Sending Smiles ~

I admit that Cascade Bridal Bouquets have not made the big comeback that I expected a few years ago but every now and then we get to create one. Last weekend we were able to design this beauty with a topical theme for our bride Angela. The story behind this bouquet (and there is always a story behind a bridal bouquet) is that Angela and her true love Keehan are actually getting married in the Bahamas. With lots of family, friends and fellow church members, they felt compelled to have a ceremony in New Jersey, hence the tropical theme. Angela's bridal bouquet was created by our Lead Floral Stylist Alanna and consisted of Starfighter lilies, dendrobium orchids, bird of paradise, mini calla lilies flowers along with lily grass, spiral and silver dollar  eucalytpus, ruscus and podocarpus foliages! The bouquet turned out stunning and we think, ever prettier than the inspiration photo provided by Angela and her sister Donchell (who is a wedding planner we work with on occasion)....

Oh how often I hear ~ "I want my wedding flowers to be simple but elegant". What does that mean? I think this bouquet below fits the bill perfectly, don't you? Last weekends bridal bouquet for Sangy consisted of soft white hydrangea, creamy white hydrangea, ivory and pale pink tea roses and.... well, that's all! Hand tied and loosely wrapped in a soft satin ribbon, this look is not only elegant but classic. 20 years from now this bridal bouquet will still be in style. What does simple but elegant mean to you? We'd love to know!! 

 Say what you want about baby's breath because here at the shop it's been a staple for weddings for the past year and the trend appears to be continuing into 2015. Case in point for bride Louise's wedding this weekend. Her bridal bouquet was created of elegant and traditional ivory roses called Vendela and baby's breath. The variety of baby's breath used has bright white florets that are full and open. Combined in her bouquet , they give her the soft and romantic bouquet she loved. Having grown up in England, Louise's love of baby's breath flowed over into the centerpieces as well. Such a lovely flowers for all seasons and a trend that we fully expect to continue for weddings next year. What do you think of this bouquet and the use of baby's breath in wedding arrangement? To see more of our wedding designs, be sure to visit our website at www.perfectweddingflowers.com  

It's mid October and it's finally beginning to feel like fall ~ just in time for this weekends weddings. Our bride Rebecca chose brightly colored oranges, yellows and rich reds for her wedding flower color palate and we could not have been happier with the the finished looks of these amazing bouquets. Below is the Bride's Maids bouquets of roses, spray roses, berries and solidago.  Rebecca's bouquet included soft ivoy Vendela rose that really lightened up the overall colors in her bouquet. Relying heavily on roses, this bouquet really speaks to the month of October in NJ!   Another pretty shot of Rebecca'as Bouquets . The two toned roses are called Circus and are one of our favorites all year round and especially lovely to use in our wedding designs.   Our designers finishes the bouquets and then moves on to creating the "wearable" flowers such as the boutonnieres and corsages.   To see these and more of our wedding designs be sure to v...

Today's wedding bouquet is just so sweet! Dahlias, Donna Roses, fever few, queen anne's lace, hyperiucm berries, ladies mantle, spray roses and maidenhead ferns combine for a loose and airy bridal bouquet for our bride Carolyn. Don't you just love the natural, fresh picked feel? Soft tones have been popular this summer and most likely this trend will continue into the early fall bridal season. Lorrie's brides maids will each be carrying hand tied bouquets of soft baby's breath. Perfect for a New Jersey back yard wedding in early September!  Are you getting married in 2014 in the Princeton, NJ or Yardley, PA area?  Now is the time to secure your wedding date and we'd love to work with you. To schedule your free floral consultation contact us at 609.520.2005 or email me at georgianne@mondayflowers.com 

I love vibrant color so when Bride Jean walked in with a sample favor she had in mind for her May wedding at Rat's Restaurant in Grounds For Sculpture , I was thrilled to be chosen to create her floral designs .  First and foremost, I love roses . They are by far my favorite flower and even though I see lots of very cool flowers come through my doors each and every week, these beautiful blooms still make my heart go pitter patter. Know that Rat's has such a strong color palate and unbelievable charm, I couldn't wait to see this wedding all set up. Using 3 shades of roses ~ Hot Pink, Raspberry and Deep Orange ~ used in mass in silver mercury glass vase with lots and lots of candles ~ this wedding looked like a vivid dream! Our team of designers really did an amazing job.  I especially loved how the flowers looks with the brides maids dresses. Thank you Marie Labbancz for the amazing photography!  I especially loved the way the ceremony setting came out at...

Planning a wedding is fun but expensive and I find that often brides & grooms over think their bridal flowers. Hydrangea to the rescue. Take these bouquets for example; simple but by no means small yet they are elegant, natural and as amazing as it sounds, quite budget friendly. In the case of these bouquets, extra touches such as chiffon ribbon and draping hanging amaranthus took them from boring to beautiful and only slightly added to the cost. Lesson to be learned here? No need to over think the flowers and by all means, take the budget friendly route. Your Maids won't mind, your guests won't notice and your wedding budget will love you for it! To see these and more of our everyday and wedding floral designs be sure to visit our website at www.sendingsmiles.com  

How cute is this? Love those little love birds on this bridal bouquet for Jeri this past weekend.   Adding a small item to the stem of your bridal bouquet - whether it's a hankie, fabric from your mom's wedding gown or a special wedding band or locket, is a wonderful way to add a special touch to your wedding flowers. Some brides do it out of tradition or to bring someone closer to them that is no longer living. No matter what the reason, it's a great way to personalize your wedding, don't you agree? 

This weekends wedding for Lisa and Bill was especially fun to design. The bridal bouquet consisted of 3 different colored gerbera diaises - coral, light lavender and medium pink. Accents of baby's breath was added to break up the colors and along the outer leaves we added loops of ti leaves to add a cool edge.  The bridal party consisted of 6 brides maids wearing black gowns. 2 brides maids carried coral gerbers, 2 carried light lavender and 2 carried medium pink. The stems were wrapped in black satin ribbon to allow them to disappear into the dress and not take away from the gorgeous flowers!   I am especially fond of the coral colored gerbera ~ this variety is called Bismark and these flowers are grown in Canada. They are especially hardy, which is perfect for hand tied bouquets like these.  The babies breath is called Party Time and has big, fat florets and they looks especially nice paired with the gerberas. I think these are the perfect bouquets for ...

Don't you just love daisies, especially pink daisies? So do we and how fun it was to create this sweet bouquet for a bride picking it up at our Yardley store last week. A mixture of light and medium pink gerbera daisies accented with fresh waxflower. Such a sweet, early spring bouquet ~ just makes us happy looking at it. Wedding season is just around the corner so be sure to come back often to see all the new wedding flowers trends for 2013. 

Don't you just love the stem accent on this bridal bouquet? An elegant cream ribbon accented with pearls and rhinestones. So romantic and elegant.  Sahara roses are by far one of our favorite roses here at the store. When a bride does not want white or ivory, these roses are a lovely shade of soft beige and along with the Sahara roses we added in Vendella roses which are a very soft ivory. In this case we added a rim of lace dusty miller for a hint of softness and a touch of silver, without the bling.   Notice the color below in full sunlight.  This photo taken in the store shows the creaminess of the roses and the full effect of the stem treatment. A soft wired ribbon accented with tiny pearls. The height of elegance and romance.   

When I meet with couples, I sometimes chuckle at the questions they ask me. For some they have read the "What to ask your florist" section in their wedding planners and although some are good questions, others are not really telling you what you need to know about the ability of the florist to do a great job on your wedding flowers.  Of course, nothing replaces recommendations from venues and friends and with all the places to view online reviews, this is the first place to start. If the florist is a "busy wedding florist", you should be able to see many reviews that will often stress similar things such as "they got my vision", "they worked within my budget" and the ever popular "they exceeded my expectations". Finding out from others about their experience is easier than ever. Sometimes depending on the review site, you can even email the past bride and ask questions. I know my brides have done it!  If a dear friend was look...

Are you surprised that we have so many December weddings? We're not, we love December, January and February weddings, especially when they have a winter theme. White and silver is so popular right now and I'm seeing lots of couples using silver and gray as an accent into 2013. High on the lists seems to be gray and silver brides maids dresses, accents of silvery beads in the bridal gown, gray tuxes and even silver shoes and jewelry.  Yesterdays bridal bouquet for Lesley was styled using ivory roses, white mini calla lilies, ranunculus, stephanotis and touches of lacy dusty miller foliage. Isn't it lovely?  The brides maids carried simple bouquets of ivory roses with touches of dusty miller. Lesley wanted her Maid of Honor's bouquet to be a bit different than the rest of the brides maids so we added touches of deep blue delphinium and silver craspedia along with roses, mini calla lilies and the dusty miller. I personally love silver with blue and I can only ima...

Had to share one of this weekends wedding bouquets and what a colorful bouquet it is! It's not December yet and this colorful, fall themed wedding bouquet proves it. I love when brides are not shy about having colorful bridal bouquets like this one. Made from mini callas, orchids, hydrangea, hypericum berries, mini gerbers, roses, safari sunset, pin cushion protea and even blue thistle, this bouquet is sure to  be a look as she walks down the aisle.  Do you like this bouquet? Would you carry something so colorful on your wedding day? 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that more and more brides are going to be asking their floral designers to create cascade bouquets for their weddings. In the last 3 weeks alone, we have created 3 of these beauties and buzz on our Facebook page has been quite dramatic. Take the bouquet below ~ Bride Shedline was super pleased when Kevin arrived with her bouquet. Don't you just love the rich color in shades of purple. That in itself is an ongoing trend with many couple choosing purple as their wedding color. This bouquet was created using roses, mini callas, stock, lisianthus, carnations, limonium and touches of elegant foliage's. It's actually not that heavy and was super easy to hold (the biggest fear most bride's have when deciding on their bouquet is weight and ease of carrying it correctly). See my YouTube video that shows how easy these bouquets are to carry.  Another trend I'm noticing more of is the use of mixed plant material such as succu...

Every now and then we get a bride who comes in and gives us creative liberty with her bridal bouquet - this is one such bouquet. Don't you just love it? We sure do, especially all the interesting texture. Made using Paco mini callas, mini gerbers, Orange Unique roses, Tango protea, chocolate brown mini cymbidium orchids, fiddle ferns, coffee foliage, seeded euc and fresh lotus pods! Wow, that is a mouthful. What do you think? Would you want to carry a bridal bouquet like this for your fall wedding? To see this and more of our wedding designs, visit our website at www.perfectweddingflowers.com 

This weekend's weddings seem to sum of the weather. On one hand, it's October 6th and the nights have started to get cool and the leaves are starting to drop here near our shop in Princeton Forrestal Village. Summer is definitely over and so our wedding designs for bride Dawn reflect the traditional fall feel of the season. Her bouquet was made using rich red roses along with a variety called Circus, which is a yellow and red bi-color. Along with the roses we have mango mini calla lilies, seeded eucalyptus, burgundy berries, Tango pincushion protea and very cool uhule fiddle ferns. She loved it!!  Now talking about weather, although the calendar says fall, the temperatures say summer, hitting highs in the low 80's so our next bride Kristie's bouquet reflect the feel of the day. Her bouquet was made using yellow fever few buttons, yellow and pink ranunculus, white mini daisies, garden roses, buplurium and gardenias. Gardenia's are special to Kristie and keep ...

With all the colors available to us, I have to say that I'm still a sucker for creams and greens. It's just so relaxing, elegant and unassuming, don't you think. One of this past weekends weddings for bride and groom Krystal and Rob had us doing flowers in shades of green (yes green flowers) and off whites. Below is the design bench as designer Norman works on one style centerpiece for their reception. Clear cylinder vases filled with ivory roses, cream hydrangeas, bells of Ireland and buplurium accented with natural ruscus. These are going to look amazing on the tables.   I especially loved her brides maids bouquets. Here is me holding one which matched my outfit perfectly! :) I especially loved Krystal's bouquet of cream dahlias and roses, white arabicum and super green garden roses. Light accents of buplurium kept the bouquet from looking to planned and gave her the natural feel she was going for. Such a pretty late summer flower combination don't you...

 Ah, nothing says summer like a sunflower bouquet and so it's the perfect flower for a summer wedding, don't you think? Today's bride Jane wanted a fresh picked feel to her bouquet and I  think we really achieved that. Medium size sunflowers arranged with a rim of fresh babies breath and lemon leaves with a hint of monte casino white asters between the blooms adds just a touch of softness the bouquet would not have without them. I also love the pop of white and I think it will look smashing (did I just say smashing?) against her simple bridal gown.  For the men we are using Viking pom poms for the boutonniere. I like the fact that although they look like a sunflower, they are much smaller. This way they don't feel like they are wearing a ladies size corsage. Speaking of corsages, we also like using the viking pom pons to make delicate wristlet corsages like this one. It not only has the wristlet attached, we also include pins in case they decide to wear t...

We post photos of our wedding designs just about every week so imagine our surprise when I posted this photo on our Facebook Fan Page to have it skyrocket to over 100 shares and at least that many likes and comments? Wow, it just went viral - showing how powerful this color palate of purples and blues is right now. We loved the mixture of flowers used in Bride Rochelle's wedding bouquet - including Cool Water purple roses, Picasso mini callas, purple stock, limonium filler, white stephanotis (with purple pearl centers), purple lisianthus (with buds removed) and deep blue volkenfreiden delphinium. To see this and more of our floral design work check out our facebook page at www.facebook.com/localflorist or our website at www.sendingsmiles.com