I had the honor of doing all of the florals for my May bride’s wedding at Wolftrap Farm in Charlottesville, Virginia! Beth Anne and her now-husband Chris were fully on board and excited about having me do all of the floral design and floral arranging for their wedding, and needless to say, I was so incredibly excited! I love that they trusted me enough to do it all for them, and it was such a thrill for me to pick out flowers, process the thousand stems, and design the bouquets, boutonnieres, and centerpieces. Beth Anne definitely wanted yellow and white flowers to complement the design of their wedding, and billy balls were decided upon early in the process. She also loves the look of succulents, which I had never worked with before in wedding flowers, and I love how the contrasted – but complemented – the yellow and white flowers in the bouquets. I selected a mix of yellow and white roses, freesia, billy balls, snapdragons, daisies, baby’s breath, and billy balls. Some of the white roses arrived a little sad looking, so we were able to get a new shipment of white roses delivered the day before the wedding. With those roses, we had hundreds upon hundreds of roses to use in bouquets and arrangements, and I actually didn’t even end up using them all! I guess that’s not necessarily a bad problem to have… but I sure did try to use as many as I possibly could!

Beth Anne, my amazing bride, wanted her bouquet to have a little more white in it than the bridesmaid bouquets, and her bouquet would also have succulents in it. I was so, so happy with how Beth Anne’s lush, beautiful bridal bouquet turned out! I could also see just how much she loved it too, which is what really matters. She couldn’t stop looking at it and was showing it off to everyone, which made me thrilled. I used lighter yellow roses (instead of more golden roses) and omitted the daises from her bouquet. The snapdragons and freesia gave it so much more movement and depth, and I loved using several succulents scattered throughout the bride’s bouquet. I also loved the fact that Beth Anne was totally on board with ribbons trailing from her bouquet! Sourcing and curating the perfect assortment of lace ribbons of varying textures to adorn the bridal bouquet was such a fun task. I think they added such a gorgeous elegance, and the ribbons looked so beautiful in the wind. The bride’s father passes away a couple years ago, and he had given her mother a wooden charm that he carved when they were teenagers. I love that they asked that I affix it to the bouquet, and it was such a meaningful gesture and addition to the day.

The four beautiful bridesmaids all carried slightly smaller and slightly brighter versions of the bridal bouquet. I incorporated more bright and golden yellows into their bouquets, used daisies and gerber daisies, and didn’t include any succulents. I also just tied one long strand of ribbon to trail from their bouquets, where I used several for the bride’s bouquet. I loved these bright yellow bouquets that contrasted beautifully with their gray dresses and rounded out the gray and yellow wedding colors!

Full disclosure here: I had never – not once in my life – made a boutonniere until the morning of the wedding. Ha! I certainly knew the general concept behind them and am confident in my design and floral arranging eye, but I hadn’t actually made a bout til the wedding morning. At least this time, it was easier than I thought and went so smoothly! The hardest part, for me, was finalizing which flowers would go in the bout, since it’s such a small item. I decided to do a billy ball (which we had chosen to use early on in the wedding planning process) accented with baby’s breath to keep them light and bright. The groom’s bout was a little heftier with the addition of a succulent to set him apart. A side note about succulents: the are stemless and heavy! That means you have to create your own ‘stem’ for the succulent and also accommodate and plan for the added weight to hold it upright. It was a fun challenge to figure out in both the bouquet and the groom’s bout, and I love the result!All florals, styling, and iPhone photos here are mine – I cannot wait to share the real images from their wedding day with you soon! I can only imagine how stunning they will be!