers that I sometimes select at the market just a few days before the wedding. It’s a concept I try to explain to all my clients, but some of them need more certainties than others when planning their wedding. That’s OK, I’d probably be pretty finicky when it came to details as well!
For this wedding, I also made the escort cards, and a table where guests could leave notes for the bride and groom. A timeline, made up of memorable pictures of the couple and concert tickets, as well as a framed questions, were there to help guests who’s imagination was a little low.
For those of you who are curious, the bouquets were made of dahlias, roses, clematis, ranunculus, astrantias, asclepias, veronicas and ferns…
And finally, the pictures are from the always amazing Irene Suchocki…
Here a few more pictures from my october visit to New York… Ah, if we only had this variety here! My job, which I already adore, would be even more fabulous. And if everything goes as planned, I’ll be there agin this March, this time with Ariella Chezar and a few other pupils, doing my best not to be too starstruck and actually take in some of her advice…
Here are a few pictures of a wedding I did last October… Louise and Colin are both architects, and their wedding was a perfect balance of graphic details with a touch of rustic wildness.
When I met them for the first time, they told me about all the things they wanted to make themselves, which included printing their own letterpress invitations using a home press, baking their own cake and desserts, and sewing runners in just the right shade of grey. I have to admit, I was pretty sceptical… Since the DIY movement has been gaining momentum, this scenario is more and more common, and while I’m always the first to encourage couples to infuse their wedding with personal details, to be honest the result is not always, well, pleasing. In this case, however, the opposite is true. Everything came together beautifully, and I was truly impressed with everything Louise and Colin made. For the flowers we worked with a palette of oranges and rust, with a touch of cream and burgundy, to complement the grey details… Louise’s bouquet was my favourite of the year, I was sad to let it go!
Oh, and how nuts is that car?!?
The venue was Pavillon de la Jamaique on Parc Jean Drapeau, easily one of the most beautiful venues in town. A simple and modern space in the middle of a lush garden, it’s just a joy to decorate. Lastly, the breathtaking photos are by super talented Lisa Renault. More pictures from Louise and Colin’s wedding on her blog…
Just a few pictures of these favours I created for the Elegant Wedding Showcase. I went kinda nuts with these, using vintage French grosgrain and millinery feathers from the 20s from my personal cache… I just love the colour combination of the coral detailing with the silvery, blueish green of the succulent…
When you work by yourself, it’s easy to get wrapped in your day to day job, all those mundane details, and become isolated in your studio. In a shop, there’s always someone around to bounce ideas, or let you know when you’re embarking on a really stupid endeavour. It’s something I miss, having friends around to talk flowers, weddings, parties. So what’s a girl to do? I obviously I spend way too much time poring over blogs, some of which I’ve been following for almost 10 years, and creating board after board on Pinterest. What, isn’t that what the internet is for, filling the void when actual humans don’t fit the bill?
In a bold attempt to bridge the gap between my real life and my virtual one, this year I started reaching out to a few of these artists (more on that here). The response was overwhelmingly positive, and for me so energizing and inspiring. One thing leading to another, I had the pleasure of working with the Saipua team on a wedding in New York a few weeks ago. And what a treat it was…
Taking over a private mansion on Central Park with bundles of branches, vines and grasses taller than me, dressing four (yes, four ) fireplace mantles, creating from scratch a quaint Italian garden in a centuries old courtyard… The wedding planner’s team was buzzing about at warp speed, the tech guys were climbing halfway up the building stringing lights, and when the waiters arrived, they were all chiseled models… What can I say, it was all very New York.
The team, both Saipua and the other freelancers, were an absolute joy to work with. Made me wish I could take one of these little “business” trips every few months… With a little luck (or, more likely, proper planning) maybe the next stop could be San Fransisco or Seattle?
Yes. I went.
I arrived in New York on Tuesday, after 2 flights, a totally useless layover in Toronto, and a somewhat traumatizing bus and subway adventure… I had a few glasses of wine, passed out, and then: it was Wednesday morning.
Wednesday, I was told, is the best day to go to the market. Everyone also said 6:00 AM was the best time to go, but I chose to ignore that recommendation. I was, after all, on vacation. When I got to the market at 10:30, you could tell the day was almost over, and the “real” clients had come and gone. The remaining meanderers were of the DIY kind, thinking they’re getting a deal by shopping at the wholesalers. Guys were now reading the paper, or lazily sweeping the floors, covered in inches of debris, a testament to the amount of produce that had come in, then right out, earlier that morning. What used to soak in all those now empty buckets? I guess you’d have to get up at 5:00 to know that…
When I walk up the mountain now, there’s yellow leaves covering the path… I think September is my favourite month for flowers. OK, I know I pretty much say that every month, and it’s true that spring is really exciting as well, but this time I really mean it. It’s partly the colours… Such deep, rich hues, perfect for pairing with berries and foliage. Frost hasn’t come yet so I can still get my hands on some local produce, after that it’s a long wait until production starts again in May. And it’s the one time of the year when clients seem more accepting of nature’s intrinsic imperfections. Speckled leaves, uneven petals, discoloured berries… I try to celebrate these all year, but for some reason they just seem to find their place in a fall bouquet….
From a walk in the country…
Supposed to be taking time to relax, yet still find myself messing around with these…
The internet is a strange beast. It provides us with the illusion of relationships, and although I like to think I’m not a total nerd who spends her days staring at a screen instead of actually going out and interacting with people, I have to say I have developed a few of these imaginary friendships over the years. I suppose it’s only normal to feel a certain proximity to people when you catch up on their lives weekly, sometimes daily. The fact that they don’t catch up on yours, or even know you exist for that matter, seems just really unimportant. Most of the time.
Because let me tell you, that fact becomes a huge deal when you actually meet one of these people. All of a sudden, you’re faced with a strange situation: you know what this person likes to eat, the name of their kids/husband/boyfriend/pet/mom/dad, what music they’ve been listening to, the fight they just had with a client… And they don’t know your name yet. Of course, that feeling of closeness and friendship is what brings us back to certain blogs more than others, at least it is for me. One time I was laughing, by myself in front of my laptop. Aaron was curious, he came to see what was up. I showed him this (I just spent 45 minutes looking for this in the archives)… He just said: Why is that funny? And then: You know you don’t know her, right?
So?
So last month, I had the good fortune of going down to New York state to meet Sarah from Saipua. I’ll skip over the part where I got drunk and wrote her an email about a dream I had, where I was at her farm and my dead father came to visit me there. Yes boys and girls, I did that. Are you cringing? I was crying writing the email, I mean, the whole shebang. The next morning, I had a lovely answer in my inbox telling me I was welcome to visit the farm for a week-end. I thought, was the fuck did I just do?
I don’t drive. I have a baby. Is my passport still valid? How the hell am I gonna get there? I actually got everything organized… And then my ride cancelled on me the day before we were supposed to leave. So I took the bus. 7 hours. Someone, another visitor going to lend a hand on the farm, picked me up at the dingiest bus station ever, and on we went to World’s End…
The raw beauty of the place took my breath away. The kind of beauty that’s born from immense, unimaginable possibility.
Everyone was lovely, I made new friends. Built a composting bin and bee hives, ate delicious food, slept by myself in a tent for the first time ever, grilled marshmallows with an expertly sharpened stick, took way too many pictures of sun-bleached barn wood… Chatted with people who’s eyes didn’t roll back in their heads when I said words like “wedding” or “chuppah”… Sunday I left, on such a high that I barely minded when the Greyhound bus broke down on the highway, and the driver told us we were stranded and had to wait for a another bus to come pick us up. 10 hours later I was back home in Montreal… Already thinking about my next trip there.
