Weekly Colour Inspiration - Black

Black: atramentous, brunet, charcoal, clouded, coal, dusky, ebon, ebony, inklike, jet, melanoid, obsidian, onyx, piceous, pitch, raven, sable, shadowy, slate, sloe, sombre, sooty, starless, stygian, swart, swarthy

Weekly Colour Inspiration - Blue

Blue: azure, beryl, blue-gray, blue-green, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, navy, royal, sapphire, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, aqua, gentian, periwinkle, powder, sky

Friday Tip - Florals

This week's Friday Tip is about Sustainable Floral Decor

Atmosphere is what all the little bits and pieces and event elements are all about. Lights, decor, music, guests, food, beverages, venue - all come together to create a certain kind of atmosphere. So firstly you want to figure out what kind of atmosphere you are going for - once you've decided that the rest of your choices will be far easier if you keep it uppermost in your mind.

A solid sustainable choice for the 'look and feel' of your event starts with your venue. The more interesting the venue, the less decor you will need to truck in to create an atmosphere. If you are lucky enough to live in or near Toronto, there is a plethora of interesting venues that require little or no decor beyond some mood lighting.

If you are stuck with an empty box, because of location or numbers, you need to look at adding some decor and for most wedding events one starts with the flowers. Or not, lots can be achieved with LED room lighting, candles and mirrors and flowers can be ignored entirely! Or opt for an edible centerpiece - yummm

DIY
If you have any wild spots near you or on your way somewhere, why not pick your own flowers? At least for a wedding bouquet, you can collect flowers the day before. You know they'll be in season, local, fair trade and likely pesticide-free. This works just as wonderfully for dressing a seasonal table or for small arrangements on cocktail tables.


Sustainable Florist
The next step up the event chain is to hire a professional. You'd think most flowers are eco-friendly because they are organic matter and can be composted - but you'd be wrong. The flower business is a cut-throat nasty business that can, and often does, employ people at below live-able wages, raids the land within an inch of it's life and exotic flowers are flown and trucked many un-sustainable miles to get to your local florist.

Welcome the eco-friendly florist - not an easy line to be in. If people are counting on red roses for Mother's Day or the rare purple orchid for their bouquet, it's hard to say no to a client if there was a blight in your local crop or if the only orchids available are not sustainable. This is where some fabulous intrepid people have taken the extra step and chosen to provide the public with both a sustainable model and an education. In Toronto you'll find Eco Stems and EcoFlora (links below). They've put sustainability above giving their clients the moon and maintained offering stylish possibilities.


Asking for local flora
If you don't have one of these fantastic types of people in your neighbourhood you can ask your lovely local florist to provide you with only locally available flora and to please hold the pesticides. Most don't like using stuff that has come into contact with poisons either so it's not a terrible hardship. Some don't  have the connections to local growers, so it can be a challenge finding the variety you might otherwise prefer.

Fair Trade and Organic
Next down the list is fair trade and organic and, thankfully, most florists have some sources for these kinds of stems - yay green marketing trends. Not quite as green as going whole hog local but definitely worth the extra penny IF you can verify that the flowers are fair trade and organic. This is where a little bit of research can help you out.

Silk or Edible
Not the bad thing that 'fake flowers' implies - there may be local artists who make stunning creations out of sugar paste, marzipan or silk. If you think you might use the flowers again, tasteful fabric arrangements made by a local person might be just the ticket (depending on where the fabric came from - yeah I know, I'm tired now too!). See my previous Friday Tip on edible arrangements - way happy with those!

Video on How to Select Sustainable Florals. (Thanks Scott from EcoFlora for sending it around!)

Here are some useful resources and check out the Canadian Seasonal Flower Guide at the end courtesy of Flowers Canada.

Articles

Article from Garden Design Magazine - Identifying Sustainable Flowers
Article about flowers from Tree Hugger
The Footprint of Flowers - Tree Hugger
The Beyond Organic Show
Many articles on sustainable growing from Planet Green

Florists in Toronto

Eco Stems

Eco Flora

Ontario
Pick Ontario

British Columbia
In Bloom
 
US Florist
Organic Bouquet

Seasonal Guide to Flowers:

Available All Year:
Baby's Breath (white)
Bachelor's Button (white, pink, red, or blue)
Carnation (available in any color)
Gardenia (white)
Gladiolus (countless colors)
Lily of the Valley (white and pink)
Orchid (pink, purple, and white)
Rose (available in any color)
Stephanotis (white)

Winter Flowers:
Calla Lily (white)
Camellia (pink and white)
Forget-Me-Not (blue)
Holly (green with red berries)
Ivy (various greens in color)
Orchid (pink, white, and purple)
Poinsettia (red, white, and pink)
Tulip (available in many colors) 

Spring Flowers:
Anemone (available in many colors)
Apple Blossom (white)
Calla Lily (usually white but available in a few other colors)
Daffodil (yellow)
Forsythia (yellow)
Geranium (red and pink)
Hyacinth (white, purple, or pink)
Iris (many colors available)
Jonquil (pale yellow)
Lilac (violet or white)
Larkspur (blue)
Magnolia (white)
Narcissus (white)
Orange Blossom (white)
Tulip (available in any color)
Violetrichly (purple)

Summer Flowers:
Aster (available in white, pink, and rose)
Calla Lily (available in several colors)
Daisy (white with a tiny bit of yellow)
Hydrangea (purple)
Forget-Me-Not (blue)
Peony (available in pink, magenta, or white)
Sweet Pea (available in many colors)
Zinnia (red, orange, or pink)

Fall Flowers:
Aster (white, pink, or rose)
Chrysanthemum (red, gold, or white)
Dahlia (available in many colors)
Marigold (gold and red)
Zinnia (red, orange, or pink)

DIY - Why?

DIY can look really polished and classy, if you find the right resources. You don't even have to be that handy, just prepared to follow directions.

DIY can often mean significant savings in both budget and environmental impact but does require time - something not many couples have, which is why they hire a planner. Not all planners will do crafty things, so ask first before you start piling on the 'do-make' list.

Here are some useful sites:

My DIY Wedding Day, from The Wedding Channel

Martha Stewart - Card Making (yeah I know, but the how-to's are well done)

Marth Stewart Weddings

Craftster (real people making art - excellent resource)

Links to crafting resources in Toronto (care of Toronto Craft Alert)

Here's what nonsense I got up to for my wedding:

1. Made paper art as part of the single card invitation. Can't tell you how much fun it is to wallow in wet paper sludge and make art with squirt bottles of coloured paper. Signed every invite which was affixed to archival paper - instant frameable stuff.
   
2. Had my dress made by a local dressmaker. I wanted to wear green silk - handmade was the only option and it was the most cost-effective. Denver Fabrics Online provided the silk.
3. Maid of Honour made the beautiful wee handbag that went with the dress.
4. Made my necklace and bracelet from gold, pearls and garnet beads - to match the engagement ring, which was made by a family friend.
   
5. Venue was perfect in it's Edwardian splendor so just added fall-coloured ivy collected that morning from the neighbourhood as tie-backs for the existing drapery.
6. An intrepid bride's helper dressed up the frames of parental and grandparent bridal photos with red maple leaves between the glass and the photo.
7. Made a guest book out of silk and a scrapbook and added blank pages for people to draw, colour and comment. Included a pile of markers, stickers and fun pens. The kids had a blast.
8. Made programs - two to a sheet of 8.5x11 transparent paper, stamped the back with leaf stamp in copper ink.
   
9. Made thank you cards with a stamp of a leaf skeleton, in keeping with the leaf embedded in each invitation.
   

Ok, so I had a lot of time on my hands but it really didn't take long to do all this up in the end. Writing all the thank you notes took longer and was way more painful!

 

 

A Word About Themes

I am planning a wedding now for June next year with a splendidly fun couple, Michele and Pascal. Pascal is from France and is a quiet but very funny dude. Michele is sweet and also quite the card - somewhat resigned to her many, and complicated, family pressures. She's handling it all like a champ - just isn't sweating the small stuff, what a treat these two are!

They are world travelers and hence have gone with a travel theme for the reception. This will be handled tastefully, with a bit of reining in of the groom who seems taken with the whole theme idea - we barely skated through without costumes, but I think he was kidding, it was hard to tell! He's really jazzed about a cake decorated up like a piece of old luggage. I think the fact that he's jazzed about it means he'll get it - the bride has given him full reign with the cake. Luggage tags for escort cards and we'll call the theme a day. I hope.

Themes can be taken a bit too far unless one goes whole hog with the costuming, location and mariachi band and turns the party into a bit of a circus. That can be kinda fun but really, the theme IS (or ought to be) celebrating a marriage and sometimes that gets lost in the confetti.

If you are going to have a theme I recommend trying to keep it centered around something that reflects you as a couple. If you travel, show pictures of all the places you've been or use those places to name your tables. If you are Star Trek fans, name the tables after favourite episodes rather than have the groomsmen in those red shirts (the red shirt guys get killed every time, way bad omen) and I'm not sure pictures of the groom as a Klingon is something you really will want to see in 30 years. But that's just me.

Courtesy of Bridal Mania

Fun With Food

For my party-people out there and Mums with toddlers, this link I found wandering about my Twitter feed made me smile! http://www.funkylunch.com/gallery.htm

I love the 'fun with food' concept...again with the edible art! Bring joy and comfort to a meal and still make it sustainable. I guess I'm on a decorate with food kick.

Multipurpose; Re-purpose; Don't purchase - this is the best start to a more sustainable approach to all your celebrations.

Colour and Fruit

I've been exploring colour and unique yet sustainable options for a client and have been running with the idea of edible centerpieces.

Large bunches of deep purple grapes with plums, lemons and greenery look beautiful done up in either a clear deep bowl or a brown tuscan vase. All these are in keeping with next year's colour trends and best of all the fruit can be donated or taken home for consumption.

Another fun idea for the lemons...use lemons as escort cards and have a lemonade stand making a signature lemon cocktail before the reception.