In August, one of my good friends is getting married and I am super duper excited to be one of her bridesmaids. One of the things she wanted to look into was doing her own flowers for the big day so we decided to head out to the Sydney Flower Markets. We had done our research and found that if you want the best quality flowers that day - your best bet is to get there at 5am when the markets open, but if you're looking for some bargains, you're better off getting there around 8:30 or 9am as the vendors are getting ready to pack up. For the actual wedding, I'm sure my friend will be there at 5am sharp, but for practising, we thought we'd try for some cheaper blooms (and have a teeny bit of a sleep in too) so we arrived by about 8:30am and this was the first thing I saw:
I instantly fell in love with the coral roses (see them on the right hand side of the picture) but forced myself to focus on the task at hand - finding the perfect wedding flowers! So we explored:
After roaming the markets for about an hour, I was feeling super accomplished - my friend had a really good idea of what she wanted, and we'd picked up some cheap flowers to experiment with, but those coral roses were still calling my name. So as we were walking out, we ducked by the same flower vendor from earlier in the morning and he had just reduced his prices from $5 per bunch to 3 bunches for $10! It was a sign! I couldn't resist any longer and I bought 2 bunches of the coral roses and a bunch of the white ones too.
I won't share the pictures of our practice wedding flowers but safe to say, I had a TONNE of fun experimenting, and the bride is super happy with her choice. In fact, we had so much fun that I didn't get home until about 10pm! But when I did, my mind immediately turned to playing with those coral and white roses. I think here's a good place to not - I am not a florist, nor do I have ANY experience arranging flowers ahead of today but I thought I'd do a little post about what I did...
This is what I started with:
I cut off most of the folage from each rose - leaving just a few leaves at the top, and I cut the stems down to a length that I thought looked nice in my vase (making sure to cut them on an angle).
The white roses didn't have many thorns but I was surprised to find that most of the coral ones were very thorny - with teeny tiny little thorns that were difficult to remove (so I didn't).
By the time I was done - I had a LOT of leaves and stem cut offs to throw away (luckily my apartment block has a green waste bin).
And I was ready to start arranging!
I had a few Silver Dollar Eucalyptus leaves which were leftovers from wedding flower experimenting that I added to my arrangement to break up the roses a little. I absolutely love how they sort of poke out of the round arrangement. Basically, I used the two types of flowers and the leaves, I just got playing and poking and changing and switching until I was happy with how it looked. Here's the finished product!
I absolutely LOVE how it looks on my kitchen island! I wish it could be a permanent fixture.
XOXO
Bee
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