Bridal Guide September/October 2011 – Floral Fantasy
In Bloom New York's Floral Fantasy Store in Bridal Guides September/October 2011 Issue
A tight fuchsia hyacinth bouquet compliments the structured shaped of this romantic gown. The saturated hue of the open hyacinths really adds a beautiful pop of color to an otherwise monochromatic ensemble.
The hand-crafted silk organza florals in this Alyne dress is transformed into reality with the Duchess Garden Rose & Gloriosa Lily Bridal Bouquet.
For the ultra bohemian bride, a clutch of Yves Piaget Garden Roses is a statement in itself.
Enjoy!
PiperLime Fall/Winter 2011 Showroom Installation
Last April was a very busy month of us. On top of the usual weddings & events we created a few showroom installations in New York during market week. One of our favorites was for Piperlime for their Fall/Winter 2011/2012 collection. The inspiration we were given was to go very natural and to use organic elements that evoked the spirit of autumn.
Natural Driftwood & Dried Orange Yarrow Sculpture
We created a large installation comprised solely from a large piece of natural driftwood from California and over a hundred stems of dried orange Yarrow. The color of the driftwood blended naturally against the collection and the vibrant orange became a focal point in the room. This is another great example of using an ordinary flower in mass and making it more special. See Baby's Breath Example here.
Driftwood & dried Mushrooms
To create the same feeling throughout the showroom, we created a few mini sculptures of natural driftwood, dried mushrooms and dried salal leaves. As you can see, the color palette was on point!
Lastly, a wild arrangement of orange Ranunculus arranged in a natural wooden vase to greet each guest!
A Garden Wedding for a City Bride
One of our favorite sorts of bride is the kind that not only feels open to an interesting design proposal but one that comes to us with a specific concept around which we can design her wedding. That’s why when Lauren came to us with 60 vintage & unique teacups she had been collecting for the year prior to her special day, we wanted to offer a dream design unlike any other in In Bloom history.
Preferring a garden ceremony and reception in a colonial mansion to a city wedding, the bride & groom chose to marry just North of Manhattan at the Round Hill House in Washingtonville, New York.
Given her taste for a romantic & old world wedding, Lauren asked for a primarily white bridal bouquet with pops of green and hints of the most subtle pink out there. We came up with a mix of white freesia, white garden roses, blush ranunculus, and white sweet peas – keeping the stems naturally long.
For the bridesmaid’s bouquets, we simply paired white garden roses and white hydrangeas. For the groom’s boutonniere, we coupled a white ranunculus with sprigs of rosemary. This became the first introduction of herbs later to be seen in the reception table designs.
Pillar candles of varying heights with small groupings of white rose petals marked the aisle for the youngest participant to walk down to the altar.
We decorated the cornice of the birch altar provided by the venue with trailing Spanish moss, spraying dendrobium orchids, light pink & white peonies, and open garden roses.
Pale pink ostrich feathers at each place setting added an interesting element to the two table designs centering around Lauren’s collection of vintage tea cups.
The first design included an antiqued white candelabra with five unique teacups and saucers. Each cup contained a single type of either blush or white peonies, blush or white ranunculus, or white garden roses to keep the design pure.
The fruit bowl table design incorporated green grapes, green apples, brown sugar pears, and touches of white spray roses as well as fresh spearmint in a brushed gold pedestal bowl. Three teacups turned into appropriate candle holders for white tealights.
What a memorable trip outside the city to filfill a dream wedding for Lauren and Jarrod. Congratulations again to you both!
Photo Credits: Growing Tree Photography
-Parker Voss
10th Annual Tulips & Pansies – The Headdress Affair
Last Thursday saw a major spectacle at Gotham Hall for the 10th Annual Tulips and Pansies: The Headdress Affair. Hosted by VillageCare to benefit its network of AIDS services in Manhattan, the runway show showcases the design of 19 floral design companies paired with clothing designers. As a first-time participant armed with Betsey Johnson as our supporting designer, we gladly took the challenge to build something big, beautiful, and beyond.
And thus, a punk-inspired Marie Antoinette was born. 
Our queen captured the electric spirit of Betsey Johnson with the luxe-glam of roses and peonies. The brainstorm process evolved from a peek at the Betsey Johnson S/S 2011 runway collection. Once decided on a custom, spray-painted petticoat dress, we set our imagination on a headpiece fit for an 18th century European court. Additional references included Carnival, La Catrina, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
The pink cabbage roses, peonies and baby's breath that recalled a powdered wig became a veritable garden for 6” silver glitter butterflies. Details below.
While we succeeded in concealing the water tubes necessary to keep the peonies (queen of all flowers) looking their best, our incredible model Stephanie withstood the substantial weight with elegance and grace. Many kudos to her for making the look appear both natural and effortless.
Ultimately, the runway walk – though only lasting a minute – was the shining moment for our design. It’s always enchanting for a designer to witness their work being brought to life. The feeling can be so surreal or unimagined that it becomes easy to forget how such a creation came to be. 
It was a true pleasure working on this project for such a charitable cause, and to see where our minds and flowers could lead us given a little inspiration. Looking forward to next year’s show already… Meanwhile, thanks to VillageCare, Betsey Johson and to Stephanie for stealing the runway!
Photo Credits: Andrew Werner, LINDSEYBELLE
-Parker Voss
Table Design at the New York Weddings Event 2011
Wedding design is a favorite area of interest for us floral & event designers, so our participation in the New York Wedding Event yesterday at the Metropolitan Pavilion became the highlight of a great week. This was our first year participating in the annual bridal show, which showcases the talent of the city’s top florists, caterers, photographers, bridal fashion designers, planners, etc.
The basis of our table design centered around new and vintage tableware, transparent and opaque glass, as well as peach, white & gray color palatte we've been wanting to incorporate into floral design for some time now.
The overall table arrangements featured five types of flowers in peach and white. The three handkerchief glass vases – courtesy of Steuben Glass for In Bloom New York – paired beautifully with the vintage, ruffled milk glass containers. We decided on a pure peach arrangement of long-stemmed French tulips and Juliet garden roses for the central arrangement. The medium-size glass handkerchief vase contained white peonies, sweet peas and lisianthus. To the right, a low milk glass hobnail bowl displayed the perfect marriage of peach sweet peas and Juliet garden roses.
For the place settings, we used clear glass for chargers and also found vintage milk glass plates on top of which we set fragrant gardenias. We loved the wavy transparency of the Venetian stemware, and found additional cohesion by adding the clear & milk glass candlesticks.
Here we are (Roshy Naini and Parker Voss) enjoying our final design before the Pavilion doors opened at 5pm.
We always have such a great experience working with New York Weddings, and are grateful for the many new brides, vendors and friends we met last night!
-Parker Voss
Campari & SKYY Spirits Event at the Empire Hotel Rooftop
Now that a year has passed since Campari’s 150th Anniversary Party at the Bowery Hotel (part 1 part 2), the liquor’s parent company SKYY Spirits came back to us to design another branded party - this time at the Empire Hotel Rooftop. Hosted by SKYY Spirits for Impact Magazine, the industry event welcomed executives for all major spirit companies including Campari’s top management from Milan. Given the in-the-spotlight spirit of the evening, the design called for luxe and very beautiful flowers, so we chose none other than orchids and lilies.
Our front bar arrangements consisted of red lilies with plum cymbidium orchids, red mocara and James Story orchids. Our team styled the bar with cymbidium heads, Campari and SKYY Infusions bottles along with custom menus offering the famed Negroni and Aperol Spritz cocktails.
We carried the cymbidium orchids up to the gold wire lighting fixtures as decoration above the bar. The six balls studded with white cymbidium and lemon leaves exceeded our expectations based on a trial on a single fixture – almost butterfly-like, the dozens of orchids appeared to flutter with the lights on!
The smaller arrangements for the low cocktail tables combined various types of red and golden-hued orchid stems in line with Campari's signature coloring.
The choice of florals worked well in the outdoor terrace whose tropical greenery suits the exotic appeal of orchids & lilies.
For the terrace bar, we kept the same combination of flowers but altered the hues. Here a detail of white lilies, white cymbidium orchids, red mocara and James Story orchids is a great example of how lilies and orchids share complimenting texture and lines.
Overall, we were happy to please the party’s host and surprise the venue itself by the transformation of the space. The success of the design can be attributed to an elegant & consistent visual scheme without over-branding a label familiar to all in attendance. We're always grateful to work along that fine line between the obvious and the unexpected when it comes to flowers.
-Parker Voss
Floral Board for American Eagle Outfitters
When American Eagle Outfitters came to us to design a floral board to be hung in their concept store for next season’s collection, we started to think what large, impactful and fragrant flowers would show off best on a 4’ x 5’ platform given the AE brand aesthetic. The American clothing and accessories retailer appealing to 15 to 25 year old girls and guys sought floral décor that freshly showcased the brand’s low-rise jeans, polo shirts, graphi T-shirts, and swimwear. Having seen one of our promotional materials featuring a detail of an anemone bouquet, they asked for a similar hued arrangment.
The final result combined stargazer lilies, purple roses, hot pink roses, white roses, white spider mums, green spider mums, iris, purple stock, pink gerber daisies, and white gerber daisies. We individually watertubed the flower heads before arranging them on a custom floral foam board.
We started arranging from the board's center so as to ensure an even overall arrangment.
The completed work showed off well amongst the company merchandise. Again, it's always a pleasure for us to combine retail and flowers, especially when the project calls for a design or scale out of the ordinary.
-Parker Voss
Spring Floral Trends for Bridal Guide
This month In Bloom had our second major feature in Bridal Guide magazine with our flowers featured in an editorial on Spring floral trends. We contributed several bouquets, each a very simple gathering of white or pink flowers to accessorize but not dominate the overall look.
Along with the March/April spread on Color Theory, our bouquets for this issue used a single color or subtle combination of pinks, whites and greens. The opening image features a bridal bouquet of soft pink roses, hot pink spray roses and seeded eucalyptus tied with two tones of pink satin and sheer ribbons as seen in a later image.
For these full-length shots, we provided a simpler alternative to the bridal bouquet that dominates the look; that is, the untied bouquet of a single flower type – such as the white peony blooms. Other pure options include the elegant yet often underestimated bundle of baby’s breath, or undoubtedly the blush ranunculus seen below. Open garden roses also tend to be a spectacular option coveted by brides for their beautiful fragrant.
Pick up the May/June issue of Bridal Guide to get a closer look at our flowers and the hundreds of wonderfully laid out pages on all things bridal.
-Parker Voss
Tablescape by Laura Kirar & TRU Partners Inc.
Yesterday In Bloom New York executed the florals for a design coordinated by the interior design firm Laura Kirar, one of the 30 designers creating innovative “tablescapes” for a gala dinner benefitting the New York School of Design, with special recognition of renowned designer Mario Buatta. The evening – inspired by the “The Prince of Chintz,” a moniker used to refer to Mr. Buatta’s unique style – marked the start of AVENUE Antiques & Art at the Amory Show, which features over 50 deals specializing in high quality art and antiques.
Laura Kirar’s team of junior designers requested pure white anemones arranged in the firm’s own bronze pillar holders. First, Parker rendered a sketch for their approval before finalizing the concept which included fishtail palm flowers. The tropical tendrils also became the perfect material for novel and matching napkin rings
We were thankful to be present for the table setup amongst the likes of designers Eric Cohler, Victoria Hagan, Campion Platt, Susan Nagle, and David Scott. At the end of the day, we are always excited to arrange flowers whether it be our design or your own.
-Parker Voss
Flowers at Paris Fashion Week
Now that Paris Fashion Week has about reached its finale we’ve surveyed most everything floral recently seen on the runways. Our favorite inclusion of flowers came last night with Riccardo Tisci’s designs on the Givenchy catwalk. The designer succinctly harnessed the richness, exoticism and true beauty of orchids for both pattern and runway design. Using tropicals and purple orchid plants to decorate several runway portals in floral abundance, the overall design showcased the living inspiration for new and interesting clothing done in black-patent, see-through organza, and orchid prints.
At Viktor+Rolf the Amsterdam-based fashion house stayed true to their favorite flower with a few sweaters featuring rose intarisas. The most recent edition since the giant sequence rose blooming on Natalie Portman’s gown at the Golden Globes appears to be the rose objectivitied – that is, the iconic bloom presented as if encased on the model's chest, a sort of object de curiosité to be artfully examined.
Italian designer Giambattista Valli never shys from using punchy colors in Fall e.g. this overcoat incorporating a graphic mix of flower shapes shaded in pinks and reds that very much reminds me of this pink ombre centerpiece.
Most of all, we admire when designers recognize that flowers are not only a Spring/Summer phenomenon. Countless varieties bloom during all seasons, so no wonder we find these dahlias – which we source locally in September and October – rendered by Belgian fashion designer Veronique Leroy for fashion house Leonard an appropriate print for Fall.
-Parker Voss
