A little about our open house at BYU Idaho

The Bridal Bouquet Workshops 2010



One of the most enjoyable parts of our annual spring flower and bridal open house is the bridal bouquet workshop. We have three different workshop levels. Workshop A is for the beginners, and gives the student a chance to make a bouquet in a bouquet holder (lomey, oasis etc.). As it is usually the first time the student has made one, this bouquet will be simple; yet we try to have every bouquet different from the others, so the challenge is to come up with flowers that will open the door to a different look for each bouquet. There are about 20 or so in that workshop.




Workshop B is for those who have completed the first level, and are now challenged to design as a group, using the exact same materials, but each producing a bouquet that is completely different from the rest of the group. Groups usually consist of three students. They have to
agree on all the materials they use--everyone has to use everything, but not necessarily in the same proportion. This makes for a very interesting comparison of design skills and creativity.




Workshop C challenges the advanced students to create a more complex bridal bouquet using some type of armature or highly structural component such as a wire grid, then carry the bouquet around during the open house, and answer questions about the design as our visitors walk through the open house.





The creativity, the variety of materials, and the spontaneity are quite exciting.
More in another post about the open house itself.

thueson shakespeare wedding

On the 10th of April, 2009, I was given the privilege of designing the fresh floral component of a great wedding event. My good friends, the Thuesons, asked me to help with the flowers for their daughter Katelan's wedding. The venue is the new Rexburg Idaho Henry's Fork Stake building.



In the foto above, the booktable, and in the fotos below, there are several views of the backdrop.








The main flowers used for this event are heliconias. I brought them in from Ecuador, Hawaii, and Costa Rica. The pincushion protea (Leucospermum) were from a grower in Ecuador. The orange Anthurium were grown in Trinidad. Following are some fotos of the centerpieces, cake etc.








and here are the bride and groom in front of the buffet piece.



the corner was dark when I was taking this shot, but you can spot the buffet in the corner





there are some fun details in the buffet piece, birds I found in the LA flower market, green cymbidium orchids from the Netherlands, the other cymbidiums are from the student greenhouses at the Cal Poly San Louis Obispo campus--I picked them up while we were on a student field trip there the week before the event. The green dendrobium sprays were from Tailand.


The beehive gingers are a special treat direct from Hawaii. In this large piece you can see the heliconias well too. The tall parrots are from Hawaii, the intermediate heights were from Ecuador, and the shorter ones were from Costa Rica. There is also some Chamaedorea cataractarum palm from Florida, and some boronia, added for fragrance.





Here is the groom's family!


and here is the Thueson immediate family. I missed the larger group picture. They are a great family!


I think that this large piece was the favorite one to do. It was a therapeutic experience, and brought much enjoyment to those who came to the wedding reception.


This was a blast to do, and the whole evening was pleasant. In the background, and around the room, I also placed a dozen live palm trees for added atmosphere. There were four each of Spindle, Majesty, and King palms.

Laurel Coburn Wedding Event

Laurel's  Wedding   8 November, 2008

The Headwater Grill at Teton Springs Resort near Victor, IDaho was the site of a wedding event I recently helped with.  Laurel Coburn's parents have been friends for decades, and we have also been neighbors through the years in Logan, Utah, and Salem, Idaho.  It was a great thrill to help by providing and designing flowers for Laurel's wedding event in such a lovely place.

This is the Headwater Grill at Teton Springs in November of 2008.  You can check out the property web site by clicking here.  The staff and management folks were great to work with, and made the event quite pleasant.  It was a cool, but perfect evening, with a recent light rain that made everything look so clean, yet providing fresh snow in the nearby mountains.  This venue is located in Pierre's Hole on the west side of the mountain pass in the Teton Range. Jackson is on the east side about a thin half hour drive away in good weather.  If you are ever in Victor, you should stop at the Emporium and grab a huckleberry ice cream cone, shake or malt.

This is the entrance to the Grill, and the reception.

The flower girls were sure cute, even though a little tired of waiting for the bride to come down the stairs so they could do their job.


A contemplative moment for the bride, just after the "yes" and right before the photo session.

Both the bride and the groom had several family members there to support them.  What a great family!

Enjoy a quick view of the grand entrance of the bride...

This was a very pleasant event.  I used Black Magic roses from Ecuador, mixed with "new love" gypsophylla and dozens of mixed greens, some traditional foliage like Gaultheria (salal) Myrtus communis (myrtle), and some more unusual things, such as aspidistra 'milky way,' pistachio foliage, Australian tree ferns, Leucodendron 'Jester' and mosses.  The request was for a "traditional, cabin look," so the bridal bouquet consisted of two dozen Black Magic roses, with clusters of gypsophylla wound and layered in a spiral around the sides of the hand-tied bouquet.  I used a bright silver woven ribbon treatment over a handle satinized with black "tux" ribbon from Lion Ribbon.  Smaller bouquets constructed to match the Bridal bouquet were used for the four bridesmaids.  Corsages and bouts were black magic roses with pistachio foliage and sprigs of Irish moss, bound with silver boullion from Smithers Oasis.  The tables were decorated with round nosegays of the same roses, with Dutch Pico fronds (a small-leaved chamaedorea), and scattered rose petals.  I brought in the exotic greens from the Aalsmeer market, which means that they came from Australia, flew to the Netherlands, and flew to Idaho all in a very short time.  Thanks to my great friends in Holland and Miami for providing such fine product.  

Bethany and Jonathon wedd

Bethany Kaye Romney and Jonathon Lawrence were married on 14 June, 2008
in the Rexburg LDS Temple

They wanted to join thousand of others this year and be married 8 8 08, but the numbers didn't add up for them; that was too long to wait! But add 6 and 8 and you get 14. That will do.

The sum of the flowers added up nicely too. Beth wanted bright, beautiful whites with natural greens. That meant anything from olives to limes, with mossy undertones. She chose Hydraengeas for her photo shots a couple of days before the wedding--all white mounded giant blooms, and again for the bouquet at the temple, so I hand-tied them--just kept adding them until she was satisfied. This time we minimized the white and used more green The large bouquet was striking and bright in the morning light.


Wedding day for Bethany, our youngest daughter

Beth in her lovely gown, handmade in France

What bright light this couple radiates!

most of the family, minus some of the little ones, just after the temple ceremony

The bouquet from the morning was left in the car--the ultimate oops for this well-trained bride, so I tied another together before the reception. This time I used Rosa 'Limbo' and small white Zantedeschia (callas). It survived the evening at Romney Place, despite the afternoon of very strong winds, and even survived the toss. I placed mixed bouquets on the serving and seating tables, including more Hydraengeas, 'Green Goddess' callas, and some dramatic Eremerus lilies

The bouquet grabbers gather

Beth cuts the cake. Grandson Isaac is quite enthralled with the process while he sips limewater

I suspended the oval shaped cake and stand in a Wilson's weeping birch that grew in a heart shape after it froze back several winters past. It was an unusual way to display a cake and brought many comments. It was covered with about 100 'Limbo' roses I brought in from Ecuador.

Entertainment was provided by "the Brothers of Abraham"
check them out at brothersofabraham.com or buy their "removing the pain" album on itunes
Bethany's brothers, from left: Benjamin 6 string bass & vocals, Abraham, guitar and vocals, and Anthony, drums

Anthony and Kylie wedd

A Wedding in the Nauvoo LDS Temple
on 16 May, 2008

with a Reception in Indianapolis on the 17th,
and Open House in Rexburg on the 31st.
ATHONY & KYLIE ROMNEY

Anthony with his 5 siblings Abe, Benj, Jessica, Lydia, and Bethany

We are happy to greet Anthony and Kylie Romney, and wish them well on their new adventures together. It was fun to do the flowers for Kylie. She has always loved bright blue and electric green. I arranged with Van's wholesale in Indianapolis for the flowers there. They were most helpful, and allowed me to wander through the facility finding all kinds of treasures to bring back to the flower center. They brought in some lovely delphinium from Canada, along with a few other things we used. In Rexburg, I used a little more of a variety of material. I enjoy the textural differences when adding things like Eryngium, "blue" Leptospermum (which is really mostly pink, but added great depth to the mix) and green spider mums along with various blue Delphinium hybrids and Mollucella (bells of Ireland)


Watch the newlyweds as they leave the temple


Everyone needed a break for food--wedding breakfast in the Nauvoo Inn
then on the road to Indianapolis that night

It was a dream reception in Avon

Kylie's colours!

Kylie's dad, Lans put together a gourmet feast for us all in Avon, Indiana


Anthony & Kylie greeting friends and family in Salem Idaho





Benj and his jazz combo were the featured entertainment

Thanks Anthony and Kylie for letting me have so much fun with the flowers!!!

A wedding for Benjamin Joseph Romney and Amy Jolene Andreason
The Rexburg Temple was beautiful on the morning of 12 April 2008, the perfect setting for Benj and Amy to be sealed for time and all eternity.
A reception/dinner for family and friends was held that afternoon, then a full reception was held on 24 April, 2008 in the evening for friends and community members.
Amy chose lime green and various bright purple colours. We used the Floragene® dianthus that have an iridescent blue undertone through the intense purples and lavenders.



Dirk, Jody Andreason, Amy Jo, Benj, Ben, and Kaye



Amy's lovely smile, and bouquet



A quiet moment as the reception is winding down, and yes, the flowers are as tall as they appear! The freeform branch sculptures are ornamented with strings of green and purple shell fragments we picked up at the LA flower market a few days before the wedding.



The tables were adorned with very tall vases, as above, or cylinders, with flowers semi-submerged. They provided height, yet were mostly transparent so people could visit at the tables. It was a fun way to bring the colours to the table without a lot of fuss. I also used some purple larkspur, and purple delphinium in random order.

A special treat for Kaye and I was the visit of our friend Martin Valentine, from Rugby England. Martin is a very talented Fine Artist, and currently is the art director for the Sedbergh School in the lake district of northern England. We stayed with Martin at his home above the Music School for a few days, and traveled with him about the lake district during November of 2007. Martin and Benj became friends while Benj was serving in the Birmingham mission. It was great to have Martin stay with us during the wedding time.




After the wedding, we took Martin to West Yellowstone and Jackson Hole to see some of our beautiful winter scenery. One evening, he took us to the world of real English Trifle. What a delight that was!!! We ate one immediately, and put the other one in the icebox for the newlyweds to find when they came back to their new home.


Next up: Anthony and Kylie in the Nauvoo Temple.