Holiday Fever

Hello! It's been a very busy month - a Christmas Boutique, two holiday parties for three hundred (each!), homes to decorate, and countless other holiday events. I cannot begin to estimate how many crates of boxwood, white pine, and winterberry I have used - but it's all been wonderful. I love what I do and I love the opportunity to reimagine Christmas every year yet work within the traditional perimeters of red, green, white, and gold.

Next up: my own Christmas. But let me leave you with some images of the past three weeks.

Look at this fabulous winterberry- and the tulips! (A hint that spring is on its way!)

On a Winter's Night

What a weekend!

Last night's wedding was, in a word, spectacular. After a year of planning, all of the ideas were realized in a simply ephemeral, luminous, and magical evening.  As you can tell, I can't find enough adjectives to describe the effect! On a very very cold winter's night, how wonderful to be a wedding guest and be transported to another world - all under a big white tent in the middle of a dark golf course at Merion Golf Club.

Cory, my wonderful bride, had a very distinct idea of what she wanted - the purest of white flowers against dark green foliage - a very clean, simple design but lush and abundant. The greens were to be magnolia and salal - no Christmas greens in sight! This was not to be a Christmas wedding, rather a Winter wedding, resplendent with candlelight, mountains of white hydrangea, and pure white Irish linen - all housed in a heated, vast tent populated with palms and planter boxes of magnolia.

And the candles and the glassware! We lined the entire perimeters of both tents (cocktail and ballroom) with hundreds of pillar candles standing in a random assortment of glass hurricanes. Candles were everywhere - at the end of the road, at the entrance, on every table, on every wall imaginable. Between the candle hurricanes and the arrangements, I had over 600 pieces of glass on-site. I had stopped counting at one point!

For the centerpieces, I used thousands of stems of white hydrangea, white Tibet roses, white Eskimo roses, white ranunculus, and salal greens. All arrangements were placed in either glass trifle bowls or 3-ft tall glass flutes. For the bridesmaids' bouquets, I created tiny all-white nosegays of roses and ranunculus to set off their navy taffeta dresses and Cory's bouquet was a larger version with roses, ranunculus, gardenias and greens. Heavenly!

I so loved working with Cory and her family. From beginning to end, working with them was fun, creative, and a true collaboration. Thank you for asking me do the flowers for your wedding - I was honored to be your florist!

Here are some photos with my point and shoot camera - apologies for the blurs. I also don't have any photos of the bouquets, but I will get them up on my website as soon as possible!

Daytime:

Earlier in the day, putting the final touches on the tall centerpieces -

Upper Terrace (cocktail area) - you'll see how different it looks at night -

Heading down the stairs to the Main (Ballroom) Tent. We framed it out with Magnolia -

Looking back up the stairs to the Cocktail area -

We begin to light the candles as the sun sets -

The bandstand - 10 ft toparies flanked enormous window boxes and white pots of fresh magnolia - we also tented out the bandstand ceiling to create a warm effect. Everyone loved it!

The cake, covered in fresh gardenias -

Getting ready!

Nighttime:

When guests pulled up, they saw candles that seemed to go on forever on the many walls facing the drive -

The guests entered the interior ballroom and were met by roaring fires in the two fireplaces and this arrangement of all hydrangea. It was lovely -

Guests walked through to the cocktail terrace - candles flickering on the walls, luminous lanterns overhead, urns of hydrangea at the four corners, jazz trio playing in the corner -

Eight cocktail tables scattered throughout with navy silk ribbon tied around the glass vases -

At 7 o'clock, guests were invited down into the tent - the 'fence' was removed, and the band struck up a lively tune -

A view back up the staircase - magnolia roping, candles, and huge urns of hydrangea at the top and the bottom of the stairs -

A tall centerpiece -

A low centerpiece -

Masses of candles -

The right side of the ballroom -

Center -

Left -

New Galleries

Hi! Just a quick note - I have four new galleries up on my Website. I have a LOT more photos I am hoping to get from other weddings very soon, but in the meantime, please have a look at the newest portfolios!

Tish Long Flowers - Galleries

You'll see thumbnail photographs on the left side;  the four new albums are at the bottom of the page - Anna, Diana, Danielle, and Melissa.

Enjoy! And many thanks to these brides - I loved doing your wedding flowers!

Tish

Designing for a Crowd

Whether you have four or four hundred to your table for a celebration, I think there is nothing as beautiful - or necessary - as flowers for your centerpieces. Of course, you may say I am biased, but believe me when I say that flowers make the visual design of your table come alive more than any other element, whether your space is large or small.

So last week, when I created the flower arrangements at Waynesborough Country Club, I had this concept in mind - how could I make the greatest impact in this huge space? There was a 40-foot table set up for the main buffet, three other huge buffets scattered around the rooms, and 35 tiny vases. In addition, they asked me to use a cornucopia for the main centerpiece.

Designing on a large scale can be fun, and I wanted to create a variety of harvest-themed arrangements for the members to enjoy as they celebrated Thanksgiving. When one designs big, the challenge is to create a visual impact both from far away and up close - it sounds simple, but it's not. Too much material or color can look junky and messy from far away, and too little has no interest up close. I also had to design 'in the round' - the main piece would been seen from all sides.

So I chose a few colors - reds, purples, greens, and hints of oranges and yellows for a good, far-away impact - and used gilded fruits, branches, berries, vegetables, pods, moss, and gilded wheat to create the detail and delight up-close.

For flowers, I used purple stocks, bells of Ireland, solidaster, Freedom roses, Milva roses, yellow lilies, orange lilies, white, orange, and yellow snapdragon, trick dianthus, and green cymbidium orchids. It was a fun event to work on, and I loved the chance to create a variety of looks within a single theme. Enjoy!

Main buffet -

To give you a sense of the space in which I was working -

A collar of gilded wheat for the cornucopia -

A side view of the buffet -

A rear view -

The other side view -

One of the three additional buffet pieces - lots of pods and branches -

Green apples always look so fresh -

A shot of one of the vases for the tables -