Beautiful bride Shirley knew the colors she wanted for her wedding - coral and gold, and she also knew her budget. We met to discuss her wedding decor needs and where she might save money and I was happy to help give suggestions on alternatives for bouquets and table decor to fit her budget. She brought a picture of a small bridesmaid bouquet of baby's breath to the meeting and we quickly agreed that it would look great and save money.
But, as sometimes happens in the floral industry, there were challenges when the shipment of flowers for her wedding arrived. All the other flowers were perfect except the Gypsophila, commonly known as baby's breath which looked like it had been picked in the field much too early with hardly any of the flower blooms open. I had never, ever seen baby's breath look that! Every single week, no matter what time of year, baby's breath comes in with large white fluffy blooms, but this time I was so disappointed in the shipment but couldn't find any replacement in the area in time for the wedding. So I went to work, trying to make the best of the situation by immediately putting the stems in water and placed them in the sun to try and encourage the blooms to open. Some of the blooms luckily started to open. You can actually hear them pop when they open and I was starting to hear lots of little pops. I'd been told that it might help to whack the baby's breath buds on a counter to help open the blooms, and it did help - a little. Usually baby's breath is used as a filler flower and this batch wouldn't have been an issue, but in the this case, the baby's breath was the star of the show in the bridesmaid bouquets. And that's where flexibility comes into play. Normally I won't promise any one particular flower type when I give quotes, but instead give a range of types of flowers in the color desired so that if a certain flower comes in and doesn't look good enough, I've got other choices, but here I was, in a bind. It became obvious that the design was going to have to be altered just a bit, but as the buds slowly started to open, the overall look was going to remain. Thankfully the bouquets turned out beautifully, with a little help. I was very pleased with the end result.
Below is Shirley with her bridesmaids. The baby's breath did open up enough, but was also supplemented with white roses in the center of each bouquet.
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Photography by Southern Portrait and Video
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Here's a picture of the bouquets and three white roses in each one helped fill out the design.
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Photography by Southern Portrait & Video
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Photography by Southern Portrait & Video
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