de Young Museum's Bouquets to Art Opening Gala 3/16

I had a wonderful time at de Young Museum's Bouquets to Art Opening Night Gala on Monday. I bumped into many great friends - my former floral instructors, old pals from school and friends from the industry.

At the Opening Night Gala, there were approximately 20+ floral gowns made to reflect the current Yves Saint Laurent's fashion exhibition at de Young.

I made a floral dress inspired by an evening gown from the YSL couture collection. The original was a black lace dress. I crafted mine with hard glue embellished with natural skeleton leaves to create the look of transparency(for the presentation, my model wore a silk underdress). The floral gown was finished with white phalaenopsis orchids, wax flowers, and a pair of red rose petal bows on the side. I purposely reversed my dress to white because I want my gown to be an inspirational piece not a straight replica. I want to translate the YSL fashion style into a petal language. To my surprise, together with matching headpiece and glove, my floral dress turned out very much like a wedding gown!

A matching headpiece

Me and my model Susanna

I really like the glove I made to match the dress. This can be a nice floral accessory for brides to wear.

There were many other dresses I like by other talented designers. Unfortunately the museum was too packed without enough room for mannequins...it is a pity that we can't show off our floral costumes during the Bouquets to Art week. So I can only show you pictures of what were presented at the Opening Night Gala.

Models at the backstage -

Of course you can still visit the museum for its current exhibtion of floral art. Bouquets to Art ends this Saturday at 5:15pm, don't miss it!

Have a peak at some extraordinary designs from Bouquets to Art...

The gorgeous bark dress on the right is by my friend Leila Simms. You can see how it relates to the painting behind.

My floral design instructor, Jenny Tabarracci, created the beautiful succulent urn on the right.

Bouquets to Art 2009

de Young Museum's annual Bouquets to Art week is going to be next week (March 17th-21st)!!! I am very excited about this special floral event - this year is their 25th anniversary and there will be 150 floral designers from all over the bay area, each will create a floral art piece to complement an assigned painting or sculpture. The museum will be turned into a heaven of flowers!

I am creating a floral dress for the opening night gala. Unfortunately the museum will be too packed with too many floral pieces and will not have enough space for extra mannequins for the rest of the week. You won't be able to see my floral couture dress unless you are coming to the gala. But for sure I'll take pictures and share with you all what I have been working on for weeks!!

See you at de Young!

March Wedding

It's definitely a blog day for me! I got another wedding to share:

Venue: Cliff Hotel, San Francisco

Style: French

Colors: Black, white, silver

Classic Party Rentals Open House

Classic Party Rentals had an open house event on Tuesday, March 10th. I was invited to provide arrangements for two of the tables. There were approximately 800-1,000 wedding professionals from all over the bay area gathering at Classic's Burlingame warehouse to check out their fabulous collection of linens, china & furniture. It was a wonderful night catching up with old pals and meeting new friends in the industry.

Image of my tables taken by Orange Photography
Images by photographer Augie Chang
There were so many talented local floral designers at the open house. Here are some of my favorite tables:

February Wedding

Ceremony: Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, Oakland
Reception: Palace Hotel, San Francisco
Style: Classic, romantic, elegant
Colors: White, green, bronze

Spring 2009

It's been a while since last time I blog! I had a terrific holiday season and I hope you did too! We are entering Spring and it is definitely my favorite floral season! Many of my favorite flowers are or will soon be available in Spring - icelandic poppies, peonies, ranunculus, lilac, cherry blossoms, dogwoods, sweet peas...ah, it puts a smile on my face just to think about all these beautiful Spring blossoms.

Our Spring & Summer schedule had filled up quickly with several weekends left. If you are planning your summer wedding for this year, contact us soon to check our availability. We are now booking for Fall & Winter 2009 as well as weddings for 2010. Generally brides contact us 6-12 months ahead to reserve the date and it is always nice to plan early.

March is an exciting month for me. I am working on a couple incredibly fun projects. I will upload pictures and keep you posted when the time comes! I have a beautiful February wedding soon to upload, but I am still working on sorting out the pictures, I'll do that soon (after this week's wedding, I promise)! Here's a sneak peak of a ring cushion I did for that wedding (by now, you probably know custom designed ring cushion is one of my floral design signatures). I was so in love with it and I almost didn't want to give it away!

I hope you like it as much as I do.