Our New Ad in Arizona Bride Magazine

Check out our new ad for Arizona Bride Magazine! We love the way this came out and can't wait to see it in print! Special thank you to Kim McDowell with The Event Essentials for the design work and Sara Coral Photography for the wonderfully romantic photo of one of our bouquets. This will be a half page ad in the July issue hitting newsstands soon.

Vintage Charm at The Farm South Mountain

LOVED this couple and LOVED their choice of flowers, decor, and their amazing photographer Sara Coral Photography.

All white bouquet of china mums, spray roses, astilbe, hydrangea, and a bit of variegated pitt around the edges. Looks like we picked the flowers right out of the field.

Simple centerpieces consisted of mason jars, as well as an eclectic mix of other sized vases tied off with a bit of jute and filled with various white flowers and fillers. Antique vintage candy dishes were used on the tables as well for the guests to enjoy.

Loved the grooms boutonniere of simple white button poms, white astilbe, and a bit of variegated pitt.

Heavenly by the candlelight!

Nosegays for the flower girls and the flower baby! We especially loved her headband and tutu, which tied everything together perfectly. This wedding definitely belongs on Style Me Pretty!

Thank you Tiffany & Tim for being such a wonderful couple and for LOVING your flowers the way you did. We wish you both a happily...Ever After!

Garden Inspired Bouquets

Check out the bouquets we designed for the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Arizona Bride Magazine. We were one of the three featured florists to design some delicious garden inspired bouquets. These bouquets were all made up of grasses, greenery, pods, succulents, and some fruits and veggies versus flowers. The pink and green bouquet had such ingredients as artichokes, kale, okra, and snowberries. The orange and green bouquet included clementines, brussel sprouts, chile peppers, and succulents all designed into a head of butter lettuce. We were thrilled with the outcome of our bouquets and how they still looked pretty enough for a bride to carry down the aisle, without including flowers. Although most of the items can only be found through a florist, the fruits and vegetables were all found at a local Sprouts Farmer's Market. Be sure to pick up a new Arizona Bride magazine today!
Photos by Dan Vermillion Styling by Lisa Parks Arizona Bride Magazine 2011 Spring/Summer issue

Purple and Green Wedding

When I first met with Rennai, I instantly liked her. She was fun, friendly, and knew all about weddings, as she was also in the wedding industry {Mywedding film.com}. She wanted her wedding to be different and unique to all the weddings we've seen done before and of course she wanted to make it her own. She chose monOrchid as her venue, which is very urban and modern wherehouse type of feel. She chose purple and green as her colors and wanted to accent with peacock feathers. She had a very chic and modern, yet earthy vision. I loved her vision and couldn't wait to design for her. Here are a few photos of what we did for her on her special day!

Location: monOrchid

Photos: Darby Elizabeth Photography

Centerpiece photos: self

Flowers: Ever After Florals

Time Warp

Check out some of these old wedding photos from the turn of the century through the early 1980's. It amazing to see how styles of dresses and flowers have changed. Most of the bridesmaids have bouquets bigger than what bride's carry today. It's very interesting to look back in time and think about what all these brides did for their reception and what music was played, etc. I can only imagine what they would think of our traditions and styles in today's world? I think some would be shocked to see the bride & groom break out into the Thriller Dance, witness the after dinner firework show, eat cupcakes vs. traditional cake, and blow bubbles at the bride & groom in lieu of throwing rice. I'm sure 100 years from now, someone may stumble upon this blog and mention this as being odd too.

Rustic Wedding at Juniper Well Ranch

Wine bottles served as table #'s. Surrounded by candlelight and eclectic vases filled with blooms of hydrangeas, mums, safari sunsets and willow branches.

The arch were the ceremony took place was super romantic surrounded by fresh earth, vines, and ground cover. We spruced it up with some blue hydrangeas, ivory china mums, yellow rovers, safari sunsets, dendrobium orchids, greenery and curly willow branches. GORGEOUS!

Bridal bouquet started off small and ended up bigger as she walked down the aisle and gathered other blooms from close family/friends. Then her mother tied all of the bouquets together to make one large bouquet. Super colorful and perfect for this fall, rustic wedding.

Cake was amazing and looked magazine worthy! The favors for the guests were jars of honey, with "Meant To Be" the bride & grooms names and their wedding date listed. This wedding could not have been more detail oriented and absolutely breathtaking!

Photos by Capture This! By Brooke

Vintage accents

We love to see all the unique styles and details brides are using at their weddings. We found a few great finds while searching etsy.com and thought we'd share a few good ones with you!


Vintage pink cameo necklace. LOVE it!

Something blue?

Love this for the hair!

Seeing lots of birdcage veils this year!

See what a sash can do to a simple gown! Amazing!

Juniper Well Ranch

Have you been searching for a secluded rustic northern Arizona venue for your wedding? Well look no further. We have found a gorgeous spot just 20 minutes from downtown Prescott. Juniper Well Ranch in Skull Valley is a charming rustic ranch, featuring a vineyard, multiple gardens, patios and cabins/cottages. The property is lush with vegetation, including a canopy of 1,000 year old alligator bark Juniper trees covered in ivy. This area is perfect for shading your guests at the ceremony, which can hold up to 150 people. Juniper Well Ranch is amazing! Check out their website for more information http://www.juniperwellranch.com/weddings.html

10080 W. Tough Country Trail Skull Valley, AZ 86338 928-442-3415

If you decide to get married here, give us a call we would love the chance to go back and of course help you with all your wedding bouquets, wedding centerpieces, and wedding flower decor.

DIY Wedding Flowers Warning

I posted this almost two years ago (1/2009) but it still holds true today and thought I would share this story with you again, as similar stories have been coming up more and more lately.

PREVENT A DISASTER WEDDING 101: Do it yourself FLOWERS.

This is a very risky idea that could end up costing you more money than having a professional floral designer help you with it. I had a bride who I quoted $1,000. This would cover her bridal bouquet, 3 bridesmaids, a flower girl, about a dozen boutonnieres, some corsages, 10 small centerpieces, cake flowers, and delivery & set up. Sounds like a lot of money, but it was actually pretty decent for all the things she wanted and the flower choices that she wanted. However, she decided that she could save a couple of hundred dollars if she went to Costco and bought and designed her own flowers with the help of some "creative" friends.
The bride decided that she would start working on the store bought flowers a few days before the wedding to give her enough time. So she went to Costco bought what she thought she needed, had her friends over to help her, and then started on it. This was harder than she thought. But they were all having fun and when all the flowers were used up, she had to make another run to Costco to get some MORE flowers, and then a third run because she didn't realize how many flowers she actually needed to make the bouquets look decent. Now she was getting worried because she was actually spending a bit more money than she thought. However, she was still under the $800 mark so she figured she still did good.
The bride had finished most everything a day ago, put the flowers in her refrigerator and felt that they would certainly do great in there. WRONG! Refrigerators have food products in them which give off ethylene gas and kill fresh flowers. This is exactly what happened to this DIY bride. Most of her flowers had gotten too cold, froze, and then turned brown due to the ethylene gas and some of the other flowers wilted due to the culture shock between Costco, the car ride home, the mishandling of the flowers by the unprofessional "creative" friends who helped design the flowers, and then going into the fridge. So the night before the wedding, the bride is now at a grocery store ordering her flowers. She ended up with whatever the grocery store had available, which was not exactly what she had wanted, and spent about $500 more here. Her total for flowers between Costco & the grocery store ended up being $1125.
It is not worth saving a few hundred dollars when you are working with perishable items. Leave this work to a professional florist who not only knows how to handle and design the flowers, but can guarantee them as well.

Melissa & Tyeson's Royal Wedding

Imagine a dream wedding starring a gorgeous bride and a handsome groom. Now imagine an unbelievable venue with more gorgeous photo opportunities than you can count. Let's make the venue the famous Royal Palms Resort. Now envision a reception site with lots of shimmering crystals and the soft glow of candlelight with candles everywhere. Let's go ahead and add a hint of fuchsia for accent color, against an otherwise all ivory event. Can you hear the mariachi's as they play their acoustic instruments and lead the guests from the post ceremony cocktail hour to the ceremony site?

All this really happened and Ever After Florals was very excited to be a part of this special day! We worked with the bride to provide her with an exquisite all ivory bouquet made up of hydrangea, peonies, garden roses, and soft accents of sweet peas. Her bridesmaids also carried all ivory flowers including garden roses and spray roses with sweet pea accents. When we designed the centerpieces we added a bit of color and made the flowers a nice mix of ivory and fuchsia. Set upon 30" tall pilsner vases and strung with crystal garlands, this wedding reception's flowers were definitely dramatic and memorable. This is one we will never forget. Congratulations Melissa & Tyeson, your wedding was absolutely stunning. Special thanks to A Day to Cherish event coordinators for all their attention to details and to LaTricia Soucy with Marriott Photography for her beautiful photos.