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

June 25th /26th weddings

This past Friday, Marie, Mandy and I set up the flowers for Catherine and Vic 's wedding at the most beautiful Vancouver Club. What a venue! I have never seen such a classy and elegant wedding, from the creamy linens, to the gunmetal velvet loung chairs, to our stunning flowers of course, a mound of fluffy white and creams in roses, peonies and hydrangeas.

Here is the behind the scenes that most brides will never know happened. I order 215 white peonies for this wedding adn 205 white hydrangeas, and over 500 white roses. When I checked the cooler Wednedsay morning, 100 of the peonies were pink, there were only 100 white hydraangeas and half the roses were yellowy cream. I swear the entire Fraser Valley farmland was searching their farms and their friends farms and possibly even their grandmothers gardens for white peonies! We were able to get the peonies up at a huge expense from the courier companues, but there was nothing we could do about the hydrangeas and roses so we just made do.

I tell you it was a very stressful week! To top it off, I had the van all loaded, everything all timed adn ready to go, my latte in my cup holder and off we went Friday morning, early as usual to prevent the stressful pressure that comes from leaving set up's to the last minute. There was an accident on the highway and we were stuck for 45 minutes not moving. I admit that I did actually get out of the van and run up the highway to the flagperson to yell and scream that the flowers were getting hot in the van and why weren't they letting our side move when the other side had been moving for 30 minutes. I am sorry to that flagperson!

So needless to say, it is a much needed day off today, thanks to my faithful staff who support me getting some sleep and cuddling with my sweet little baby.

Catherine, if you read this, you will know the crazy story behind your flowers, if not, ignorance is bliss right!

Peace,
Alanna

June 5th wedding flowers

Thank you to Susan Carmody for creating this cute little collage. I was priveledged to create the beautiful wedding flowers for a local estuary wedding on June 5th. Here are some of the photos from it:

Woolly pockets create living walls-vertical garden craze!

Check out these incredible vertical walls:

We have our new shipment of Woolly Pockets in! We have had real success with our living wall inside the store and we just installed a 9 foot living wall pocket outside the front of the store draping over our window. Visit http://www.woollypocket.com/ for more inspiring pictures and ideas. A little lower we will show more pictures of incredible vertical gardens by inspiring gardener, Flora Grubb in San Fransisco.

Hello, I am WALLY:

Hello, I am Lil' Meadow

Hello, I am also Lil' Meadow:

Hello I am an ISLAND:

Well it's been too long!

Hi everyone, It has obviously been a little busy round here, seeing as how I haven't even been able to make a post on our blog since our first week of opening back in January!

Thanks to all my friends and family for your support through the past few months, and to all our loyal and lovely customers. And a huge thankyou and piles of hugs to my amazing team of staff at the store! Kevin, Cheryl, Lynne, Mandy, Marie and now Christine, I love you! Well we are in full swing wedding season and with the busy busy month of June winding down (we did so many cute little ballerina bouquets!) we are looking forward to our next window display. This will be the fourth one since January and I have to say I should have been documenting them! They have looked quite stunning if I do say so myself.

January: hot pink lanterns with fushia pots and fushia phaleonopsis orchids shooting out everywhere..lots of little love words and love notes and passionate hearts for Valentine's Day

February/March: birch trees grew longingly out of a blanket of moss that covered spring bulbs like hyacnth, crocus and daffs, the store smelled heavenly! We had peacock feather shooting off the tree branches and mossy/earthy/springy words showering from the ceiling.


April and May: now we switch to delicate yellows and whites, oblong yellow paper lanterns (seem to have a theme going on here) with white bird cages hanging from the ceiling, little birds of all sorts peeking in around everything, triples ball glass hanging vases with sweet yellow ranunculus and painted eggs galore, crystaly, pretty and dreamy!

June: welcome ocean breeze.... you can honestly smell the ocean in the shop sometimes! white solar powered SOJI lanterns, sheer sky blue panels of rice fabric, remninscent of sails, and air plants hanging, with brown waving grasses and tall clear vases with brown and white branches arching....