Petalena: Creative Designs for Weddings and Special Events

Oh sigh, Apryl and I have been the luckiest floral designers. Our couples this year have been so fabulous and fun and the weddings have been so simply gorgeous!

Here are photos and design notes on a wedding we just finished up this weekend:

Lush and Tropical Table Flowers

Not to toot our own horn too much, but gorgeous huh?
Our bride and groom wanted tropical feeling flowers in a magenta and white color palette. We worked with beautiful peonies, dahlias, and orchids along with fun foliage leaves to really make everything lush and special.

Table Flowers at the Pierce House

Long Family Table Arrangement

We just love these colors. So fresh and vibrant! For the long family table above we did long and low arrangements – with the peonies and dahlias in this kind of design, they almost looked like luscious water lilies.

Close-up View of the Head Table

Dahlias, Orchids, and Fuschias

Peonies and Pink Dahlias

And now onto the bridal bouquet:

Bridal Bouquet

We used almost entirely all orchids for this bouquet, hand-wiring each one – which while time-consuming – made the bouquet very light and easy to hold.

Bridal Bouquet in the Studio

Close-up of bouquet

Bud Vases
We put these along the fireplace mantles at the Pierce House:

Peony Bud Vase

Narines in Bud Vase

"Gay Paris" Peonies

Church Arrangements:
The ceremony was in the most beautiful little chapel – the Swedenborg Chapel in Harvard Square. It’s such a jewel box of church.

Ceremony Arrangements at the Swedenborg Chapel

Altar Arrangement

Altar Candles

The flowers were fun and wild here with huge fan-tail palm branches and curly willow. I wish we could do this wedding all over again. Thank you Jen & Amin!!!

Flower Design & Photos by Petalena

I am obsessed with garlic scapes! Not only are they the most delicious things to saute up and serve with eggs, but guess what? You can also use them in floral arrangements. Here is an arrangement Apryl and I did this weekend for a gorgeous wedding, that I just love:

Garlic Scapes with Orchids and Birds of Paradise

Aren’t they wild? They remind me of Medusa’s hair or something fabulously wild!

Arrangement with Garlic Scapes

Orchids and Scapes

The MOST wild things ever!

Designs and Photos by Petalena

Connie Miller from StudioAtticus just sent us some of her lovely photos from a wedding we both worked on at the beginning of June:

Bride's Bouquet. Photo by Connie Miller of StudioAtticus.

We just loved this bridal bouquet!!! Top five faves, really. It was all green – lights and some darker, but especially chartreuse. We went really luxurious with lady’s slipper orchids and ivory peonies and lots of lush garden foliage like maiden hair fern and mint.

Bridesmaid Bouquet. Photo by Connie Miller of StudioAtticus.

The bridesmaid bouquets were ivory and lavender with some chartreuse accents. We actually ended up wiring gladiola flowers into all the bouquets. It’s not a flower we use that often but comes in a fantastic chartreuse color that our bride loved.

Bridesmaid Bouquet. Photo by Connie Miller of StudioAtticus.

And, what might be the two prettiest flower girls ever, sporting our green hellebore flower crowns:

Flower Girls with Green Hellebore Flower Crowns

For more of Connie’s lovely photos, click here.

Flowers by Petalena

We just finished up flowers for a fun and lovely couple who got married at the Charles Hotel this past weekend. The couple wanted a blending of traditional Chinese elements and modern design. Our color palette was red (a traditional color of Chinese weddings), magenta, teal, and chartreuse.

Bridal Bouquet by Petalena with Phalenopsis Orchids & Peonies

We’re using peonies as much as we can right now while the season lasts through the beginning of July. They are simply delectable, edible (I wish, but I don’t think they would taste very good!). Along with two varieties of phalenopsis orchids – one large, one small a little bit of green hydrangea and loops of bear grass.

Bridesmaid Bouquet by Petalena

Our bridesmaid bouquet had some of the most fragrant and luscious garden roses – Yves Piaget.

Close up for phalenopsis orchid

Detail of Bridal Bouquet

And now, onto the ceremony arrangements – we had so much fun creating these red carnation pomanders – aren’t they the coolest?:

Red Pom Pew Ends

And for the reception at the Regatta Bar:

Bride & Groom's Sweetheart Table

The color palette was essentially identical to the bouquet – with deep reds, magentas, and chartreuse green. We used more of the deep red peonies, magenta peonies, Yves Piaget garden roses, green hydrangea, and bear grass loops for a modern touch. Some table were more magenta, others more red.

Magenta and Green Table Arrangement

Red, Magenta, and Green Table Arrangement

Red & Green Table Arrangement

Magenta & Green Table Arrangement

Lovely, no?

Designs by Petalena

My birthday was last week and Apryl got me the most beautiful garden roses to celebrate! (After all, why have a floral design business if you can’t buy flowers for your friends?) They are such a lovely peachy-pink – simply gorgeous!

Birthday Roses

For a few days, I just left them simply in a vase near a window but then I added a few things and made two little but lovely arrangements:

Birthday Arrangement with Oregano, Scabiosa, & Astilbe

Little Vase Arrangement with Roses and Herbs

These are all those fabulous classic summer flowers, old fashioned English garden roses, astilble, pale lavender scabiosa, and herbs. Apryl & I love to use herbs, especially with old fashioned roses – such a classic pairing in the garden with mint or sage.

P.S. Oh, and note another birthday gift was a very snazzy Canon Rebel XS (used here) from my family so I’m hoping to take some really beautiful photos!!!

Petalena

Oh sigh, as the summer solstice approaches Apryl and I had the lovely chance to work with beautiful flowers in a fresh and light color palette of lavenders, deep pinks, ivories, and greens:

Pink Garden Roses with Dahlias, Scabiosa, Oregano, and Lavender

Fresh Lavender

Love, love, love summer and all its beauty!

Petalena

While we  were in the studio working this past weekend, I snapped this picture of pretty fluffy chartreuse viburnum with a phalenopsis orchids.  I love this color combination, and in this photo how the light catches the soft edge of the orchid’s petals:

Studio Still Life: Orchid and Viburnum

We’re off this weekend, but stay tuned next week for a very pretty East meets West style wedding at the Reggatta Bar at the Charles Hotel. More soon!

Petalena

We’re continuing our blog post from the other day on our most recent weekend wedding at the State Room. The style of the arrangements was garden-y, loose, and lovely in a color palette of chartreuse, lavenders, greens, and ivories. We did a few varied styles of arrangements with a different kind of fruit filling the interior of the large square glass containers: kumquats, clementines, lemons, and pears, all of which you can see below:

Lemon arrangement with peonies, mokara orchids, and jasmine vine

Lemon containers with mock orange, mint, and mokara orchids

And pears:

Pear container with mock orange, peonies, mokaras, and fiddleheads

Pears with Lisianthus and Viburnum

Pear container with ivory flowers and fiddleheads

We love the look achieved by using different fruits – in some cases, the fruit brightened the overall look and feel of the arrangement (with the lemons especially); in others the fruit added a subtlety and nuance (as seen in the pear arrangements above).

And kumquats:

Kumquat container with lisianthus, peonies, and mokara orchids

Kumquat container with rooms beyond

Kumquat container with parrot tulips and lisianthus

Kumquats with peonies, lisianthus, viburnum, and mint

And clementines:

Clementine container gorgeousness

Close up of clementine container with peonies and jasmine vine

I know we posted an exhausting amount of photos for this wedding – but the images came out so pretty, I had the hardest time deciding!

A note about the flowers – we used a fairly large variety of flowers for these arrangements. Almost all arrangements had almost every kind of flower or foliage, but the trick was using them in different amounts so each felt unique and different from the next.

Purples were incorporated through the use of mokara orchids, scabiosa (or pincushion flower), and lisianthus.

Ivory through the viburnum, peonies, jasmine vine,  and mock orange.

Chartreuse with the parrot tulips, viburnum, gladioli, Fiji mums (great in small doses!), cymbidium orchids, mint, and other foliage.

Photos and Floral Design by Petalena

We just finished up a fabulous wedding this weekend at the State Room in downtown Boston. We simply LOVED this wedding – our couple wanted a garden feel to their flowers – with pale and pretty colors of spring in chartreuse, ivories, and lavenders.

Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we do!

Green Goddess Bouquet

If you love green, isn’t this just the greatest bouquet?! We lucked out and got virtually the last of the spring parrot tulips for the season. These were paired with pale viburnum, ivory peonies, lady’s slipper orchids, lisianthus buds, and chartreuse gladiolas. We also incorporated a lot of foliage including maidenhair fern, painted fern, mint, and viburnum foliage.

Chartreuse and Lavender Bridesmaid Bouquet

The bridesmaid bouquets were done in a similar loose garden style but also incorporated lavender and a bit more ivory. Pretty and elegant.

Bridemaid Bouquet for Garden Style Wedding

The table arrangements had a very similar feel – loose and open with lots of buds, green foliage, and ivories, greens, and lavenders. We did several variations for the table arrangements with fruit filling the interior of the large square glass containers – kumquats, clementines, lemons, or pears. The fruit made each style feel a bit different, and this might be our new obsession (although it makes the arrangements incredibly heavy!):

Room View of the State Room

We’re going to do a whole other post on the containers (can you tell we LOVED this wedding?)….so stay tuned.

Photos and designs by Petalena

This past week we did flowers for a corporate event at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. To match the gorgeous flowers in the museum’s central courtyard (it currently has ots of blue hydrangea, yellow bromeliads, and white oleander in the courtyard garden) we worked with a pretty and light color palette just perfect for early summer:

Summer-y table centerpieces in blues and white

Table centerpieces featured white trailing spirea, blue hydrangea, white peonies, and chartreuse little flowers of Lady’s Mantle.

Peonies with delphinium and hydrangea

Table Centerpiece in Blues and Whites

And then we did lots of pretty little bud vases in similar colors:

Bud vases all packed up and ready to go!

I wish we could have taken pictures of the event around the Gardner’s courtyard, but we just did a quick drop off.  Still I’m sure it was beautiful event!

Designs and Photos by Petalena