a tropical california wedding

One of my good friends got married a while back at the Botanical Garden at Berkeley. I flew out and whipped up the flowers, all oranges and greens, my fav. The table centerpieces are a combination of orange speckled mokara orchids, bird of paradise (the bride's favorite), pincushion proteas, mood moss, fern curls and ti leaves. Banana leaves are layered under the white ceramic containers, which are accented with strips of reed place mats from World Market tied on with raffia.


The ceremony occurred in the middle of a grove of trees, up the hill from the reception location. Huge palm leaves and bamboo set up the architecture of the ceremony arrangement, which is fleshed out with green cymbidiums, red James Stori orchids, orange pincushion proteas and fern curls.


Since the bride has a connection to Hawaii, the wedding party all wore leis. The bouquet is a mix of all of the flowers mentioned above plus pieris (andromeda), bear grass and a few tropical leaves. For some other amazing tropical arrangements check out Mints' blog, and of course this post on Preston Bailey's blog (how is it that I didn't discover this until now??).


I ordered the flowers at a wholesaler in the San Francisco Flower Mart, and did all the design work in the courtyard of my b&b, which turned out to be so much fun. Several of the bride's friends helped out, and it was one of the most memorable events that I've been involved in. Here's a shot of it in progress; you can see the green floral foam as we pinned the moss on.


For more California flower inspiration check out Ariella Chezar, Michelle Rago, and Sillapere.