BACKYARD WEDDING | JUNIE & BRONZON

BACKYARD WEDDING | JUNIE & BRONZON
February 23, 2016

If you’ve had the chance to check out our galleries since the new website launch, you may have noticed that they take forever to load and haven’t been culled or edited, and that’s because we just plain ran out of time. Now that things have (sort of) slowed down, and I attack that project and immerse myself in each of these events all over again, I thought I might as well tell you a bit about their stories and their flowers.

Maybe you read about Junie and Bronzon’s Engagement Shoot a few weeks ago, now for the wedding that followed. Nearly two years ago, May 2014, Molly Ryan Floral executed its first wedding flower project in Chico. It was a lucky start in more ways than one, but probably most of all because of the gorgeous film images from Laura Gordon that followed. Laura captured the light of that day perfectly. You can see Style Me Pretty’s feature of this wedding here.
It was also a lucky start because it came to me at a time I was not yet ready to seek out local connections or engage in advertising. I hardly knew Chico and was just working on getting settled in this new place. I knew I’d be launching a floral business here, but thought maybe I should learn how to get to the grocery store first, and meet or talk to someone outside my own home for starters. All the same a perfect wedding fell in my lap, pushing me to get my floral business set up in my new home without delay.

Luckier still because it happened to be the perfect bride. I knew right away that Junie had good taste, and would be planning a beautiful party so I was all in, even though I still had a lot of setting up to do. In so many cases, I tend to immerse myself in the wedding planning of my custom clients beyond the flowers, and I think with Junie I did even more so because I was so excited such a perfect client style-wise fell right into my lap.

When you’ve seen hundreds of weddings, you can’t help sharing (perhaps over-sharing) your opinion when someone asks, and for our custom clients we are so often the sounding board for all sorts of stylistic decisions beyond the flowers.It’s important to us that the flowers and the entirety of your event design are as remarkable as that moment in time you exchange vows. We pride ourselves on using flowers that go beyond the common, and also our ability to guide you in making both timeless and unique design decisions.

This is perhaps the most personal and momentous day of your life, and we want it to feel exceptional and distinctive, and although it may sound cheesy, magical. There is no design element more effective in adding that magic than flowers.

Junie’s bouquet was made of the perfect blush peonies (not too pink, not too ivory), unbelievable cup-shaped homegrown English garden roses from Rose and Candi Anderson in Gault, lamb’s ear from my garden, and perfect white cymbidium orchids from San Francisco. I am not always drawn to round, tailored designs, but I was completely in love with this classic bouquet and how perfectly it fit Junie’s timeless look.Though it takes a lot of additional work to source and care for the show-stoppers, it is a labor of love we have the utmost commitment to, and we know you will notice the difference between a-dime-a-dozen designs and those that are planned with attention to color palette subtleties, the time of year, the time of day, design of dresses, color of linens, invitation suite design, and all the other elements that go into planning a perfectly styled event.

I fretted over getting the perfect peonies for Junie, literally losing sleep over it the week before her wedding — blush can be a really difficult one to source, but in the end mother nature was on our side. And, in some ways, the flower that turned out to steal the show, the flat-top peonies (with the dark center shown above) were a happy mistake. I didn’t include them in the bridal bouquet because while we can debate what is the true color of blush all day long, we all know there is nothing blush about that center. As wedding and event florists, our real strength is going after those hard-to-get, damn-near-magical varieties, or interesting textural ingredients. We learn about you, all the colors, environments, and additional decor we will be working alongside, as well as the vibe you want for your special day, and we create something unique to you, the season, the exact moment that you will exchange your vows.

We’ve also become masters of logistics and stretching budgets over the years, and we love sharing our tricks with our clients. All of the floral we used for Junie and Bronzon’s ceremony was transferred to pull double-duty at the reception.

These gorgeous altar pieces were moved to the buffet tables.

Each of these aisle pieces became centerpieces. We just hid the hook, detached the ribbon, and planned them to be the perfect table-size. We are big proponents of using votives to create a “finished” look on reception tables, bringing the color off the flowers, and down on to the table. Often brides wonder why you would use votives during a dinner lit by the sunlight, but they add a big impact (in both daylight and darkness) for relatively little cost, and having candlelight once the sun goes down has an immeasurable impact on the ambiance. Check out our votive rentals here.

I’m a sucker for all the pretty details of an event, and we were impressed with how all Junie’s design decisions came together.

Again, you can never have enough votives! I cannot emphasize enough how much they do to tie together all different design elements, adding a a little class to every table.

Strawberry Jam? Yes Please!

Such careful attention to every detail.

Junie’s bouquet, pulling double duty on the dessert table (seen below).

Bridal bouquet also spotted on the bride and groom’s table. Each bouquet is delivered in a vase that can be used to hydrate and display it throughout the reception. Flowers are an investment, just like photography, and in many ways it’ll always be true that you get what you pay for. We don’t like cutting corners, and we are committed to using premium product so we can’t work miracles, but we certainly can do all we can to add as much value into each piece as possible, and guide you to focus your budget where it matters and save where you can. Investing in attention to detail, premium blooms, and an elevated and personalized design plan shows through in the ambiance, the photos, and the imprinted memories all of the perfect elements come together to make.