Chocolate Scented Cosmos

You are never going to believe this!  These flowers are called cosmos and they literally smell just like chocolate. It is so crazy! I never knew there were flowers that actually smelled like chocolate. I think these would be fun in a bouquet where a bride really loves chocolate or at a candy party. These flowers are unbelievable!

LA Flower Market

Today I got to go to the LA Flower Market with Tara who is the buyer for The Hidden Garden. It was really cool to go around to the different growers and suppliers and see what they had to offer. I learned how important it is to get the best quality for the best price and being aware of what other places charge for the same product. I love going to the market because I always see flowers I have never seen before that inspire me. 

Bar Mitzah Sample

The Hidden Garden has a sample room which is used to show the client what  the party or wedding is going to look like before the actually date so if there needs to be changes they can be made before. This week I helped put together this arrangement for a Bar Mitzah. I love to them and the flim loop throughout the arrangement. It is really fun!

Cheerful Party

This week I got to help Jorge and Singred make arrangements for a party. I love working with the designers and learning from them. This party was difficult because we didn't have very many flowers to work with but still wanted to make the arrangement look full. I learned how to make an arrangement look more full with less flowers by grouping and putting more flowers towards the bottom.

Insect Repellant

The Beverly Hills hotel has some tables outside and often times there are a lot of bugs.  Lavender, Rosemary, and Eucayptus, help to repel bugs. I never knew this before. I think it is a really great idea. The arrangement looks good, smells, good and repels bugs. What more could you want? 

Sunset Blvd Wedding

I wedding was really amazing. Throughout the evenet there was a very distinct color progression. The flower inside the house were all white. As you moved to the ceremony area the colors progressed from white to white with accents of light purple. Finally as you made your way to the reception area the colors progressed form accents of light purple to bright purples with no white at all. I loved this idea and thought it was really fun. At this wedding I learned how important it is to be calm when handling issue that come up. Right before pictures the Groom decided he did not like the shade of purple his orchid boutinneer was. He wanted a boutineer to me made out of lisianthis. We explained to him that lisianthis would not hold up all day. So instead of stressing about it, we just made 3 differnt lisianthis boutineers to make the client happy. 

Advice

Throughout my experience at The Hidden Garden I have been asking everyone I can what would be the best advice you could give me about the floral industry this is what people said....


Suehay: Have passion for art. Know colors and textures and just really love it. As a rule try not to use more than three colors or three different flowers in an arrangement. 


Johnny: When people hire designers they look for speed and ability so it is important to be fast.

David: Believe that you can make something beautiful and know your color combinations.

Taylor: Know your client and your space. You need to know how an arrangement is going to look at the venue. You must  be able to tell a client when something is not gonna look good in the venue because it reflects on you. 

Juan: Have a good repore with the places you deliver. Never leave anything behind.

Trisha: Listen to the client don't try to give your opinion. Ask questions to figure out what they like and what feel they are trying to achieve on their wedding day.

Malibu Wedding

I am absolutely in love with this venue! It was beautiful! The cocktail hour was overlooking the ocean and the ceremony was in a beautiful garden. I loved the very simple feel of this wedding. They had wooden lanterns and clusters of potted plants and arrangements along the sides of the aisle. We had to stay and help with the change over after the cermony. I love being behind the sense and making things beautiful and creating that special day. The feel of this wedding and the atmosphere was really beautiful I loved being a part of it.

Boutonnieres

A lot of people don't like doing personal work because it is really small and takes a lot of patience sometimes. I love making boutonnieres, to me they are so fun. I really had fun making these boutonnieres because they were organic and non traditional. I love the twine wrapped around the stems. It tied in well with the whole theme of the wedding. 

Bird Nest Flower Girl Baskets

This is so cool! I love these. The client for the wedding this week wanted flower girl baskets that look like bird nests. As we sat there trying to come up with a way to make a birds nest basket we thought of the sphere moss base. We decided if we cut them in half and added curly willow it could look like a birds nest. At the beginning I didn't know how well they would turn out but after trying a few different things I love the way they look. I have so much fun making these and going through the problem solving process of how to make a birds nest flower girl basket. I love these! I want them at my wedding!

Orchid

I was really excited this week to be able to make my first orchid. I lined the container and put foam on the inside to help center the orchid in the middle. I wired the orchid to a bamboo stick so that it wouldn't tip over. Then I used moss pins to secure the moss at the base and added succulents to complete the design. I had a lot of fun making this. The quality or orchids that The Hidden Garden gets is absolutly incredible. 

Corporate Party

This was a corporate party at Hotel Bel Air that I was able to be very involved in. I helped make all the centerpieces and I got to see how everything fit together at the event. I learned how important it is to know the area the party is going to be held in and helping clients pick things that are going to compliment the space. This room has lavender carpet and silver shandelier and very silver decorations on the wall. The purple and green really looked good in the room.

Client Arrangements

I love that I was able to make some actual arrangements for clients. I love to be the person behind the scenes  that makes someone smile or feel like someone is thinking about them. I love to be apart of that story. I love how I am able to be creative and show my personal style and have experienced designers give me tips on what to imporve. This is probably one of my favorite things to do.

Beverly Hills Hotel

I got to go to the Beverly Hills Hotel and refresh some of the centerpieces. This was a really awesome experienced. I learned that you have to wire the orchids onto sticks so that they don't look droopy. I learned how to properly display arrangements so that they look the best in the given space. I also got a chance to make some of the smaller arrangements for the rossevelt hotel this week. It was kind of challeging because I could only use one orchid in a really small vase but they still all had to look different. I also got to make a rose bouquet for one of the spas in the hotel. I really like doing hotel pieces.

Huntley Hotel Party

I got to help work on this party at the huntley hotel. I loved the style of this party very vintage and fun. I have been really starting to learn that to be in the event industry you have to be able to come up with and give ideas on the spot. Then event planner didn't know how she wanted to set up the buffet and she didn't have enough candles for one of the stands so trisha, our event specialist, suggested reflexing some roses and putting them on the stands. We tried it and it looked really great. I also learned how important it is to build relationships with the event planners because they can refer you to other clients. This event planner we were working was really good at that.