consider the lillies

one of my creative hobbies is floral arranging.  It all started back in 1995 when I took a floral arranging class thru the local community college while I was living in Illinois.  Over the years, I've enjoyed doing arrangement for parties and gatherings.  In 2005,  I did my first wedding.  

Since then, I've done 5 more. 

 I love working with the couple and dreaming with them about how they want the flowers to look.  Each wedding has been different and fun and a total reflection of the couples' personalities and how that is expressed throughout their wedding celebration!

Last June, I did the flowers for my friends, Nik and Laura.  Laura had some really cool, two-toned bridemaids dresses and wanted gerber daisies and roses.  the wedding was held at my old church in Baltimore which has a beautiful pipe organ in the front of the sanctuary- I knew I needed to have something tall and which some texture and height- so I used curly willow and hung votives down and put gerbers in them. 

 I was able to borrow some really tall, cylindar vases from my friend, Lela.  A challenge was hanging the gerbers within the arrangement of the curly willow!The flowers turned out great- the bouquets, centerpieces at the reception, the flowers at the front of the church, the boutinieres.  I'm still trying to get the corsage thing down...

Laura recently sent me a disk with photos of the flowers!

I love doing floral designing for big events- especially if it's for people I love.  Doing time sensitive, big events, like weddings, reminds me why I'm in full time ministry and NOT in a profession like floral design.  While I love the challenge of doing a time sensitive, creative events- it can be pretty exhausting!