A couple of weeks ago, Organic Bouquet called me because they needed my fabulous design services to create and install the eco-friendly floral decor for the official pre-party for the BCS Championship Football Game - Texas vs. Alabama (yes Alabama won!) The catch – I only had one day to design everything for the event to take place the following day – almost 300 pieces! Not to worry, I rallied the troops and the 7 of us knocked it out in just under 11 hours – from receiving the flowers, processing and hydrating, prepping containers, designing, and even packing the truck!

On event day I drove that big old truck up to the Pasadena Convention Center. Big truck driving tips: Tip #1 – Don’t ride in one of those trucks if you get motion sickness – I thought I was going to lose it from all of the bouncing and Tip #2 – When the sign says “Truck Route Exit Here”, for goodness sakes EXIT! Driving on the 110 into Pasadena in a 26′ truck is no good (you have to have driven that particular stretch to appreciate what I’m talking about!). 

Our team installed the event in about 3 hours and it looked FANTASTIC (if I do say so myself!). Organic Bouquet sent us a beautiful selection of our favorite eco-friendly flowers – roses, spray roses, gerber daisies, bells of Ireland, hypericum berries, alstroemeria, lemon, seeded eucalyptus, tulips, and mini calla lilies.

The highlight of course was the infamous “World’s Tallest Roses”- big beautiful tall red roses that can whisper in your ear when you are standing next to them. They graced the Alabama bar and at the end of the night, I had to fight just to keep a few of the over 100 stems that I had because the guests were tearing those things right out of the vase to take home.  

Once we finished setting up, I was able to take a “bird bath” in the bathroom off the kitchen and get all done up to enjoy the party! Darrell took the Gold Line over after work and hung out with me – we had some yummy food and drink and I even took a ride on the mechanical bull (photos never to be published).

One of the best parts of the event was when it was over – we packed whatever flowers were left back into the truck, and the next morning I delivered them to the Petals for Patients program run by Silverado Hospital in San Juan Capistrano. Petals for Patients receives donated flowers that they repurpose into little arrangements to be delivered to hospitals, hospice facilities, and patient’s rooms to brighten their day. This was the biggest donation they had ever received and they even producted a little video on it that you can watch here!

To top off the event, I actually got to attend the BCS Championship Football Game! It was the first time I’ve gone to a game at the Rose Bowl and was a a lot of fun and quite emotional as we were sitting in the Texas section. Here’s a photo of me with my client Patrick from Aramark at the Anaheim Convention Center and Robert from Organic Bouquet. Overall a great event and an action packed way to kick off 2010! Thanks to my team for rolling up your sleeves and digging in!

Share on Facebook

Focus on Flowers is a weekly educational series were I take questions from brides and share my insight as a floral designer.

Today’s question is from Amanda who wants to know –  ”How do I plan my wedding flower budget?”

There are two key drivers for cost: Venue and Guest Count.

The VENUE is ALL ABOUT PROPORTION! Small arrangements are appropriate in a casual backyard wedding whereas tall glass vases with large arrangements on top with orchids cascading down suit a 5-star hotel ballroom (and not vice-versa). Remember the size and shape of the table dictates how much volume and substance will be needed to make an impact on your tabletop. A budvase on a 72″ round will drown and a 3′ diameter arrangement won’t allow enough room for place settings, stemware, and the bread and butter. A great guideline for the cost of your centerpiece should be equivalent to the per person cost for your reception food and beverage (e.g. $50/person = $50/centerpiece).

The GUEST COUNT plays a large role in your flower budget. Its all a numbers game – THE SPIRALED STEM LAW OF MULTIPLIERS! (yeah I wrote the law). The more people the more tables, and the smaller the table the more of them. The larger the wedding party the more bouquets and boutonnieres. Some people like to give corsages and boutonnieres to extended family, such as aunts and uncles, which will add cost to your flower budget. Your ceremony site will be a place where a lot of photos will be taken. Decorating the site with flowers will add a beautiful frame to all your photographs, but how many rows are in the aisle? The longer the aisle the more clusters on the ends, square footage to cover with rose petals on the ground, you get the picture.

I hope that my insight on venues and guest count helps you plan the budget for your wedding flowers. E-mail me or post a question in the comments section and maybe we can address it in an upcoming episode!

As an added bonus, leave me a comment and I will send you the budget calculator that I give my brides before our consultation so they have a realistic idea of what to expect their quote to be.

Share on Facebook

Last week I was invited to take a group from the Southern California Horticultural Society on a tour of the LA Flower District (more on that soon!). The field trip was in conjunction with a book signing and lecture from Amy Stewart, author of the New York Times best-seller Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers.

I first met Amy almost three years ago, right when her book came out and right when I launched my green program at The Spiraled Stem. I voraciously read her book over the course of about two days, luckily I was flying to the East Coast and had plenty of time to read on the plane. On that trip I met up with Amy at the New York Botanical Gardens, but due to train delays, I missed the good stuff on her lecture and caught her just in time for an autograph!

So last week I finally caught her lecture, and if you have the opportunity you should go too. What struck me the most was that she is a writer  – not a flower industry insider but a flower lover who has an editor who lets her write about her interests and flowers struck her fancy. Must be nice by the way, I was living vicariously through her words and the photos she shared in the lecture – I’d LOVE to go to Ecuador, Holland, Miami and see all of the pieces of this flower machine in motion. SOME DAY! Just putting that out in the universe.

After her lecture I pulled her into the backstage of the auditorium for a Coffee Chat, here it is!

Christine Saunders from The Spiraled Stem Floral Design chats with New York Times best-selling author Amy Stewart. Her book Flower Confidential: The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers. Find out what inspired Amy to peel back the petals of the flower industry, her biggest surprise in her world travels, and why flowers are like wine. Her book can be ordered at www.AmyStewart.com or is available at a bookstore near you.

Here’s the info from the Southern California Horticultural Society series that we were a part of:

Share on Facebook

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2010 and a whole new lineup of blog series we will be featuring at The Spiraled Stem. Our first series is called Coffee Chat with The Spiraled Stem, where I sit down with one of my colleagues in the wedding biz for a fun Q&A about them and their biz. Subscribe to our RSS feed to catch all of our Coffee Chat guests!

http://www.vimeo.com/8706103

Episode 1 is with Miguel Pola from Miguel Pola Photographers located in La Habra, CA. We sat down at the floral design studio to chat about his approach to wedding photography, w

hat his clients should expect in their consultation and relationship with him through the course of the wedding, how to create timeless photos that will look just as fresh when your grandkids look at them as they did on the day they were taken, and the highlight moment in a wedding that he loves to capture for his clients. You can visit his website at www.MiguelPola.com for more information and to view his portfolio!

Thanks for joining us for our first episode of Coffee Chat, tune in next week for another featured OC wedding vendor!

Share on Facebook