July Weddings

Hi all, I write this on a hot Sunday evening, exhausted from the past two weekends, having done full florals, decorating and day of consulting plus a little bit of planning for two lovely couples.
Check out some photos of the flowers we did over the past couple of weeks....



Nathalie and Brendan-your wedding made my summer, I hope you move to Squamish so we can spend more time together! Your wedding was so smooth and calm and I really enjoyed getting to know your wonderful family and all your friends. You are a really special couple and I felt your love for one another right from the first time I met you two in Whistler at the wedding fair last fall.

I think everything turned out beautifully, the Edgewater Lodge is the perfect venue and the speeches were amazing. Thanks for seating us with the guests and your father to boot, we felt like part of the initmate day, and I am so grateful for that. Looking forward to seeing some photos and seeing you two in the future!

This is just a photo of a very summery and pretty bouquet we made up this week for a new baby boy. We had sent her several blue arrangements already so thought this time we'd go a bit more natural and fresh.

Michelle's modern bouquet in a biedermiere style with white mini callas and hot pink garden roses that smelled so heavenly!
Michelle and Ben's wonderful wedding here in Squamish was full of hot pinks and whites and chocolate browns. My favourite part might have to have been the cake! Absolutely stunning!
We are looking forward to some playdates with our little guys, very close in age. Congrats you two! It was a beautiful day!

A passionate, sexy and modern bouquet of black callas and white freesias, for an outdoor wedding down by the ocean at Furry Creek.

And....finally, below are Naomi's flowers. I have been looking forward to doing her flowers all year! First because I just adore Naomi and she always cheered me up when I ordered my latte's next door becaues she always took the time to genuinely find out how I was. She is so earthy and real, yet always happy and a little goofy! Our style is so similar, and when I was making her flowers, I felt I was in heaven! This is what I wished I had for my own wedding flowers! Unfortunately when I made my wedding flowers I wasn't as skilled as I am now and so, I got to live vicariously through Naomi's flowers.

Naomi's bridal bouquet was a challenge for me. Not from a design perspective because I had been thinking it over and we had even done a little trial. It was more from a technical perspective so it utlised all the techniques I have learned over the years. I can't wait to hear how it all went. I hope she loved everything!

Store Life

Some photos of Store Life......making it look full and gorgeous is my favourite thing to do after the store closes, I go in, blast Buddha Bar and get into it.

Isn't summer sweet?

Our little pod of terrariums gently blowing in the breezes off the ocean (its more like gusts of wind through the back of the store, blowing all sorts of debris in through everywhere)

Look at our beautiful store :)

This was a fun wedding, free, white, feathers. So my style and she got married at the North Vancouver Outdoor School too. So cool, she probably rock climbs, kayaks, skiis, kiteboards, ice climbs and moutain bikes.

4 weddings today-oops I mean 3!

It's a busy weekend at Billie's Bouquet! I had four weddings, made four weddings, thats right, but oops, I actually only had three! Read on for the juicy and (sad) details....

The girls working hard, in the 32 degree heat-that's hot for Squamish! Looking lovely ladies! Look at all those boutonnieres and corsages and try not to look at what the counter looks like when we make them! Its so fun cleaning up after 12 hours on your feet....

Okay my first BIG screw up, and hopefully last of this sort anyway. Thankfully, it didn't affect anybody negatively except me and my poor amazing staff Cheryl and Lynne who stayed late and made beautiful bouquets for the bride Cheryl, only for me to discover that her wedding date is September 25th-not TODAY! So needless to say, these pretty blue and white flower bouquets were the dry run, (along with 75 white roses worth of petals, bouttonieres and corsages and a very specific toss bouquet) for the real wedding. I guess this is the biggest mistake yet, and I feel pretty bummed about it.

On the other hand, I had so much fun making flowers for the other 3 weddings we had today:


Evelyn: Squamish Railway Museum Roundhouse: beachy theme, bouquets of succulents, roses, orchids, rolled calathea leaves, lipstick plant greens, shells and beachglass-Thanks Evelyn for the funky, creative freedom!

Sue and Heath:Furry Creek: lime green, orange and white. Love this palette, fresh, citrusy and summery. Hope you are all having an amazing feast as we speak. Tight, compact, designed florals, with orchids, roses, GORGEOUS orange pom pom dahlias..... lovely.

Jesse: Garibaldi Springs Golf Resort: classic, beautiful, romantic. My camera battery was dead by then, but her flowers were entirely purple and white dendronbium orchids , thanks Mandy and Cheryl for making such gorgeous bouquets and Lynne for helping me be so organised. Hope the Gelato remotely made up for all your hard work.

This is a picture of the orange tiger lilies that just wouldn't open. Its so funny, we had fresh orchids dying right, left and centre and we were doing every trick in the book to keep them alive, meanwhile we use ripe bananas, with full of ethylene gas in the 35 degree sun to speed up the death process to force the lilies to open! The things we do for our brides.

We're on TV!

The lovely (and extremely tall) Emily from Shaw Cable came to the store a few weeks back to film us talking about our big white weddings, and I had fogotten all about it until our neighbour, Greg from Gelato Carina said we were TV stars the other day!
It wa pretty cool to see us walking extra quick, trying to look normal, doing every day flower shop things, when really we were all super nervous! And of course a little insider tip in case you do see the 4 minute feature, I had to stand on a 10" block behind the counter to look remotely close to the tall 6'3" Emily! They made me twirl flowers around slowly with my fingers like a shopping channel assistant :)
I liked my interview, I got to talk about how passionate I am about making beautiful flowers for people and what is so great about being a florist. I noticed all sorts of things about my face though, and my co-workers noticed hair, expressions, of course, I am sure no one else did!

Just in case it works again: http://start.shaw.ca/Start/enCA/Videos/FeaturedVideos.htm?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7bA0BB5630-EAFE-4F8B-9D52-78105E5D8967%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fstart%2fenCA%2fvideos%2ffeaturedvideos.htm%3ffvPgID%3d%7b7B256BB5-A9B3-491E-9372-4A46356CA42C%7d%26fvTitle%3dSea%2520to%2520Sky%2520Express%26href3D171C4BD6BC%3dmms%253A%252F%252Fprdmediax1.shaw.ca%252FStart%252FShawTV%252FWhistler%252FESS1022.wmv&NRCACHEHINT=Guest&fvPgID=%7b7B256BB5-A9B3-491E-9372-4A46356CA42C%7d&fvTitle=Sea+to+Sky+Express&href3D171C4BD6BC=mms%3a%2f%2fprdmediax1.shaw.ca%2fStart%2fShawTV%2fWhistler%2fESS1022.wmv