Wedding tips

We have almost come to the end of the wedding season and now starting to take consultations for next years weddings.
We get lots of people coming into the shop to talk about their wedding flowers. Some have a really clear idea of what they want and other have absolutely no idea! So I thought about what would be good for people to have ready before they go to a florist to get the most out of the appointment.
Here are my top 10 tips
1 Make sure you have your venue booked.
2 Make sure you know what you will be wearing and if you have bridesmaids what colour and preferably what style they will be wearing.
3 Have a flick through some wedding magazines, flower ones if possible and cut out or write down page numbers of pictures of flowers and style that you like, even if it's not exactly what you want.
4 Think about what whether you want the flowers to stand out or just create an ambiance.
5 How do you want to hold your bouquet In front of you, over your arm etc.
6 Do you want the bridesmaids to hold flowers or have flowers in hair or wrist etc.
7 Do you have a budget in mind that you want to stick to. It's best if you can tell the florist this as then they can guide you with that in mind and you wont waste time talking about flowers and arrangements that a way out of you price range or to simple.
8 Most florists can provide candles and extra bits and pieces that aren't necessarily flower related so ask if they can do those type of things as less suppliers and work for you/your family to do on the day the better.
9 Think about the extra things that you might want to add to the basic things. Almost walking through the day looking around writing down what you want where.
10 If possible meet the florist at the venue so that you can show them exactly where you want things to go. If that's not possible taking measurements of places that you want flowers i.e window sills, fire tops etc is really useful.
Remember to enjoy the creative process, don't get stressed about it, wedding days are beautiful days that enjoyed by everyone no matter what happens!

Autumn

I LOVE Autumn. The colours in the trees, the leaves blowing around on the ground and the crisp clear sunny days (when we have them!). As always the colours of the seasons are influencing the flowers that we are using in the shop. The wonderful Tom Pearce Chrysanthemums, painted red oak leaves and peachy amaryllis creeping in and taking over the shop!

I have been busy with training and weddings this month so far and very much looking forward to a weekend off, especially as I was up at 6.30 on Sunday delivering flowers for a wedding, of course it was 10/10/10 on Sunday so I think the weddings were being processed as quickly as produce at an Aldi checkout!

So that got me thinking about superstitions. A lot of people get married on days that are meaningful to them, likewise don't get married on days meaning full to them!! Perhaps as simple as being the well know bad luck number 13!!

Some people are more superstitious than they think they are.

So this year was the 10/10/10. I found this website all about the number 10 http://www.richardphillips.org.uk/number/Num10.htm it's really quite interesting, especially about the Virgins coming in tens! Five foolish and five wise apparently!

Nothing to do with numbers but a funny superstition that I found and had to share is that apparently a popular Chinese superstition is that if one points at the moon with one’s finger it will make one’s ear tips fall off! So watch out.

So on THAT note! Enjoy your Autumn, take time to look up at the trees and see that beautiful colours and last few leaves that are left before Winter swallows them up, oh and no pointing at the moon!

How to...(for Cheryl and others!)

Well of course being a business woman I would say if you want to learn how to do something come and do a lesson but here are some guides to tel you how to make you flowers look professional!

1 make sure that when you get you flowers to use that they are well conditioned. This means that you should take off any leaves/foliage that will be in the way, at the binding point (place that you are holding them) and anything below. Including thorns on roses.
2 hold the bouquet in one hand adding with the other at a bit of an angle and ALWAYS at the same place going THE SAME WAY! This will create a lovely spiral and look really great and neat. It also helps when you start getting bigger with the bouquets as it will help the stems stay in place.
3 tie quite firmly with string, wrapping around a few times to create a tension. Tie with a good knot and cut off the ends quite close to the binding point.
4 get the vase or alternative that you are putting the flowers and roughly measure the bouquet next to it to judge the length. If your worried about this always cut longer than you think. You can't stick the bits you've cut off back on!
5 once you have got the stems the right length cut into the bouquet, cutting the woody stems at an angle to create a larger surface area. This make it easier for the thick hard stems to drink. Soft stem you haven't got to worry about as much so just cut them straight across.
6 the finally put the bouquet in the vase that had a good amount of water in the bottom. A lot of people ask me about tricks to keep the flowers lasting longer and the best advice I can give is to keep the water fresh and clean. If you pop a bit of the flower food in that will keep bacteria down because of the bleach in it but don't worry if you don't have any just change the water regularly and keep the flowers at room temp. Not next to a heater or in a draft. Enjoy!

Wedding themes

I haven't written for a while due to busy wedding times in the shop and a much needed summer holiday. Now I am back and thinking about weddings coming up and the rapidly approaching year count down to my wedding.

Being a florist people will have a high expectation for the flowers so unless I submit to the rebel in me that say why not shock them and have no flowers I best get thinking!!

In my experience most people start off by thinking about a theme whether it might be as simple as a colour or the whole effect such as a place that inspires them, i.e Moroccan with hot coloured flowers, garlands and drapes, Moroccan music and food. New York with red, white and blue, big red apples and stars and stripes everywhere. Perhaps they might want it to have a really wacky theme like a beach with sand and palm trees, big arrangement incorporating tropical fruits and ice sculptures! If you are like me and try to live your life in an ethical and 'Eco-friendly' way this might inspire your day.

So how can I make my wedding as ethical and Eco-friendly without making it too hippy. I want a really sophisticated look to the day and show all that you don't have to wear a potato sack dress and eat out of bowls made of leaves to make a really amazing ethical wedding day. Or at least be able to off set the honeymoon carbon footprint!

Starting with the flowers I did a bit of research into seasonal flowers for September that can be sourced in the UK... not the most difficult but not quite as much as perhaps mid summer would be. I found this website really helpful
www.flowers.org.uk/public/flowers-by-month.php

So I have quite a few to go through I just have to decide what to do with them! I like the thought of big voluptuous vases and troughs of flowers and foliage. Bright colours to contrast with black tablecloths and shiny silver cutlery. The guest will be in black tie so we need to add some spice and colour into the day and the photos! I still don't know what exactly I want to have bouquet wise, perhaps a hat of flowers instead as I am sure if I was to carry a bouquet I would be fiddling and re-arranging all the way up the isle! So I feel I am getting there with the flowers.
Now there's the dress to think about!
To be continued....

Some pictures from our fruity wedding workshop...

Fruity Weddings!

Now don't get too excited I don't mean naked weddings involving all sorts of naughtiness...sorry! I mean weddings with fruit incorporated.
We have a fruity wedding workshop coming up and I'm trying to decide what fruit to incorporate into the workshop. So Anni and I have done a brain storm...

Me-so I was thinking about the fruit to use what do you think?
Anni- ooo...um cherries, shower bouquet with cherries falling out and down. Gorgeous reds and pinks, deep greens, romantic and voluptuous
Me- yer that's a good idea...and they could be incorporated in the arrangements easily as well.
Anni- grapes, mmm no think they might go a bit funny!
Me- No, grapes definitely not good, perhaps pears! They are king of sexy, romantic, good shapes for a wedding! Not very interesting colour wise though...
Anni-perhaps sprayed, gold, silver
Me-Yes, that's a good idea, probably not for the brides bouquet or button hole but arrangements with them in!

This is what we do for most events we do, normally either just the two of us or with wedding couple. Unless they have got set ideas of what they want. Which hardly any do!

It's always nice, and good fun to think a bit out of the box, try things that perhaps hasn't been done before.

So it's decided, a hot pink and red shower bouquet of roses, gerberas, foliage's and cherries cascading out and down! I feel excited just thinking about it. Arrangements of big bold red gerbera, cherries and gold sprayed pears! Beautiful....watch this space for pics in a few weeks.

Sweet Williams!

I just can't get enough of sweet williams at the moment! People always ask me what my favourite flower is and I really never know what to say but at the moment I would definitely be bigging up the sweet william! My loves defiantly change with the seasons. It is so nice to use flowers that are in season especially if they have been grown in England.

I am would absolutely love to be able to use all English grown flowers but it's just wouldn't be possible in my line of work which generally consists of commercial flowers. English grown/seasonal flowers are not the best at lasting especially in bright lights and air con that we have to deal with in most if not all our commercial contracts.

Artifical Flowers

Recently we have been asked a lot about artificial flowers for restaurants, casinos and receptions. So I thought I would write a bit about them

Artificial, faux, silk, fake there are so many words for them, some better than others! So I though I would look up artificial flowers on the internet and found out a bit of interesting info from the good old Wikipedia

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_flower)

or a bit of it here...
Materials used in their manufacture have included painted linen and shavings of stained horn in Egypt, gold and silver in ancient Rome, rice-paper in China, silkworm cocoons in Italy, colored feathers in South America, and also wax and tinted shells. Modern techniques involve carved or formed soap, nylon netting stretched over wire frames, ground clay, and mass-produced injection plastic mouldings. Polyester is the major material for manufacturing of artificial flowers since 1970s. Most artificial flowers in the market nowadays are made of polyester fabrics.

So artificial flowers have been around for a pretty long time and like with a lot of things with time the quality of the product has been dramatically improved!

People still have a misconception that artificial flowers aren't very nice, look plastic and sit in the corner of a room gathering dust. Only one of these is still true! They will gather dust and there's not much even the most revolutionary scientist can do about that!

Now though the quality of artificial flowers can be quite amazing ! There are many great artificial flowers producers in the UK such as Blooms (www.blooms.uk.com) and Ruckleys (www.ruckley.com). At In Bloom we sell some of Ruckley flowers but also have some of the flowers that we buy from a wholesalers in the market. They are slightly cheaper (in price) but really very good and can be used to create the most amazing arrangements. As seen!

This weeks activities

So I thought I should update with what we have been doing this week at In Bloom.

After a great weekend of warm sunshine and a full days wedding and funeral flowers workshop on Saturday we started off Monday with the usual contract flowers. Checking the flowers at the Radisson Blu and Harvey Nichols, providing flowers for City Spirit and Morgan Hunt etc.

Then to start thinking about getting things ready for the Sex and the City evening Friday, a screening of the new movie and a cocktail and champagne after party at Broadway Casino. What else would we do but our large Martini glasses filled to the brim with pink water and luscious black roses overflowing with pearls. We decided to add an extra bit of sparkle by using a battery operated light inside the vase and putting them on a mirror plate to reflect the light. Mirror plates are really great for adding the extra touch to an arrangement for corporate events and weddings. We have done these flowers FOC as a sponsor of the event so we are all off to enjoy this event tomorrow and hopefully do a bit of networking... We have done a lot of flowers for the Casino in the past and have been asked to provide some artificial arrangements for areas within the casino which we have delivered today.

We have also had one of our regular customers in to order a delivery of flowers so tomorrow we have a great £100 bouquet to deliver. Those sort of customers and very welcome and enables us to get some beautiful cymbidium orchid and callas to make a stunning arrangement.

We are also providing some nice big bouquets for the Young Business awards. We have been doing their flowers for the past two years when they hold their awards at the ICC, Birmingham.
So, a busy week now I look back on it and looking forward to the bank holiday weekend. Luckily I have got it off and going to Bath for a hen weekend!

What this blog is for...

Hi all,
Thank you for visiting. I hope that you will keep an eye on my blog and let me know if there is anything that you think would be useful for me to talk about.

Firstly I want to tell you all about myself and my business.

My name is Kate and I have been a florist for eight years. I can't quite believe it has been that long and if I was told all that time ago that I would still be a florist 8 years down the road let a alone own my own business I definitely wouldn't have believed you.

I am often asked how I became a florist as it is a pretty hard business to get into. It's not as though we are taught anything about flowers or plants at school let alone how to arrange them. So unless you have a natural passion and big pot of money that enables you to either grow or buy lots of flowers and do courses how would you know?

I have to admit that I didn't have a passion for flowers, I wasn't a child that spend hours playing in the garden growing seeds and making daisy chains! I sometimes feel bit of a fraud when people come into the shop and talk of their passion and love for everything floral! I do however have a passion for colour, shape and style. At school I every much lent toward art and design. Creating paintings with a lot of texture and depth of colour. Using odd bits and pieces to make marks and sticking thing onto the canvas to bring the painting out and create something that people want to touch, question and enjoy.

I went from school to UCE to do a foundation course and specialised in textile design which I quite enjoyed, it gave me a better breadth of knowledge of texture and working with unusual materials to create a piece of work that inspires and gets people talking.

I didn't decide to continue with studies and went off traveling about to find the thing that I wanted to do, something that I was good at and hopefully enjoyed.

It wasn't until I ended up in Sydney and my father tried to get me into smart clothes and off to an advertising company that I panicked and flick furiously through the brick that is the Sydney Morning Herald! I had got through, A, B, C, D....stop for a bit of re hydration! E and then finally F and there it was, an advert for FLORIST WANTED. Well, I thought, a florist, mmm, that sounds like an interesting job and as with most 20 year old girl thought that would make pretty different from everyone else, thinking back to a time at Marlybone station when I saw a girl working there at a florist looking very cool, interesting and confident! That could be me!

So I went to work. With a little help from my family I got a CV together and went trawling the streets of Syndey dropping in my CV and trying to explain my enthusiasm and commitment to becoming a florist. (Not having even tried to arrange a flower or even brought I bunch before!) As you might expect I didn't get very far and had to fall back on a bit of waitress experience that I had.

Until one day, while I was sitting by the window of my castle, no, sorry I'm not writing a fairy tale am I!

I was actually sitting on a old bus on the way down to Circular Key and got a phone call from Sally at Buds and Bowers. She needed a junior and wondered if I would like to go down to see her for an interview. Of course I did! Yes, I would be there whenever she wanted me!

So there I was in my interview making the first bouquet of my life. If only I had taken a picture of it, I would love to see it now, in fact I would have a big blown up copy of it on the wall in our workshop room to show my students now just how bad I was when they are worrying about their stems spirally and placement of flowers!

Amazingly Sally gave me a chance. She said I looked like a doing person and with my art background and waitress experience she knew I wasn't scared of getting my hands dirty and had knowledge of how colours worked together. Phew, imagine if she had told me to get lost. What would I be doing now....

So having worked for Buds and Bowers, cleaning buckets and vases, conditioning flowers and the occasional bouquet I though yes, this is fun. A job that is different every day learning something new. Whether it be a new flower, a new style or way of of using flowers to create shapes and design. So I decided it was probably about time I got some 'proper' training.

I ended up back in the UK and completing Jane Packers career course. Due to having had a small amount of previous experience I picked up all the techniques quickly and was subsequently offered a job with Jane to work in her Oxford Street concession and then move to Birmingham to help open their concession in Birmingham's amazing new Bull Ring and Selfridges development.

I learnt quite a bit about the running of business working in both places. How to deal with London customers who have so much money that advising a nice size bouquet to start from about £400.00, yes that wasn't a slip of finger on the keyboard! £400.00 arrangements were quite normal and nothing to stutt tt tt tt er over! The £400.00 plus bouquets didn't follow me up to Birmingham but the confidence to not undersell out products definitely did.

So having worked for Jane Packer for about 3 years I decided I quite fancied trying to work for myself and without thinking too much about it I did it! Keeping my overheads very low and building the business little by little I grew great foundations and relationships with businesses and clients some of which have been with me for four and a half years.

I am extremely proud of having held weekly flower contracts with some great names such as the Radisson Blu and Harvey Nichols. Both of whom are constantly approached by other florists who want the job. This keeps us on our toes, changing styles and colour with the seasons and fashions of the time.

What has made my life a lot easier (except the VAT and NI calculations each month!) has been Anni who joined In Bloom three years ago in September. Time has really flown by and we have supported each other through all sorts and built up a great relationship. It's great to be able to trust someone to look after the business that I have worked so hard and stressed so much over while I am away or unable to come in. We both have to rely on each other and know that if something needs doing one of us will do it/remember to do it or whatever. It is worth a lot.

So, that's all for now and should give you a good insight to how In Bloom started and what I am all about.

I want this blog to work for you as well as me! I will be giving tips on running a business as well as lots of tips on flowers, trends whether it be for day to day flowers, commercial flowers or the very important wedding flowers. (I am getting married next year so this also might feature heavily! Warning!)

We have a website http://www.inbloomflowers.co.uk/ that shows all the course and bits and pieces that we do so if you want more info on that then please have a look and/or get in touch!
Bye for now...