Jadie and Margaret from the Boucher Institute contacted us to design some beautiful and cheerful flowers for their graduation reception. It was really interesting to learn more about what the Boucher Institute is and what they do. They are Western Canada’s only accredited Naturopathic Medical School and they are located in New Westminster.

Their graduation reception was held at the Sheraton Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver. As per our usual way of doing things, we met Jadie, she told us the event details, her budget and then we delivered!

As you can see the event was a success!

Another special event we designed for this week was a benefit screening at the Vancity Theatre for The Chefs’ Table Society of BC.

Last night, Vancity Theatre movie goers got to sample delicious Italian fare prepared by Pino Posteraro of Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill after a screening of “Big Night“.

To brighten up the room, Barbara from VIFF requested orange and yellow themed floral arrangements from us.

After watching all the Shrek movies with my neices, I couldn’t wait to design a new Shrek inspired arrangement.

After designing it, I just totally fell in love with this arrangement because it’s full of fun….. curly willow wrapped around the vase with two green birch balls dancing on it. If you want to send something cool and unique, this is the one. It’s a great gift for both males and females so pick a lucky friend or family member! Have fun!

Click this link to purchase Shrek!

I have been addicted to Alice in wonderland. Here come’s the red queen. It is designed with red roses, burgundy leucadendron, red gerberas, red anthuriums and red leaf loops in a black cube ceramic. If we are out of the black ceramic, we will wrap the clear cube with burgundy ti-leaf.

It’s a perfect gift for someone who likes red and something modern.   Click here to grab it!

Crystal and her team at Yelp pulled off an amazing party at the Ayden Gallery in Vancouver’s Tinseltown.  Whoever didn’t register to attend this party missed out big!

Guests enjoyed FREE everything from sangria, chocolates from Coco Nymph, UV Vodka drinks and spiked snow cones, gourmet popcorn, out of control face painting.

There was even live painting going on by artist Mandy Tsung, one of Amy’s favourite local artists. Mandy’s work is so inspiring.

The vibe of the event was really cool, everyone was so friendly and Jeremy Lim was taking gorgeous pictures of all the Yelpers.

We had the fun pleasure of decorating the Ayden gallery with an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Guests entered the gallery exposed to Red Roses all over the place.  These red rose themed arrangements were inspired by the Red Queen from the movie.

When guests walked deeper into the gallery, they would then see two very tall white themed floral arrangements that were designed with white orchids, white lily’s, white hydrangea and white roses. Inspiration for this arrangement came from the white queen.

The flowers in the background below are inspired once again by the red queen, the arrangement was designed using red anthuriums, red roses, black feathers, burgundy leucadendron, red heliconia, curly willow and red gingers.

Today we want to feature some of our new clients that have come on board this past month. They are some pretty hip and super friendly customers.

First up is one of our favourite Japanese Izakaya restaurants, Guu Garden.

They serve up the most delicious Japanese food in Vancouver. We love the Ebi Mayo and Mackerel sushi. Check them out at 888 Nelson St in Downtown Vancouver, they are upstairs.

Another new client is the new men’s apparel store, Inventory. They are located in gastown right next to the Stussy store. They stock unique and hard to find labels from Europe, US and Japan. Check out our flickr set to see what designs we come up with for this fresh space.

The well known Pinnacle International Group is now a Garden Party client, we love brightening up their space with fresh and modern designs.  Pinnacle International develops luxury condo’s and hotels right here in Vancouver.

Close by our flower boutique is a new dental clinic, Dr. Harry Sangha. Get your fangs looking stunning at his clinic in Jericho Village.

This past weekend the Garden Party team had a great time decorating the three stages of the Eat Vancouver Food and Cooking Festival. Popular local restaurants, wineries, food and beverage manufacturers, cookbook authors, retailers, and artisans all gathered over three days to see Celebrity chef demonstrations, culinary competitions and to sample FREE food and drinks!

It was held at the new Vancouver Convention Centre West a familiar place for us as we’ve already done many events here since it’s opening not too long ago.

We made elegant arrangements that compliment the colour theme of the Eat Vancouver stages and we had so many visitors say they loved it.

A simple arrangement was designed for the Wine Stage as we didn’t have to hide any ugly stoves with our floral designs.

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to come down to the waterfront, check out a few pictures of the booth we setup.

As you can see, we went with massive martini cups to go along with the Eat and Drinking theme. For the martini cup arrangement, we used white hydrangea, white peony’s, green hyrangea and white cymbidium orchids.

To match the carpets and drapery of the event, we designed a few burgundy arrangements in a black glass vase. For this arrangement, we used red charm peony’s and deep red roses. Nobody believed they were real!

Today we celebrated Fat Cat’s 17th birthday, although we don’t know the day he was born, May 15th is the day we got to know Fat Cat very well.

Residents and business owners in the Point Grey neighbourhood came to wish him Happy Birthday and enjoyed some sweet cake.

Fat Cat got a new toy and he went bezerk!

Watch Fat Cat destroy his birthday cake!!!

Today is Administrative Professionals Day, the Vancouver chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals held a breakfast at the Pan Pacific Hotel to be entertained, to network and to be challenged.

Check out the Ocean View and our flowers below!

For this elegant arrangement, we used white double petal tulips, white cymbidium orchids, yellow roses and green viburnum.

This arrangement featured white cymbidium orchids, pink double petal tulips, green viburnum, bear grass and tropical greenery.

A lucky winner will get to bring home this exotic tropical arrangement we designed.

It was late in the evening one cold night last December, Amy was taking pictures of an arrangement we had to deliver the next day and a customer walked in the door to buy an orchid. She really liked the floral arrangement and said to Amy, “Aww, I wish I received those flowers!”

She asked if we did events, we said that’s what we love designing for events and the next thing you know, we were now involved with an exciting and prestigious event. The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s 25th Anniversary Gala. Guests include Premier Gordon Campbell, politicians Stockwell Day and John Reynolds, top Canadian and Asian corporate leaders, renowned business people and senior government officials.

The Goal.
The Foundation looks to deepen understanding and expand Canada-Asia relations crucial to Canadian growth and advancement.

The Challenge.
It was our task to communicate this goal through a beautiful floral table centerpiece.

To show the relationship between Canada and Asia, we used Pine as the base greenery of the arrangement. Pine is found in most of the Asian countries as well as Canada. We then spent alot of time researching the national flowers of each country in Asia. After days of contacting various suppliers, we realized it was very possible that we could import most of these flowers. To tie all the elements together, we found an elegant bronze vase that matches almost identically to the tall Chinese inspired doors you see behind Premier Gordon Campbell.

We prepared a stunning sample for the Asia Pacific Foundation in early March, which they promptly approved. We then proceeded to place orders for all the different flowers we needed to import. The flowers came from all over the world, such as Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia.  LanYan from Dalvey Orchid helped us to import lotus, acacia, and Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid from singapore. Kathleen from Proline trading helped us to import water lilies from New Zealand and dendrobium from Thailand. We also sourced as many local flowers as possible and even went to various greenhouses and farms to look for backup flowers.

We also proceeded to place a large order for the bronze vases we found and to our shock, our supplier in Toronto said they had been all sold out! By chance, we actually met the designer and manufacturer of the bronze vases while we were at the Christmas World International Event Decoration Fair in Frankfurt. We quickly called them long distance to Europe and they said they had discontinued that design and did not have any in stock. For over a month, we had looked everywhere for the bronze vases and with the help of our supplier, Jordana, we were able to locate just enough vases for each table. Thank you once again!

Our team of designers were incredible, as the flowers arrived just days before the event, everybody helped out and went above and beyond to ensure every detail of every arrangement was perfect.

Except for Fat Cat. He slept in our front window display all day long.

The national flowers of the Asian countries varied in colour from pink to yellow, there was no way that Amy would put yellow and pink in the same arrangement. We designed two arrangements with different colour theme’s, the one above was designed with pink cymbidiums (New Zealand), Cherry Blossoms (Japan), Hibiscus – replaced by Magnolia (a popular flower in Korea), Jasmine (Philippines and Pakistan), Lotus (India and Vietnam), Pink Peony’s (China), Vanda Miss Joaquim (Singapore) and amazing Purple Water Lily’s (Sri Lanka).

The water lily’s were one of the most beautiful flowers of the arrangement. But when we received them after importing them from New Zealand, they were all very closed. We had to accept the fact that we might not be able to use them and that we had just ordered over 100 stems of Water Lily for nothing. When we arrived at the store on the morning of the event, we were thrilled to see almost all the water lily’s had opened up!!!

The white and yellow arrangement was designed with White Phalanoepsis orchid (Indonesia), Acacia (Australia), Green Dendrobium orchid (a popular flower in Thailand), Jasmine (Philippines, Pakistan), Yellow cymbidium Orchid (a popular flower in New Zealand), red hibiscus – replaced by orange mokara Orchid (a popular orchid in Malaysia), White Peony (China), and White Water Lily (Bangladesh).

We decided to go with a yellow themed tall arrangement for the reception counter as a preview to the beautiful Chinese inspired doors the guests would see in the banquet hall.

While guests are having a cocktail and mingling, a refreshing and simple cymbidium orchid provided a interesting talking point.

At the end of the event, the Foundation was to raffle off the table centrepieces in benefit of their Post-Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Of the over 30 floral arrangements we designed, all but 4 were snapped up. A beautiful end to a successful gala!

Dayna and Ryan were married at the Quilchena Golf and Country Club in Richmond, BC.  A secluded and established golf club and one of the most prestigious places in Richmond to get married.

Dayna knew exactly what she wanted on her beautiful day. FUN!

We used a colour scheme of vibrant pink, orange gerbera’s and yellow freesia to brighten up the beautiful venue and set the tone for the fun night, as these flowers were Dayna’s favourite in the whole entire world.

Dayna’s bridal bouquet matched the fun table centerpieces and the ribbon matched Ryan’s suit.

It was so hard to setup the banquet space with that cake in our face. We used all of our will power to resist sneaking a bite!

Complimenting, the cake, the centerpiece and the bouquets, were the boutonnieres.

We just received an email from one of the bridesmaids and she wrote us this message that made our day. “I wanted to thank you again for doing a fabulous job with the flowers for Daynas wedding, they exceeded all of our expectations.”

It’s just past 6:00AM at a cargo airport.  We speak no Italian nor German, we just missed our flight from Frankfurt to Rome and had no idea how we would make our way there.

We decided to board a Ryan Air flight from Frankfurt to Pisa with mixed feelings: frustration, exhaustion, and adventure.   That’s the fun of traveling though, never ending surprises and excitement so we just enjoyed the moment!

We landed in Pisa with just enough time to get a blurry picture of the Tower of Pisa and quick plate of pasta before getting to the train station to catch the last train out for Rome.

Missing the plane turned out not so bad!  Not only did we get to see the leaning tower of Pisa and eat a cheap and tasty plate of pasta, the train to Rome actually dropped us off one block away from the hotel we booked!

After a long day of walking and eating, it was great to come back to Italian television, the one English movie channel and the rainforest shower head…

We had a simple goal for our trip in Rome, find beautiful florists to connect with and check out some historical sites along the way.

Coliseum. Check.

Spanish Steps.  Check.

Pantheon. Check.

Where were all the florists?  The research we did online were proving to be disappointing. Feeling defeated after asking many locals where the best florists were located, we finally found this place!  “Tulipani Bianchi”

The store was clean like a hospital but warm like a church.

They had pretty cool arrangements like this one…

The owner was very friendly, telling us that his shop is one of many in Western Europe, then proceeded to show us how he wraps bouquets in Rome.

Feeling productive, we then chased the second goal of coming to Rome.  EATING!

I would normally never eat an artichoke on a plate, but this was amazing!

Beef carpaccio was very different at this Roman Restaurant compared to the dishes we’ve had in Vancouver, the slices were so thick and I was stuffed after eating just a few pieces!

Yup!  After eating the appetizers and the pasta, we also polished off this pizza!

The next morning we were hard at work, buying buckets of flowers online, replying to emails and searching for more florists to visit.

As we walked the city, we took in more sights like the Vatican and Trevi Fountain:

We visited many flower shops, but could not find one that we feel we could establish a relationship with and be confident to recommend to our clients who want to send flowers to Rome.

Night came and reading street signs became difficult….no, that’s not true, it was because we can’t read Italian!

We had one more shop on our list.

We immediately fell in love with the cute little store and the owner was the nicest guy we met on our entire trip. The name of the flower shop is called: BLOEMEN

He told us that Italian’s in Roma prefer to spend their money on clothes and fashion and less on flowers, but even though he had a low volume of customers, he carried and stocked rare and premium flowers. The roses are so big and fragrant.

Simple but artistic design with a piece of drift wood and moss in a big glass cube.

Purple and green arrangements with branches. These are one of my favoriate designed by Claudio.

Although we had a significant language barrier, we still had the same taste in floral design.  He even went to the trouble of showing us his favourite floral design books.

It was funny that he really liked Jeff’s designs since his show was just starting to air on TLC.

If you ever need to send flowers to Rome, we highly recommend his services, he is so passionate about floral design and quality!

Visitors to Vancouver, you’ll have a much easier time finding great florists…..we hope you choose us as we love being inspired, enjoy beautiful floral designs and we’re always looking for ways to make everyone around us happy!