My Chapel Designer friends and I decided to do a little progressive blog post were you can find all of our lovely bouquets, and we have so many lovely bouquets to choose from.  This past weekend one of our designers created a stunning peonies bouquet, it was one of my favorites. But as much as I love peonies, I love anemones a lot more. Anemones, anything purple and of course anything with peonies. Here is a few of my favorites bouquets to date.

These next three bouquets were created by Victoria Clausen from Romance of Flowers I absolutely love the classic glamelia bouquet below. It’s stunning.

This post gets even better….. you get to see so many more bouquets from Chapel Designers all over the US. Enjoy and be inspired by all the different styles!

Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD: http://thefullbouquetblog.com/?p=25873

Celebration Florals:  http://bit.ly/11Bc48t

Gertie Maes:http://www.gertiemaes.com/blog/

Soiree Floral: http://blog.soireefloral.com/

Colonial House: http://colonialhouseofflowers.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/bouquets/

Stacy K Floral: http://www.stacykfloral.com/blog2/?p=4489

Wild Bunch Studio: http://wildbunchstudio.blogspot.com

Passionflower: http://www.passionflowerevents.com/main/blog.jsp

Alicia Jayne Florals:  http://aliciajayneflorals.com/blog/?p=162

Goodness-Gracious! Florals: http://tulipiere.com/2013/04/29/46/

Urban Petals: http://myurbanpetals.wordpress.com/?p=3233

FloressenceFlowers: http://floressenceflowers.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-favorite-bridal-bouquets.html

Wild Bunch Studio: http://wildbunchstudio.blogspot.com

Passionflower http://www.passionflowerevents.com/main/blog.jsp

On Butterfly Wings  http://onbutterflywingsblog.com/?p=356

Fleur:ology  http://fleurologydesign.com/?p=721

Alluring Blooms  http://alluringblooms.com/chapelbouquet/.html

Posh Floral Designs: http://poshfloral.com/memory-monday-favorite-bouquets

Francoise Weeks: http://francoiseweeks.com/2013/04/bouquets-2/

It was Day 2 for the Chapel Designers and today was a day I’ve been asking Holly about since the first time I met David Beahm at his offices in NYC. It’s quite a beautiful office but as a designer I know that all floral and decor designers have a place were they  produce and get ready to create their designs…. and that’s were I wanted to go. I’ve been asking to go to David Beahm’s warehouse for the last two years… and Day 2 with the Chapel Designers was the day I have been eagerly awaiting for a long time.

So we got on the bus and went over to the Bronx. Not only did I get a tour of David Beahm’s warehouse, he explained large scale design but I also got to learn how Karen Tran puts together her amazing tall and lush designs along with learning how to create one of Francoise Week’s amazing woodland bouquets.

David Beahm up on the ladder explaining all about large scale design, ensuring the designs are safe and also how to make them. I have to say I love David Beahm, he is an out of this world designer and the best part…has no ego. Not only is he confident of his work and his designs but he also goes thru the same trials and tribulations that all business owners do. He is no different and he was candid enough to share it with us.

Large scale design by David Beahm…. it’s a 20′ long statement piece of cherry blossoms, hyacinths, roses and calla lilies. Words cannot describe how magnificent this piece was in person. It took three designers close to 5 hours to create and around 20 bales of cherry blossoms.  The scent reminded me of spring.

I have to say Michael and Vanessa deserve a medal for THE best hosts in all of NYC. New Yorkers are quite nice. They truly love their city… Vanessa and Michael, a husband and wife team that own Verde Flowers are the epitome of hard work, dedication and working hard to live your dream. Their shop flooded with four feet of water during hurricane Sandy.  They rebuilt and their shop is absolutely beautiful. I felt it was incredibly moving that Vanessa made it a point to bring her child to work (she even has a dedicated room for her son) in her shop. Vanessa and Michael… I had a wonderful time meeting both of you. Thank you for opening your shop to all 60 of us!

Not only are Vanessa and Michael amazing hosts…. look at the arrangements they can create. This picture doesn’t do this beauty justice.

While rotating design stations after lunch I got the chance to create a woodlands bouquet with Francoise Weeks.

I went for the ombre effect with green dianthus, muscari, green hellebores, astarantia, seeded eucalyptus, green moss and whites…. fringe tulips, white clematis vine, and a few ranunculus.

And then there was Karen Tran, after a long day of learning I got to learn from the one and only Karen Tran. She created one of her iconic tablescapes. I was amazed to learn how petite Karen is and how quickly she can move, lift her arrangements like nobody’s business and do it all with grace… she even thought us how not to mess up your manicure! She has quite a bit of tricks up her sleeve and I do have to say…  she is quite the smart businesswoman too.

Photo Credit for all the amazing images goes to by Genevieve Leiper . All the ones that are a little blurry…. that would be by me.

I just came back from NYC after catching up with my friends, the Chapel Designers. It’s been three years since I answered a tweet that asked ” Who wants to meet me in NYC?” posted by Holly Chapple, and I can honestly say that thru the power of twitter I’ve been able to meet some of the most amazing designers from all over the United States and the world…. as we had new designers from Australia, the Virgin Islands and Russia.

Meeting the designers is my one week before the wedding season begins were I can learn new design techniques, meet floral suppliers, find new flower varieties, shop for current clients, network with designers…. and share war stories.

During our first day we heard from a few of our fellow designers about what has worked for them, what direction they are headed and we also heard from Anne Chertoff, Naomi DeManana, the Floral Editor for Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine along with Abby Larson from Style Me Pretty.

Tomorrow on the blog…. Finally getting a chance to visit David Beahm’s warehouse in the Bronx, meeting the best hosts in New York City (truly some of the most amazing designers), learning Karen Tran’s design secrets, learning how to make a woodlands bouquet with Francoise Weeks and seeing why David Beahm is the king of large scale design.

Holly Chapple presenting a bouquet she made to Naomi DeManana from Martha Stewart Weddings

Photo Credit: Genevieve Leiper Photography

As a floral designer I can say last week I met with my old flower sisters and got to connect with some new ones. One of the highlights of last week was getting to meet and take two floral classes with the fairy god mother of many floral designers, Ariella Chezar.  After a crazy cab ride to get to the Flower School of NYC on time I took my spot and afterwards we got to meet our lovely instructor for the day.

Ariella was everything that I expected and more. She was gracious, with a very calm personality and soft spoken. She was also willing to share all her sources and answer the group’s questions; and when I say questions she answered everything from “Where do you get the ribbons for your bouquets?” to… “How old are you?”

The first class I took was a hand tied bouquet class. We used light pink wax flowers, dusty miller, carnations, white freesia, white anemones with green centers, ranunculus, quicksand roses, passion vine, hellebores, jasmine vine, parrot tulips and dusty miller.

My lovely bouquet…. thank you Holly for holding it!

Ariella’s Bouquet, love the passion vine!

After an amazing lunch in the afternoon at La Grenouille (thanks to Eileen who got us a reservation at the last minute) we came back for an afternoon class on the art of the compote.

I have to finish by saying that Eileen Johnson who started the Flower School of NYC is a lovely lady. She had lots of great advice and made us feel welcome. In addition, I loved how she offered champagne, scones and macaroons while we designed away. I highly recommend the school to anyone looking to take a floral class.

Just as the song says New York, concrete jungle were dreams are made of….last week for me it was flowers. There is no flower you cannot get here. Camellias, white tweedia (every time I ask for it from my local wholesaler they either laugh hysterically or dismiss me like I have two heads), blush ranunculus, bi color peony tulips, flannel flowers or even micro roses.

Learned a couple of things while I was there. Although the floral market in NYC gets product every day, the biggest shipments arrive on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mondays to fill up retail florists stock and Wednesdays to fill requests from designers.

Here are some of the pretty things I found…

Blush Ranunculus

Peony Tulips

Garden Roses

Gloriosa Lilies

Green Ranunculus

Orange Ranunculus

Purple Roses

Bridal Piano Roses

Tulips in every color

Flannel Flowers

Last but not least I got to put a face with the voice at Harvest Wholesale. I finally got to meet Niv! He actually also makes a mean cup of coffee. The running joke in the group was that I would go to Niv’s for breakfast. Niv, Starbucks needs to call you, their coffee in NYC sucks.

Liz Rusnac from Fleurology and Morgan Walker from Petal and Hedges standing next to a tall stack of cherry blossoms Branches outside Associated Cut Flower.

On the blog tomorrow: Taking floral design classes with the one and only… Ariella Chezar

Last week, I took my yearly trip out to NYC to meet with the Chapel Designers. Last year there was seventeen of us, this year we were up to 40!  There were designers from all over the United States and Canada. We meet once a year to talk about our business, how to streamline things a little better, talk about our markets, what works… what didn’t work so well and of course, to build relationships. It’s a great group. I also got to NYC to meet with other wholesalers and find props, ribbons or higher quality flowers that will take designs up a couple of notches.

The week started with a welcome reception at Matthew Robbins Design Studio. It was great to see a lot of my friends from last year’s conference and meet all the new attendees. Holly Chapple from Holly Heider Chapple who puts the conference together greeted us and also gave us a copy of Matthew Robbins new book called  Matthew Robbins Inspired Weddings. His book has so many great ideas on colors, vintage and unique containers along with gorgeous pictures of Matthew’s work.

Florabundance one of our sponsors provided the amazing florals for Matthew to design with while he talked to the group. Joost Bongaerts, the owner of Florabundance answered questions on some of the flowers and we even got to swoon over the garden roses, clematis and hellebores.

I loved these simple but striking arrangements of purple clematis with burgundy hellebores. If you notice in the back there are a lot of props. Matthew’s studio has a vintage vibe with a lot of antique vases, many of them are quite unique. He told us how he came about acquiring them thru an antiques dealer.

Thank you Matthew for having us (and signing my book!), and thank you Holly for my book. It’s a great addition to the floral library.