Our sister site has a fabulous video on creating centerpieces using a trio of vases on a mirrored base, just perfect for all the Recessionita Brides out there looking to do their own flowers.

If both mothers are coordinating their outfits with the colors of the wedding, then their corsages, no matter what style chosen should match the other floral arrangements. If they are not, then you want to make sure to compliment the colors of their dresses but use the same flowers that are in the other arrangements if at all possible.

And, if your moms don’t want to wear their flowers, consider giving them a small nosegay to carry instead. I always bring mine in small vases, because flowers need water like we need air. When the mom is done carrying her bouquet, she can place it back into the little vase in front of her at the table she sits at. Here is an example of small nosegays that the moms carried for a wedding I did a couple of years ago.

Most people would expect that Monday would be the best day to buy flowers. After all, it is the first of the week, everything should be fresh, right? Wrong. Monday is actually the worst day to get your flowers, even here at the San Francisco flower market. Anything that you would buy on Monday is either left over from the previous week or it arrived over the weekend and has sat without refrigeration waiting for markets to open. Even just a day without being kept in a cool environment will cause flowers to age faster and lose vase life.

The best day of the week to buy flowers is actually Wednesday. By then everything will have arrived from the wholesalers. Anything left over from the end of the previous week will be gone and this will give you the best chance to find the exact flowers you are looking for.

But remember, no matter what day you buy your flowers, always make sure to ask the vendor about freshness.

A good way to think of it is that you are creating the arrangement in sections. The focal flowers, the supporting flowers and then the fillers. Following this simple guideline, you can expand the number depending on the size of the arrangement you are looking to make. Keeping scale in mind, you should cut your stems and adjust the height of each group so that the visual effect is to draw the view’s eye around the arrangement. For instance, the most basic arrangement would have 3 focal flowers, 3 supporting flowers and then 3 fillers. Expanding the size of your arrangement is very easy from this starting point, but always make sure that your star attraction, the focal flower does not get lost when adding additional flowers to each level.

I want to share with you a couple of tips and tricks about arranging whether you are choosing the flowers around the vase, or trying to figure out what is the best vase to use for those gorgeous long stemmed Iris that you’ve gathered up out of your yard.

The best way to determine vase size is to make sure that it is to scale with the flowers that you are planning to use. For instance the vase to the left is a tall vase with a fairly standard sized opening. It would be perfect for long stemmed roses, Iris, Calla Lilies, but might not work well with flower such as snap dragons or gladiolas. Because even though they have long stems, flowers of those types have blossoms that run down the length of the stem and you would have to sacrifice some of them in order for the combination to work . Using a flared opening vase would probably suit them better.

A good rule to keep in mind is to make sure that your arrangement is never more that 2.5 times the height and width of your vase. Any smaller and the arrangement will be dwarfed by the vase size and the flowers will not lay right, creating an awkward looking arrangement. And any larger than than and you risk having the arrangement not only overpower the setting you placed it in, but risk having it topple over.

On the East coast they have some water picks available that I have never seen on the West Coast.  I am determined to find them, even if I have to have them shipped from New York!  The water picks had a tube on the end of them about 1 inch long and a hyacinth stick fit perfectly into the tube allowing you to easily extend the length of a flower stem for inserting into an arrangement.  A lot of the floral arrangements done by Preston Bailey Designs are HUGE and long stemmed flowers are a must for these, so the water picks with the hyacinth stick fittings were used on almost everything they did for the second course.

One of the highlights of my trip was dinner at Preston Bailey’s home.  His chef prepared a raw food meal for us and for those unwilling to try the vegan diet, Preston also had tilapia and pizza.  The dessert was ice cream and cookies (again all made via the RAW FOOD principles, which means completely vegan and nothing cooked over 104 degrees).  I don’t understand how they make ice cream and cookies this way, but they were fantastic!  It is also good for you and your waistline.  Preston says it is keeping him young!  Hats off to Chef Dana.

Another highlight was meeting Theo Bleckmann, Preston’s partner and musician extraordinaire!  Theo travels the world performing and teaching music and singing.

We’re working frantically now with the editors to get the Fundamental Floral Design course online by 9/27/11.  It will be available at www.lovegevity.com initially.  Over time, it will be available at 2000 colleges and universities across the United States.  The course is also being produced in Spanish.  The intermediate course will be available shortly after the Fundamentals course is live….Very Exciting stuff covered in the intermediate course, which includes ALL Preston Bailey designs including structures, chandeliers, walls, trees and so much more.

Everyday we took the subway from the house we were staying at in Brooklyn to Preston Bailey’s offices on 7th Ave and W. 25th Streets in NY.  The actual time on the train was fairly short, about 20 min’s.  But we had to walk 8 blocks to the closest subway station in Brooklyn, descend down the stairs to the hot, humid and dirty station.  While the temperatures never got above 85 degrees, the humidity was so high that it felt like you were entering a sauna as you descended down the subway station stairs.

It took several trials and errors to figure out which train we needed to transfer to in NY.  After a couple of times walking down long tunnels that connected you to other stations and trains, we decided we’d rather walk above ground in the fresh air than below ground in the humid, crowded, dirty tunnels.  Many people asked if I saw any rats in the subway stations….thankfully, I never did.  Apparently, they are the size of cats and if I had seen one I don’t know that I could have been convinced to go below ground again.  I also kept saying, “I am so glad they don’t have earthquakes here”….now I learn that I was wrong, they do have earthquakes there, and I am so glad I was home in California when the earthquake hit last week.  Again, I don’t know that I could have been convinced to go below ground to the subway station knowing that the earth could shake and I could be stuck down there for an undetermined amount of time.

On two occasions we entered the subway only to realize we were on the wrong side of the tracks.  When that happened, we had to exit the subway station, go above ground again, walk across the street and reenter the subway station.  The only problem is that the subway weekly passes we were using have an 18 minute restriction on them, meaning, once you use it, you can’t use it again for 18 minutes.  Since we didn’t want to wait 18 minutes, the first time we crawled under the gate and the second time we scooted really close together with members of our party who had not used their subway ticket on the wrong side of the tracks….LOL.  I wish I could have a video of us doing that!  I’m sure the subway authorities have it on video.

The time went so fast….we worked many LONG days, 15 hours was not unusual.  Standing on my feet for that long was grueling.  There were a few days when I thought I would not be able to move the following day….I went to sleep wearing a back support and took extra anti-inflammatory pills.  In two weeks I don’t think my head hit the pillow until 12:30 – 1:00 AM except for maybe 2 occasions when I was able to get to bed by midnight.  I ran on pure adrenaline!  I had a job to do and had to keep going until it was complete.

What should have taken 2 -3 days to shoot took 6 days because every time there was background noise, like the elevator door opening, someone trying to walk and the floor squeaked, a garbage truck outside lowering it’s lift gate, a fire engine siren, etc….we had to “cut”.  The offices were one great big room with while sheer curtains acting like room dividers, which meant everyone could hear everything.  While we tried to shoot video in the center of this big room, 7 employees tried to work on the far end of the room.

It took almost 7 hours just to get the set just right, the lighting, the backdrop sign, ultimately adding a sheer white curtain to the back wall, the table linen, the mic sound, centering the work table…so much to do before we could begin taping content.

Your wedding colors and flowers create a perfect personalized image of your wedding day is.  But, creating the right combination of colors can be daunting.  There are four basic color scheme definitions and knowing a little about each will definitely help you as you think out what colors will make your special day perfect.  Of course, the first thing you should select are the types of flowers that you want which will dictate to some degree the colors that you chose.  A color wheel is a great tool to have as you sit and plan out your wedding.

Related or monochromatic colors -This is one of the easiest schemes to create because it takes one color and uses various hues of that same color, such as pale pink, pink, red, dark red.  You can prevent this scheme from looking bland by mixing up the types of flowers that you are using within the arrangement.  This will help create diversity and great eye appeal as well as keeping with the related theme.

Complimentary Colors – These are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel.  Examples are yellow and violet or red and green.  If you think about it, a lot of what we think of as traditional holiday colors are just complimentary colors on the color wheel.  You can even take this a step further and use some eliments of the Monochromaic scheme and give a wide variety of visual appeal by using various hues of your complimentary colors.

Triadic Colors -  This scheme is a little more difficult and consists of using three colors on the color wheel that appear in equal distance to each other.  Or form the shape of a triangle as shown in the image.  They don’t compliment each other and may be more difficult to work with.  An example of triadic colors would be blue, yellow and red, or purple, orange and green.

Discordant Colors – This color scheme is one of the most difficult to put together and is best left to the professionals.  It is made up of two sets of complementary colors.  It takes great skill to put these together without ending up with a clash of color.

You’ll need to use a long narrow strip of small gauge chicken wire for each basket arrangement.  Fold this into thirds so that the wire overlaps, creating a lot of small openings.  Then wrap this around the basket.  Take the container that you are going to use for water and pierce two holes through the top.  Place it into the basket and run a piece of wire through the holes and attach it to the sides of the basket for support.

Arrange your flowers in the basket.  Then using the chicken wire frame, insert your foliage into the wire.   You will need to remember to mist the foliage often as it will not have any other water source.

This is also a great tool for heavy or bulky stemmed flowers and foliage, it works as an anchor along with floral foam to support your arrangement so that the weight of the stems do not stress the foam and cause your arrangement to sag.

Would you believe that everyday ordinary chicken wire is the answer to supporting your stems.  It’s great, you can use it inside the container to build a framework, around floral foam to create a better support or even outside of the container if you are using baskets with a container inside to hold water.

And it’s easily found, any large hardware store carries galvanized chicken wire, so do farm and feed supply stores.   You can also get green plastic coated wire from a florist wholesaler, but it will be more expensive this way.

Chicken wire is perfect for holding soft stemmed flowers and foliage, such as aenmones and spring flowers.  The best gauge of wire to use is 2 inches.  You should always make sure to cut the wire a little wider than the opening of the container and three times the depth.  Shape it so that it will easily fit into the vase.  This will create a perfect support system and if the wire mesh is small enough, it will be completely hidden by the time you have finished your arrangement.