If I had to be working on my birthday, then there could not be a better couple too work for then Kim and Matt, owners of Still Life Boutique. What a beautiful crowd of beautiful people in a beautiful spot surrounded by beautiful flowers and beautiful vintage details, and beautiful wooden accents created by Matt himself.

Gorgeous little place card holders on antique crocheted table runners.

Beautiful antique bottles filled with incredible peonies and soft ladies mantle, and asters on carved cedar planks

Hand carved walnut table numbers surrounded by more vintage loveliness. The fantastic vintage finery was rented from the lovely Josephine at Victoria Vintage Rentals. There is a treasure trove of vintage goodness there and we are so lucky to have her here on the Island.

Beautiful and bountiful peonies and hydrangeas spill out of an old suitcase…

Sweet, sentimental details everywhere and the masterpiece, piece de resistance, the INCREDIBLE cake from the amazingly talented Corrina Ludwig of Passion for Cakes.

And to finish this post some beautiful shots of the bouquets, that were filled with all manner of soft, romantic and fluffy blooms. Peonies, garden roses, sweet peas, and lisianthus. Heaven!

Still Life and Still Love…..

We have to dedicate two posts to this particular couple because the story just can’t fit into one! In our business we get to see many couples and  we think Anais and Andrew are the perfect couple for a number of reasons.  She does all the talking and he mostly smiles and looks at her lovingly.  She is hilarious and he laughs at her and appreciates her.  She loves him and his quiet ways.  The only time he reigned her in during the entire planning process was to say no to the silver votive candles we proposed and so we all agreed, that because he was so undemanding, we would grant him this one wish.

We have known Anais for about 4 years, she used to work part time for us and so we knew she would appreciate us bringing our humour with us to our very first official consultation for her wedding.  We dressed up in wedding gowns and made her wear a veil.  That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the planning stages.

Anais and Andrew decided to get married on their favorite beach and have their reception at her uncle’s stunning condo in Tofino on Vancouver Island.  While all that was a great idea, the logistics for us were mind boggling, to say the least.  We had to figure out how to safely deliver hundreds of stems of white phaeleonopsis orchids, a few hundred roses, hydrangeas and more not only to Tofino, but also how we were going to traipse the orchids and vases down to the beach.  Our first order of business and one of our better decisions was to rent a cargo van to drive and house all the flowers and supplies.  I’m not sure about the pink bow, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

OK, I can’t believe I just posted that picture of myself.  Taking one for the team.

We spent the rest of Friday afternoon settling in to our VERY luxurious accommodations at Anais’s uncles condo development.  His name is Walker McKinley of McKinley Dang Burkart and he is the very charming and very talented architect of The Shores.  Friday night was spent wiring orchids, making bouquets, centrepieces, bouts and getting ready for the ceremony on Saturday.

This is the deck before we worked our magic.  Stay tuned for the transformation.  I know, it is fabulous like it is now but wait until you see it!

017040 039 038 037 030 029 028 025 024 016 013 012 011 What a way to end our wedding season this year. Two of our most favorite people in the whole world, and without a doubt two of the most talented photographers we and many others have had the pleasure of working with got married today. What a day it was! The sun shone and the autumn leaves seemed to shimmer with extra brilliance as Tristan Shouldice  married Jenna Tye under the garry oak tree’s in the garden of the beautiful Fireside Grill. Much will be recorded, written, photographed and blogged about this wedding as the room was filled with some of the best wedding photographers around. Not only were we lucky enough to be able to do the floral design for this wedding but both of our family’s attended with Vanessa’s daughter Lily as the flower girl /”photographer in training”. Lily and Kai, the ringbearer, got swept up in the photographer energy and a little photoshoot for themselves.
 We will be absolutely thrilled and honoured to have a record of this wedding included in our gallery as it was photographed by the genius eye’s of Ben Chrisman and Erin Reed, international wedding photographers from San Fransisco. As Jenna so eloquently put it tonight in her speech, these two “taught her how to see”. The dinner and party was “sound-tracked” by the best in the business Party People Sound Solutions, Angus is bar none the best DJ around. Of course we had to get ourselves looking ship shape for this “wedding of the year” so the lovely hands and make-up artistry of Mel Baird transformed us before we headed off. There is a reason she is booked every single weekend of the wedding season. We have watched Mel transform many of the same brides we have worked with, and we now gladly have the ability to personally reccomend her to all our brides. Below is a record of our floral journey from buckets to bouquets and centrepieces, only this time our pictures feature more of the people as they should. We believe that the flowers speak for themselves and our record is but one of many that will be shared of this day. Thank you to both Jenna and Tristan, our hearts were in every arrangement that surrounded you today!

This beautiful wedding of a beautiful couple took place over labour day weekend. This wedding was one we had looked forward to all year, because everytime autumn rolls around we are both reminded at how much we love this time of year with all it’s faboulous colours and textures. The entire wedding was a warm and wonderful affair filled with family and friends. We set up our little work station in the bride’s parent’s garage and spent the day before building the arrangements on site. We relished in the opportunity to witness the couple and their family and friends working towards creating this day. Our flower choices were easy, with sunflowers being the star attraction. We created table centrepices using small arrangements designed in mason jars and filled them with combinations of dahlias, calla lily’s, solidago an buplereum. The 2 large arrangements that flanked the pergola (a gift from the grooms parents) where the ceremony took place were filled with limelight hydrangea’s, sunflowers, fiber optic grass, and dahlia’s. The brides grandmother had a collection of old Roger’s sugar buckets that we filled with the same mix of flowers. The bridal bouquet was a perfect mix of burnt oranges, yellows, and greens using a mix of calla’s, roses, dahlia’s, freesia, hypericum, and buplereum, all wrapped up in a satin green ribbon. We just adored this couple and are thrilled they asked us to be a part of their day and to stay for the ceremony. This post is a record of the creation and set up photographed by our good friend, Jenna.  For a view of the finished product and pictures of the couple check out Karen McNeil and her blog post.

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