Hitched.ca - we have been found!

We have a few Canadian wedding websites to ogle when wedding planning .. it is just plain factual. We were so stoked when approached by the Canadian wedding site "hitched.ca", asking to feature one of our most favorite wedding bouquets.
Of course we said YES!

We were totally honored to be chosen for the article "20 way's to make your wedding stand out". It was such a treat and we wanted to share it with you!
Don't you just love it eh? !

Please enjoy and give Hitched.ca some Canadian love!

Find the article below!

20 ways to make your wedding stand out! 

Nor Cal Weddings!

We are pleased to be featured on the NorCal wedding blog this spring!
Please feel free to take a visit ! NORCAL Wedding

We have a few screen shots for you to enjoy!

xoxo
Aim & Mel

Minty fresh

Hello Lovelies!
 We have been hard at work in the studio perfecting our dye colours. This week we have finished off our first mint hydrangea bouquet. This bouquet is part of an order for our client Rhianna.
Rhianna has 4 maids and a few little ladies in her wedding party, these lucky girls will get to hold and KEEP this fabulous bouquet! THAT IS SOOO COOL!

Check it out!

A wonderful first year!

   Though we have been in the wedding business over 17 years this was our first year of creating primarily alternative bouquets. We've loved the fresh weddings we had this year as well but we have fallen in love with Etsy and our alternative bouquets.

We have shipped our bouquets all over the world. Many bouquets have gone to Australia and the USA, we have shipped to Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.
We were blessed with a feature in Vogue Conde Nast publishing BRIDES magazine August/ September issue in the UK.

We have been featured on many large and small blogs alike, each one we are grateful for.

Below: David Tutera, It's a Brides life,  August 5th 2012 http://itsabrideslife.com/category/favors/page/2/

 

Below: The Off Beat Bride  http://offbeatbride.com/2012/07/colorado-vegan-vintage-wedding

As well as The frosted Petticoat http://www.frostedpetticoatblog.com/2012/09/awesomely-offbeat.html

And today you can find us on at KJ & Co's Etsy Roundup

 http://www.kjandco.ca/2012/12/etsy-round-up-cheery-yellow-wedding.html

An age old challenge ..

So, in the wedding world we have some challenges. 

In fresh wedding design the challenges are far greater BUT no matter if it is Fresh or Faux this one challenge is universal.

 Often brides fall in love with the romantic softness our bouquet's portray.

However a bride wants to keep in her colour scheme and somehow want's it incorporated.

Simple enough to do if it is a pale or pastel. With vibrant colours it is much trickier.

The harsh vibrance of deep tones really contrast with a soft romantic look and so the struggle begins.

This bouquet pictured is what we have so far for our client Michelle.

Michelle's dress is white and our hydrangea in this bouquet is just a shade off white.

The fabric flowers we have created are creamy with a pale blue centre.

Michelle's colour scheme is a persimmon orange-red, emerald-Aqua green (as echoed in our paper poppy) and a pale blue.

What we face here is a jarring contrast. 

It was an old thought that cream against white would make the white dirty .. what are your thought's on this?

What can we do to make this bouquet look softer? what shade should the Hydrangea be changed too?

Let us know your thought's!

Aim & Mel

Off Beat Bride

Soo, as I said in our last post .. fun stuff this week!

Our past Etsy Bride was featured on a well trafficked Blog.
Here is the link Off Beat Bride and here are a few of the pictures Bailie sent us. Please visit the Off beat Bride site, it is amazing!
Further below you will find more pictures of this weeks work .. and some problem solving techniques for communication.

Problem solving - communicating a visual art

After putting together a wedding this week our client still had a hard time with her bouquet. We had taken all of our images on your photo shelf in daylight. Her bouquet seemed to be looking a little flat thought we had made sure to follow her exact instructions. After taking images at serveral angles and different variance of day light during the day it then dawned on me.

My bride needed to see her bouquet being carried, on a person. We need to bring the bouquet to life for her.

I called on Iris to dawn her photo shoot dress and stand with the bouquet.

As soon as we sent this photo below our bride responded with in seconds! She was over the moon! 

She was able to feel the romance, warmth and softness of  her bouquet and visualize herself walking down the Isle holding it.

Pheww! job well done.

Weddings = busy hands !!

Wow, it has been a crazy week! We are trying to tie up loose ends this week.
Aim will be manning the shop next week while I take some time away. We will not be designing next week and Aim will be answering email's but she mostly likely will not quote weddings.

Aim was pleasantly surprised at the cost of shipping Claire's bouquet to Australia, we managed to ship it small packet - 6- 10 day's for less then $50.00 YEEEEHAWW!!  NOW, this did not come with a tracking number (always makes us nervous) but the alternative is shipping over sea and that can take up to 10 weeks.. once the package is on the water you have no clue where it is until it makes landfall in Australia.

Soo lets post some pretty pictures of our work, you always like that :)




This bouquet was a sample for a potential client .. we have not heard back so we are figuring it is a no - go .. such is life :)

This was Claire's bouquet which she will receive soon!! 

These are our handmade paper pine cone flowers - Australia is very picky and we did not want to chance our package been confiscated for natural product in customs. Better safe then sorry!

This is Claire's hair clip we created for her

This was a wedding we created for Jamie from Braintree M.A. in the USA,

it should arrive to her in the next 10 day's.

This was a bridal bouquet we created with a matching boutonniere for our reporter friend Kayla in MillBrook N.Y.

We had some other exciting stuff this week and more pictures! 

I will tell you about it in the next post :) 

  

Turning a Waltz into a flower

Good day,
We spent the morning tea staining paper for Claire's bouquet.
After sun drying it, we ran the paper through the printer to impress her wedding waltz notes.
Soon we will create the wedding blooms from our paper, we can hardly wait!!

More updates to come!

Aim

SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS

Part 2!!

The fruit of our labour today.

A bouquet full of meaning

Today we were working on Claire's bouquet.
She is one of our Australian brides. Just to catch you up to speed, Australia's second wedding season is in what would be their Spring. Our September thru November is the perfect time to wed due to cooler temperatures. Soo we have been having a booming summer working with our Australian brides!
Claire's bouquet has been a work in progress for over a month.
She has been collecting materials for us to incorporate into her bouquet : buttons, pin's, fabric, lace from grandmothers, sisters and other family members. Sheet music will be made into flowers and fabric from Japan will bring hints of colour to the bouquet.
Claire has packaged it all up and sent it to us here in Canada. (A 10 day postal journey)
We received the package yesterday with wonderful instructions and guidance.
Today was Day 1 of  3.

SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS

We are still away's a way from completion but we think it is progressing nicely!

More pictures tomorrow!

Enjoy!

Bailie's Alternative wedding

It's been a little while but we have come with pictures!
Bailie was an Etsy client of ours from the USA (we - being in Canada). She was so kind to send along a thank you and some images to share with us.
Bailie is stunning! and of course she is the one in Blue!
Enjoy the photos!

Thank you Bailie!

Aim & Mel

SHOP ALTERNATIVE BLOOMS

Guess where you can spot us!!

We made it into an Etsy Weddings email !!
Here is the link : Etsy Weekly picks : Princess Grace

Also you can find us down town Hamilton tonight at the Beehive collective group gathering with the Etsy Canada team! We had such a great time last month in Toronto soooo now we can't wait to dig in and get crafty with the Hamilton Art community and Etsy artists!

A little eye candy for today:
We have gone Aqua with our handmade Pearls and Poppies bouquet.
Let us know what you think!