Planted in the LA Times Home & Garden Blog.

Has it really been two months since my last post?

Criminy.  A lot has happened since then.  Like the fact that I GOT ENGAGED.  Yep.  Now not only to I get to talk about the fun weddings and fairs I am working on, I also will be waxing poetic about my plans for my own big day.  I used to think I spent excessive amounts of time on wedding blogs (all in the name of business research, of course).  That was nothing.  I now realize how easy it is to get lost down the never-ending rabbit hole of the world that is Weddings.  My fiance (FIANCE!) has teasingly noted how my productivity level has steadily declined since the day he asked me to marry him - as I am devoting more and more of my days to deciding which collection for my bridesmaids' dresses (Yay Thread!), scouting out trunk shows (The White Dress is having one this weekend ladies), picking my perfect color palate (this little gem is my secret for now), and naturally, what flowers will I choose?  And as my future mother-in-law is wisely asking, will I attempt to do them myself?

Alright, enough wedding chatter.  A friend of mine (who is also engaged, but much further along in the wedding planning process) suggested I set a spending limit on how much time I spend on my own wedding each day.  A good plan.  Easier said than done, but a good plan.

Time to get down to business.  Over the past couple of months there have been three especially fun events that I've had the pleasure of working on.  The first was a HUGE event at the Monterey Bay Aquarium up in, you guessed it, Monterey.  The event posed some challenges because of the venues ocean-friendly rules.  My clients wanted something ocean themed, but no real pieces from the sea were allowed.  Finding fake sea-themed pieces was a challenge - many of the things I came across were either covered in glitter (another aquarium no-no) or looked like a Christmas ornament.  No bueno.  Ultimately we decided to do terrariums with succulents that resembled marine plants, anemones, and other sea life.  We used a moss to cover the negative space in the pieces that looked like the fluffy seaweed that sticks to your legs when you get out of the ocean, and I bought bags and bags of synthetic sand to put around the inside perimeter of the terrarium to make it look like a teeny island and its surrounding beach under glass.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera as I often do, and only had my iPhone to snap a few shots, so please forgive the shoddy photography below.  I guess it wasn't the biggest event ever (400 guests-ish), but what made it such a large one for me was the number of tables - 90ish -versus the time we had to set up - 1 hour.  That's right, the aquarium was open to public until 6 PM, and the event began at 7:00.  We managed to pull it off will the help of the staff, and from what I heard afterwards, the guests loved them.  The photo shown is of one of the buffet pieces.

I also did a couple of weddings last month.  The first was a fun new challenge for me mainly because of the couple's choice to buck the traditional wedding cake and do Sprinkles monogramed cupcakes instead.  They asked me to design and build cupcake tiers and get creative with it.  The groom loved the look of wheatgrass, so naturally I incorporated it.  We wound up building four box tiers and stacking them in the traditional wedding cake shape, but putting white satin ribbon around the rise of the boxes, and cutting wheatgrass to fit the run.  The cupcakes were then nestled into the wheatgrass and displayed for the guests to come and grab one.  Tristan Abel was the skilled craftsman behind executing the tiers.  Above's an arial shot of the tower, along with some detail shots and a look at their centerpiece.  Also I had to include this beautiful shot by Natalie Moser of the bride with her bouquet of peonies, roses, and ranunculus.

This last event was the wedding of a high school friend.  She wanted to use blues and greens in her flowers and tie in the beach theme of her day.  The bridesmaids bouquets had tiny sand dollars throughout the green hydrangea, along with white roses and blue delphinium.  Meghan's bouquet had three full sized starfish to accompany the white mini callas, cymbidiums, sweet pea, jade roses, and blue delphinium.  

                                                                                                                   

Whew.  That was a long one.  Thanks for reading!

xx
Chandra