You know I love color.  Lots of deep saturated and bright colors. Purples, magenta, burgundy, copper. It all speaks my name.  But I will do lighter shades, and love to pair them with deep hues of greens.  Take a look at an order I put together for a client this Spring for a Local California Wedding.

Beautiful corsage for pin on with a natural English Garden feel. Small order for pickup, ordered online via our online store.

Unique and artsy Bridesmaid Bouquet ordered for a small local wedding in the Bay Area.

Fern accented boutonnieres for a wedding in Northern California.

I don't do a lot of pink and white, but when I do I the BLUSH out of it!

This beauty of a Bridal Bouquet was so fun to make. I love getting creative with the seasonal abundance available.  Spring is a great time for anemones and peonies of course!

G&G

 

A continuation of the photos of the yellow, cream and plum wedding at the Mill Valley Outdoor Art Club.

I was asked to provide a tabletop design for a special event this summer in SF, and I love anything even slightly sailor themed, so I decided to include some nautical feeling to the design.  The linen is a new rental from Napa Valley Linens, a cut out navy blue fabric that I felt like really goes well with the white and greens in the flowers.

 

It's the small things that make a the design so fun:

Message in a bottle by G&G and crossed knot silverware rented from Classic

All for the magazine, Ceremony.

Sailor at heart,

Gorgeous and Green

Last fall Gorgeous and Green was approached my a lovely woman Anna, from the 50th UC Berkeley reunion class.

She wanted to bring some Cal colors and overall life and beauty into the Faculty Club, so I rented some beautiful vintage styled wrought iron pedestal vases and created overgrown blue and gold and white arrangements with trailing vines and curly willow.  She really wanted it to bring color and nature down onto the tables.

Recycled Biodiesel is used in this Gorgeous and Green delivery vehicle!

The Chancellor was going to speak at their event, so we created a lovely taller arrangement for the background. I'm a Cal Alum, so of course,  Go Bears! Pilar G&G

Yesterday Gorgeous and Green created a tablescape for a rustic English Garden styled wedding, and where did I choose to set it?  At the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden of course!  I love the location because it's so close to home, I'm super familiar because I've done a load of weddings and events here, and it's beautiful.  For local couples and anyone looking to throw a party, it's a great and fairly inexpensive place to have your event.  I chose to set the table in the Redwood Grove, and the setting was almost magical. Here's the magazine layout from the photographer, Brittany Waddell:

 

This summer I did a last minute LARGE wedding at the Pauley Ballroom on the UC Berkeley campus.  There were 26 or so tables, each with their own tall trumpet vases filled with a flowing arrangement at the top.  We at Gorgeous and Green were busy getting all those flowers cleaned and arranged! As you may already know, I never use floral foam, so figuring out how to get these huge arrangements to work and look beautiful, took some experimentation, but alas, I did it.  And all with two weeks two plan and execute.

The arrangements were classic bouquets of lilies, roses and hydrangea with flowing orchids and ivy.  I also did some lovely wedding party bouquets and boutonnieres, but alas don't have any pics on my phone of those.

  GO Cal! (my alma mater) G&G

Going Green at the University Club, San Francisco

First of all, I want to thank the bride: Kelly, for her openness to green and sustainable options and flexibility in finding options that would work for her wedding and color scheme. Second, I'd just like to say, orange, brown and white are a beautiful color combination, and even more so in local, organic and recycled tones!  Check out the orange recycled glass vases I used and biodegradable ribbons... all part of the magic! Here are a few teaser pics from the Photographer Lucie XYZ Photography, thanks for such wonderful shots!  She highlights a few more moments from the Gorgeous and Green event last saturday on her blog.

What a cool shot of the couple in the gold elevator at the University Club!

In green, classy style and health,

G&G

Local, Sustainable and Organic 

In November, we did a wedding for Heidi and Dave, who had chosen to do local and sustainable flower design for their wedding.  The wedding took place at the Chaminade, very close to their home in Santa Cruz.  I don't live in Santa Cruz, so I stayed at a local beach cabana with my husband under the guise of a surf weekend.  We brought our dog and all the materials I would need to craft 21 large table centerpieces of orchids, some cocktail arrangements, a table card arrangement and the wedding party's flowers.   Heidi originally wanted orange and purple flowers, but when we talked with Dave about his needs he asked that we not use very much purple, as in his Italian culture it was considered bad luck.  So out went the purple and in came the green, white and orange color scheme that I suggested.   I had seen some beautifully decorated rooms where the floral designer used potted orchids as the centerpiece, so I suggested we do the same because the plants could also be used as gifts for those who wanted to take one home with them.  I used willow branches, moss and glass vases with rocks to pot the orchids, and they looked beautiful in the room.  Around the centerpieces I added some moss and branches I had found from the sea and that had dropped from trees in the mountains.  We decided a slightly mountain-y feel would go well for where the Chaminade is located (in the Santa Cruz mountains).  The ceilings were bare and we needed some height in the design, so the tall orchid centerpieces did the job wonderfully. We also wanted to add some color to the tables but didn't want to have to buy tablecloths or order special cloth so I found some elephant dung paper (paper made from elephant poo, tree free, recycled and biodegradable) that came in a dark orange that Heidi was fond of.  We used the paper at each place setting and used if for the tablecards and table numbers. I snuck in a little purple with some of the green flowering kale for the cake table.  Throughout all of the tables we used floating candles and votive candles for ambiance.  The dinner was in the evening, so to create an atmospheric light without turning up the electrical lights made it feel very romantic.  There were a lot of windows in the room, so we also strung up some hanging glass votive holders in the windows, which also added a soft light and twinkling. For the Bridal party's flowers, I used what was in season from some local flower growers.  Heidi wanted Calla lilies and flowering kale matched the color scheme, so we used them for the bouquets.   I also used veriflora certified roses for some of the boutonnieres and for the Bridal Bouquet. Overall, the wedding looked beautiful and the atmosphere during dinner was very romantic.  Using local and fair trade flowers made the wedding a conscious wedding, that matched the lives of the bride and the groom. For more information about green wedding planning and floral design, visit us at www.gorgeousandgreenevents.com In Green and Health G&G