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.

Last week we took part in a luncheon event for executive administrative assistants at Abbott Laboratories. Alongside Classic Party Rentals we provided a floral demonstration and different napkin folds. In addition, we also talked a little about decor trends for the next year.  Attendants were able to learn simple floral arrangements they can try at home. I had a great time!  The Abbott Foodservice staff created quite a sweet table display.

We also provided some lovely floral arrangements for their tables.

Thanks for having us! It was a pleasure working with all of you. Thank you Classic Party Rentals for keeping us in mind. We love partnering with you.

We loved working with Joanna and Chris, and I especially loved the bold statement she made with her black ribbon treatment in her white garden roses bouquet. In addition, to providing small bud vases with lisianthus, dahlias and seeded eucalyptus we also created mini kermit mums balls for the ceremony! It was absolutely lovely. To view pictures of this wedding please visit Maypole Studios website here.

Last November we had the pleasure of working with Ali Phillips and her clients Sara and Sergio. They had their reception at the Cultural Center in Chicago. It is a beautiful Chicago venue with an old world charm.

Sara opted for a teardrop bridal bouquet or white roses, white cymbidiums, and white dendrobrium orchids. It was gorgeous!

The bridesmaids carried petite bouquets of burgundy dahlias, white majolica roses and burgundy cymbidium orchids with seeded eucalyptus.

Becky Hill from Becky Hill Photography took these amazing pictures! Sara looks stunning against a Chicago backdrop.

Sara and Sergio…. Congratulations on your Chicago wedding!