Wedding Bouquet Beauties

The bridal bouquet can be a challenging decision for most brides to make. When helping a bride determine which type of bouquet to choose we often look at the design of their dress for inspiration. The more simple the dress is the more elaborate the bouquet can become. The more intricate your dress is the more simplified you might want your bouquet to ensure it doesn't compete with the look of your dress. Sometimes our brides want color, all one type of flower, small compact clutch or a trailing elaborate cascade. They are all gorgeous but you need to pick what's best for you. It's personal.....so make it your own.

Birdcage Trends....

Might sound a little strange - but "birdcages" (not used of course) seem to be creeping into a lot of The Hidden Gardens floral designs lately. In recent meetings, the concept of birdcages were coming up for use in baby shower themes, table centerpieces, escort card table accents, entrance to aisle concepts and gift card holders. One of our future brides, Tracy, has an upcoming wedding in August with a lot of super cute details throughout the decor. One of those details is "the birdcage"!! I thought i'd share a photo from our table centerpiece sample meeting utilizing the super cute antiqued cages. Can't wait for her wedding....!

Montage Beverly Hills

This past weekend we had the pleasure of designing Renita's wedding at The Montage in Beverly Hills. Once again we were working with the talented Debbie Geller from Geller Events, and Joe Buissink Photography. I can't wait to share his "professional" shots with you but for now....my digital cannon shots will have to do!

Renita chose a soft blue as her main wedding color. The flowers were an array of light blue hydrangea, white phaleonopsis orchids (incredible!) and hand strung strands of white dendrobium orchid blooms to create our floral design combinations. It turned out to be an amazing combination.

Calla Lily Love....

Couture Foto was so kind to send us over some photos from Lousine & Eyton's June wedding that we designed in conjunction with Mary from VP Event. The simple and elegant wedding was held at a private estate in Topanga Canyon. Lousine loved the simplicity of Calla Lily's. Every table was adorned with an array of all white "love" callas and her bouquet was a collection of raspberry pink mini callas.

Dancing Down the Aisle...Brilliant!

We love this, I am sure you do too! Will dancing down the aisle be the newest trend? We'll have to wait and see. How will you personalize your ceremony?

Westlake Four Seasons Wedding

We just received some amazing photos from Jules Bianchi photography from Heather & Steven's  wedding at the  Four Seasons in Westlake Village (did i mention The Hidden Garden is opening a new location at the hotel August 11th!!???).  Jules was able to capture a lot of the little details from the wedding and i thought we would share just a few!  I absolutely adored the Initial Charms for each bridesmaids bouquet - what cute detail and gift for each of the girls! 

Flower Market Favorites

These are my "flower market favorites" from today's trip to the L.A. Flower Market

Hot Pink Cox Comb...very cool & interesting!

Hydrangea... in beautiful shades of pink.

Red Viburnum Berries...which are great for texture!

The Ritz Extravaganza in Dana Point

What an extraordinary wedding we had this past weekend for Chelsea and Josue at The Ritz Carlton in Dana Point. Debbie Geller from Geller Events was the mastermind behind the decor concept. With multiple meetings with our design savvy bride, Chelsea, we were able to create an opulent display of florals and detail touches throughout the evening. I can't wait to get all the "professional" photos from Joe Buissink!! For now you guys will have to enjoy "my" camera shots (which aren't bad if i do say so myself).

The mix of scented garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, burgundy dahlias, antiqued hydrangea and green hanging amaranthus we created a feast for the eyes. Enjoy the photos...more to come!

The Hidden Garden has them ALL!

Our bride, Chelsea, this weekend is the proud owner of all the Cafe au Lait dahlias that exist in Los Angeles.  We did compromise 2 bunches of the special dahlias for a begging floral vendor at the flower market, but the rest will be displayed at the beautiful wedding this weekend taking place at the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point.  Check back next week for the pictures from the wedding.

Chic in Black, White & Pink

The adorable & chic wedding of Rachel and Dale was this past weekend at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills Hotel.  We had the pleasure of working with Debbie Geller from Geller Events and Jennifer Rebello at The Four Seasons.  Rachel was looking for a very chic design that turned out over the top amazing!  

The gorgeous chuppah structure was provided by Tabella Designs and The Hidden Garden adorned the top and tie backs with gorgeous florals in pink and white tones. The aisle had a specialty runner that was a print strung through the entire wedding, lined with pink rose petals.  Lining the sides of the aisle were fabric covered boxes filled with an abundance of white hydrangea.  

 

Rachel's bouquet was a monochromatic pink rose bouquet with a black satin wrap, and embellished with rhinestone bling.  Wish you could see her reaction when we gave her the bouquet.

The place card table was displayed with a variety of apothecary jars filled with groupings of flowers atop a beautiful glass table provided by Rrivre Works.

Inside the ballroom, that was completely draped, carpeted, and beautiful lit were the centerpieces that included a dramatic display of white & pink roses, white hydrangea, and amaranthus.  Each centerpiece was adorned with hanging crystals that the bride specifically ordered for her guest tables.  The base of each centerpiece had 3 crystal bowls filled with flowers to compliment the flowers of the grand centerpiece.  Illuminated floating candles with cut crystals in the water highlighted each table.

Modern & Romantic Montage Wedding

A perfect combo of romance and modern flair.  The decor was in all white, ivory, jade green, and accents of champagne.  The wedding took place at the new Montage in Beverly Hills.  With the help of the  coordinators from IEC, the wedding was beyond beautiful.  The opulent display of roses, cymbidium orchids, cala lilies, tulips and large monstara leaves, the flowers create a perfect mix of clean & modern fullness.

Making of a Chuppa

At The Hidden Garden we are always creating unique designs and custom arrangement for our clients.  Sometimes we forget that the most simple things that we create might actually be one of the most interesting items to our clients.  We take for granted that making the centerpiece, bridal bouquet or chuppa/gazebo is the easy part (to us anyway).  We create these designs each weekend and the mechanics behind the design  comes second nature to us.  To the average person (out of the floral industry) it might be a little more complicated.  Last weekend I decided to take some photos of our Gazebo 

Floral Favorites at the Flower Market

It's Dahlia time at the LA Flower Market.  They come in so many amazing colors from raspberry tones, sherbert orange, bubble gum pink and firey red.   

  

The mini calla were also looking delicious today.  Their colors were so complimentary to the dahlias.  Enjoy the visual feast! 

Wedding Channel's Bridal Blog Awards

The Secret Life of Flowers is nominated in the Wedding Channel's first ever Bridal Blog Awards. If you like what you read on our blog, help second or continue the nomination by clicking here and leaving a reply! 

Red, White, & (ut oh!) BLUE

In celebration of 4th of July this weekend, I thought I would do a blog on blue flowers. Many times, we have brides that come in with blue as one of their wedding colors. However, much to their dismay, blue is an extremely hard choice of flower color with very few options of choices, and many times they appear more purple. I usually suggest they bring in the blue tone to alternate areas such as table linens, containers, ribbon, fabric, etc. and keep the flowers in a complimenting color. Not to mention, with the wide range of beautiful blue shades out there, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to match your blue bridesmaids/invitations/etc. to a specific flower. However, it is quite easy to find a wide range of fabrics, ribbons, and textures in whatever shade you desire. Here are some great inspiration boards I found online from bride's that had blue as one of their wedding colors.

** Note: floral work is by various florists- The Hidden Garden cannot take credit for the beautiful design work {this time} in the following inspirations boards

Beautiful Antique Bouquet

Going through our pictures, I couldn't resist sharing the pictures of this beautiful bouquet. Tessa's bouquet was all white with an antique feel including roses, hydrangea and tulips with accents of white feathers, crystals, and a special keepsake of the bride's mother.