Long Awaited Post

Hey friends! It was a busy summer, and here at Willow and Whimsy we were all about weddings!  But after wedding season, we had other stuff to attend to and what do you know, none of our gorgeous summer weddings are up here.  UNTIL NOW.

The much awaited Becky-Brock wedding is now here for your viewing pleasure. 

Aren't they just DARLINK?  Becky is an absolute doll and Brock turned out to be a perfect match...go figure!  The wedding was at the Salt Lake Temple and the reception was at This is the Place State Park in the new (and very awesome, might I add) log cabin reception center.

The whole feel was very outdoors-y with baby blue & yellow with chocolate brown accents and lots of daisys, which are Becky's favorite flower.  We added a TON of candles which gave the whole thing the most beautiful ambiance. 

We decorated with thoughts of "rustic elegance" and as you can see, it turned out beautifully.  Bistro lights were strung across the large room, and milk bottles in chicken wire baskets donned the tables, along with mason jars wrapped in burlap and twine holding candles of all sizes.  Since Becky is a teacher, we also added some old fashioned books and some welll-placed apple bushel baskets to add to the country feel of the reception. 

Becky's bouquet was blue hydrangea with white freezia and peonies accented with yellow status and wrapped in a long chocolate brown sash. 

Becky and Brock had TONS of family, so there were sisters serving as bridesmaids with their own bouquets, but we really liked her idea for her close friends.  The skirts were made by one of the friends and instead of bouquets, the buddies held bunches of babys' breath wrapped in ribbon.  it really looked darling and made her girlfriends feel special without having to spend lots of money on extra bridesmaids' bouquets! 

 But the biggest hit of all was the CANDY BUFFET!  We had a stamp made that said "Becky & Brock" and the date of their wedding and we stamped regular small brown bags and cut the top with scalloped scissors.  They were a cute personalization!  We hung the "Thank You" sign with paper clips using cute paper in the wedding colors.

Chalkboard-type paper made country-like signs for the candy jars, and tree branches in painted buckets served as our indoor country field. 

Becky ordered candy in the blue, yellow and brown of the wedding, and with a nod to the old fashioned used lemon drops, rootbeer barrels and sixlets.  But the favorite of the night was definitely the grapefruit chews, which were sweet and sour and plain delish!







The Carbajals!

Finally, here are a few photos of Steph and Pablo's wedding day.  The flowers photographed beautifully!

Don't they look awesome?  We thought so, too. 

Keep on Learning

I was lucky enough to attend a floral design class at Trifecta last week, and this is what I made!

Pretty snazzy, huh?  The teacher, Lindsey, was really a champ and gave me some great advice as a rookie; she didn't even mind that she was "training the competition!"  My goal is to not only do lovely, traditional flowers, but to also branch out and do more compositional design like this one.  I'm working on creating "negative space" and I feel like this arrangement really got it.  Thanks Trifecta!

Carnations as "The Comeback Kid?"

Since I can remember I have hated, nay, despised, carnations.  (Anyone see that "Sex in the City" espisode when Burger gives Carrie carnations? yeah.)

This one is from Real Simple and is a DIY!

However, I was perusing our dear old insider-trader Martha's wedding website (nothing says insider trader like a tea rose), and came across these AMAZING ideas for carnations!  Check it out and tell me what you think!

Baby Barber's Balloon Bash!

Helped with cute Sarah Barber's shower.  Her and her hubs, Max, will be expecting baby Georgia in a few weeks! 

The large hot-air-balloon-style arrangement looked amazing, but was hard to capture in pics!

The party had tons of balloons hanging from the ceiling in all pastel colors.  Here were some of the other fun decorations:

It was a fun party, and big congrats to Sarah and Max!  Baby Georgia is a lucky girl! 

Peach is NOT light orange!!!

I was lucky enough to do a boutonniere and a corsage for two of the kids in my Sunday School class who were both going to prom.  They weren't going with each other (although that would be cute) but they both requested PEACH as their main color.

Off to the store I go to find peach flowers.  I find a lovely light peach rose, some peach ranunculus, and some cream roses.  I get them home only to realize that they do NOT match the gorgeous ribbon Mom got!  You see, flowers don't grow in peach color naturally.  They grow in light orange, but not peach.  They are not the same color!  The light orange roses clashed terribly with the ribbon.  I've found that the ribbon makes or breaks a corsage, so back to the store I went for more white roses!  Here's how it turned out:

The ranunculus was still budding so it had a light enough hue to not completely clash with the ribbon.  Also, we like to keep boutonnieres less feminine by using a knot instead of a bow.  The corsage turned out beautiful:

The ribbon had a lovely pattern with light green edges and peach center.  It was accented with both a satin peach and an illusion peach ribbon.  Again, we used a budding ranunculus instead of a fully-bloomed orange one.  The tiny daisies added a bit of texture while still keeping the whole thing very elegant!

Stepanie & Pablo's Elegant, Romantic Wedding

My dear friend and former USU roomie Stephanie Farnes got married to the love of her life, Pablo Carbajal, on May 10th and we were lucky enough to do this bouqet for her!

With deep pomegranate red, cherry red, and tangerine accents, we strove to make a high-texture, romantic, yet visually stimulating bouquet.  We started with the perfect red roses, added some cherry anemones, some fire-red-and-orange tulips, and deep pomegranate alstromeria.  The gorgeous orange calla lillies were a special request from the bride, and we topped it off with the beautiful and exotic cymbidium orchids.  There is also a dash of tangerine-huged hypericum berry in there for added texture, although the flowers gave an amazing texture on their own!  It turned out even better than we anticipated, with all the different shades of red really playing together nicely.

Of course, props to Stephanie for choosing such vibrant and stylish colors.  We really liked the pop of the tangerine, so we used that for the ribbon color. The groom's boutonniere was the star, sporting a rose and calla lilly, but the rest were simple roses with that gorgeous orange-ish ribbon!  The mom's and grandma's corsages turned out awesome, too:

Hopefully Steph will send me some pics of the gorgeous bride and groom flaunting their wedded-bliss with flowers in tow!  At any rate, it was wonderful to be part of the prettiness!  Thanks a million, Steph and Pablo!

Crazy for Bud Vases!

Who knew I could be so wrapped up in finding the PERFECT bud vases for my various visions of loveliness?  I am exhausted because mom & I have been working on flowers for Stephanie (and they look amazing!) but I can't sleep!  I'm looking for bud vases that will serve many functions as centerpieces, gifts,  decor, and just random fun times with extra flowers.

These from Crate & Barrel are simple and stylish.

Can't go wrong with a classic white

I don't know if I love the available colors, but these are cute. 

THIS WEBSITE has my favorite vases, but won't let me copy the picture! (I was gonna give you guys credit, geez!)

On the Web for Your Convenience

Hello blog visitors; we finally got online!  Although we've been dabbling in the floral business and event planning world for a while, we are now ready to dive in with both feet.

Please visit our "About Us" section to see a little more about your EVENT PLANNING DREAM TEAM, or browse through "Our Work" to see just a small sample of our latest creations.

We love flowers, and we love making special days beautiful and memorable.  We can create gorgeous bouquets, arrangements, wreaths, etc. or we can take off all the stress and plan your entire wedding!  We've done it several times before!  If you would like to talk to some of our happy clients, just email us at

willowandwhimsyfloral@gmail.com

We can send you testimonials (which will soon be online, too!).  Thanks for visiting; see you soon!