Jacksonville Rotary Club 100th Anniversary Gala

We could not help but share these awesome photos from the Jacksonville Rotary Club 100th Anniversary Gala at the Hyatt. We are in LOVE with the uplighting. Look at that color! Brides, can you imagine having your wedding photos with that pop of color in the back! LOVE IT!

Look at how the lighting looks so gorgeous in the background between the blue up lighting and the sconces and chandeliers of the Hyatt. SOOOO elegant!

Thank you to Christy Whitehead Photography for taking a couple of table shots for us!

Peacock inspiration shoot — North Florida wedding and event florist

We are super excited and head over heels in love with this photo shoot we participated in at the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens.

This was a peacock inspired wedding shoot. Peacock is hot right now, and we are in love with the colors and the many different looks you can create with it.

You can go really over the top dramatic with peacock feathers and bursts of color everywhere or you can go very subtle and elegant.

Tanya Hendricks, with Southern Charm Events, and Christy Whitehead, of Christy Whitehead Photography, really pulled together a nice, elegant and modern “wedding.”

Our favorite image from the shoot is above! This is in the Jaguar area at the Zoo. You will be seeing this image pop up in a lot of our advertising, it is such a romantic image!

We were originally supposed to have matching dresses for the “bridesmaids” but Bonny Bridal sent us two peacock toned dresses that were very similar in cut to each other. A lot of brides are choosing to have their bridesmaids wear similar but not the same dresses. And this is really a nice way to add some more color and perhaps allow each bridesmaid to let a bit of her own personality shine through.

And, our floral artist and painter extraordinaire Amy Dwarika painted the bride’s shoes.

Thank you to Visual Power Cinema for this video! And Christy Whitehead Photography for the photos.

Thank you to all our fabulous vendors that participated!

Southern Charm Weddings & Events		Event Planner
Metro Custom Cakes, Inc.		Cake Designer
Lindsey Wirht Makeup Artist		Makeup Artist
Ten23 Designs		Plates, vinyl decals, table settings
Brad Goodell: The Wedding Gallery		Peacock glasses and cutter
Cami’s Paper		Paper Props
Park Side Harmony		Sign in album
The Headband Shoppe		Jewelry
Siera Bushor		Hair Stylist
Christy Whitehead Photography		PHOTOS!
Romas Banaitis		Wedding Bands
Liquid Courage		Flasks
Estylo Jewelry		Jewelry
Beachview rentals		Equipment Rentals
Bonny Bridal		Dress Designer
LennaBea	Cindy Zeigler	Veils and headpieces
David’s Tuxedos		Tuxedo and Mens Attire
Visual Power Cinema	John Powers	Video
Christy Whitehead		Guy’s ties and hats
Beverly Pye		Second Shooter
Jill Stonier-Professional Makeup Artist		Makeup Artist
Ashleigh Dean- Hair stylist		Hair Stylist
Renae Saf – Hair Stylist		Hair Stylist
Amy Dwarika – custom painted art & wearables		Painted shoes
Put It On Canvas	Gerri Hubbard	Canvas
Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens		Venue
Nita’s All Washed Up		Official Dry cleaner

Peacock Wedding Cake Server and Knife Brad Goodell: The Wedding Gallery http://www.etsy.com/shop/bradgoodell

Cami’s Paper (mad libs and Mr & Mrs. signs) http://www.etsy.com/shop/camispaperie

Sign in Album Park Side Harmony http://www.etsy.com/shop/parksideharmony

Bridesmaids Necklaces  (feather necklace) The Headband Shoppe http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHeadbandShoppe

Wedding Rings Romas Banaitis http://www.etsy.com/shop/RomasBanaitis

Peacock Flasks, http://www.etsy.com/shop/LiquidCourage

Bride’s necklace & earrings, bracelets for all the girls: www.estylojewelry.com and estylojewelry.etsy.com

And thank you to our models!

BRIDE & GROOM Makayla Brie & Ethan Gosselin

BRIDAL PARTY:

Ryan Neff

Katie Brannen

Conrad Poston

Cirena Haines

OneJax — North Florida Event Florist

We recently had the honor of doing flowers for OneJax at the Hyatt.

OneJax is an interfaith organization that promotes respect and understanding among people of different religions, races, and cultures.

Thank you to Christy Whitehead Photography for catching a couple of photos of the tables for us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Premier Bridal Show St. Augustine, Fl

We recently attended the Premier Bridal Show at the Renaissance Resort at the World Golf Village. We love this location, it’s so nice and well put together, one of our favorite bridal shows.

We had a huge corner booth. The bridal shows are a great way for us to show off different ideas for weddings, from bouquets to centerpieces. We were packed with brides looking at all the displays we did.

We had Gerri, of Put it on Canvas, print us a banner. She also does all of our canvases. She does EXCELLENT work and her color canvases are exceptional quality. Plus, the customer service is always great.

We did quite a few displays of flowers and petals on the floor. This is one area that sometimes gets overlooked, but it can be a very nice touch for a wedding or reception.

On the floor is our Best of Bride (Jacksonville Magazine) award plaque. Thank you to everyone who voted for us!

This type of centerpiece is great for reception tables. It not only adds height, texture and color, but the base area is open, allowing for a free flow of conversation amongst your guests.

The silvery white branches can be incorporated into centerpieces, or used around an alter. They add a very elegant woodsy and natural effect.

It was so nice meeting all of you at the bridal show!

Thank you to Christy Whitehead Photography, a wedding photographer in North Florida for capturing these shots for us.

One Year — Jacksonville and St. Augustine Florist

It’s been one year since we moved into our new location on Country Road 210 and we want to thank all of our clients for helping us to make this the best year yet!

We can’t thank enough all the brides who have continued to leave awesome feedback on sites like Wedding Wire and The Knot and voting for us in Jacksonville Magazine’s Bride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year we are making some more changes. We recently released our new logo!

And we have a new website in the works.

If you are getting married, please give us a call to come by and see our studio and design space on County Road 210 in St. Augustine. It’s right in between Jacksonville and the World Golf Village, so not far at all! (And YES! We still do weddings and events in Jacksonville as well!)

 

Nancy and Michael’s Wedding, One Year Later: North Florida Florist

It’s been one year since Nancy & Mike got married. They were married at the Saint Georges Antiochian Orthodox Church and their gorgeous reception was held at the Ramallah Club.

J Mosley photography shot their wedding and Christy Whitehead Photography did beforehand photos of the reception hall for us.

Since it’s been a year, we figured we’d ask the beautiful and pregnant (with a girl named Rose, after Nancy’s middle name) Nancy about her wedding.

What do you remember most about your wedding day?

My first dance with my husband. Having 300 people watch us on the dance floor, it was surreal.

What was your favorite part?

All the dancing was really fun, the band really made it fun!

Why did you choose A Fantasy in Flowers?

I was reluctant after having a series of strike-outs with several other “recommended” florists but ultimately I went with them because Susan was professional and confident in her work. I trusted she could handle such a big event.

What would you say to brides who are thinking about doing their own flowers?

Why would you want to torture yourself? Leave that to the professionals, you will have 100 other things to take care of. Flowers are beautiful and need to be done by a professional. Till this day, I still get compliments on the flowers and décor all done by A Fantasy in Flowers. I would NEVER recommend doing that, even if you are crafty, not for your own wedding!!!

What was it like working with A Fantasy in Flowers?

They were hands down my favorite wedding vendor. And I loved all my vendors, but they were the easiest to work with. Susan and her team understood what I wanted and didn’t try to impose their vision on me like so many others did. Susan set up a meeting with me at the venue and then her creative team really shined and put together a magical, romantic event for me. All with very little color which is what I wanted. She captured my own vision and her team executed it beautifully. The venue I had it at even features pictures from only my wedding on their website, guess they liked it too ☺ They have several weddings there and only my pictures are featured. I’d say that is a great compliment for A Fantasy in Flowers!

(A Fantasy in Flowers did all of the drapery for Nancy’s wedding.)

Anything else you would like to add?

Do not waste your time with other florists. I probably met with 10 and knew when I met Susan that my search was over. My bouquets, centerpieces, linens, room décor, all were beautiful. Really they deliver, with no headache and can do it within your budget and all the while being 100% professional. That’s a hard thing to say in the wedding industry.

Congrats on your anniversary Nancy and Mike and on the impending birth of your little girl Rose!

Hydrangeas, why we love them! — North Florida Florist

We love hydrangeas at A Fantasy in Flowers. Not only do they come in an assortment of colors but their big flowery heads mean that you need less of them to fill a bouquet or centerpiece, making them an extremely affordable option for many brides.

Hydrangeas are thought to stand for friendship, understanding and devotion—perfect for two people starting a long life together.  Another definition of what the flower stands for, says that it stands for “heartfelt emotions” and is used to “express gratitude for being understood.”

Martha Stewart’s website has a nice group of photos showing different ways to use Hydrangeas in centerpieces. We particularly love the green apple ribbon table—gorgeous!

One of the other ideas on Martha Stewart’s site was to put them in little white buckets with the buckets showing a table number. This is cute idea and our friends over at Ten 23 Designs can help you do the vinyl numbers.

Some of our brides are scared to use Hydrangeas because they’ve seen them in other weddings and they are wilted and sad looking. This is why we HIGHLY recommend you use a professional florist, we know how much water to give them to keep them looking beautiful all day long.

If you would like to dry your flowers and preserve them after your wedding, here are some tips on how to do it and also how to use them in wreaths and things:

http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/dryingnat.html

Thank you to Christy Whitehead at Christy Whitehead Photography for supplying photos from our past weddings and events of flowers we created.

UNF Bridal Show — North Florida’s Premier Florist

Thank you to all the brides who came out to see us at the UNF bridal show on Sept. 11th. Put on by Premier Bride Magazine.

It was another great show and we enjoyed meeting all of you.

Our floral designers created a ton of fun stuff from bouquets to shoes! I know I mentioned this in the last blog about the Sawgrass bridal show, but Amy outdid herself again and our Florida Gators shoes were stopping traffic!

If you didn’t hear, our talented floral designer Amy Dwarika is getting ready to open an online shop where you can buy hand painted items including custom shoes!

Not a Florida Gators fan? No big deal, she’ll make any team you like or make them to match your flower bouquet or wedding day style.

Give us a call to set up your floral consultation today, we’d love to see you and become your wedding day florist!904-268-7022

A planner can save your wedding day and make ours easier — North Florida Florist

There has been a lot of talk amongst vendors and brides recently about the importance of hiring a wedding planner/coordinator, not just a site planner, and this blog post is just one more reason why we feel EVERY bride should have a wedding planner! (Check out our colleague Christy Whitehead’s blog about the subject.)

Tanya Hendricks, of Southern Charm Events, recently approached us about teaching her and her staff the basics of floral designing and what to do in a floral emergency on the wedding day.

We are so proud of our new design space and loved the opportunity to show it off. And we appreciated the opportunity to show her staff tips and tricks of the trade.

While A Fantasy in Flowers does everything in its power to make sure the wedding day flowers arrive safely and are beautiful, accidents can happen after we leave. For example, when transporting large arrangements from ceremony to reception site, something may fall or break off. Groomsman may lose their boutonnieres and photos may still need to be taken, etc.

The ladies over at Southern Charm quickly learned that our floral artists deal with a lot more tools and such then they ever expected and our job entails a lot more details then just picking flowers and tying them together.

It was sooo cute, Tanya brought in her “floral toolbox,” which was the size of a small tackle box and our floral designer Julia about died with laughter as ours is so much larger. Tanya is def. going to be getting a MUCH larger toolbox after the list of “must have” items we gave her to buy.

Tanya’s group brought food and wine and our designer Julia showed the girls how to wrap a bouquet, how to make a boutonniere, how to carry the large floral pieces and how to repair many common problems. They also learned how to make a corsage, clean flower stains from outfits and practiced pinning on the bouttoniers among other skills.

Hopefully, one of the important things they learned in the process is why a bride should hire a professional florist and how our expertise comes into play to make the bouquets and centerpieces not only beautiful but lasting.

We had a great time with Southern Charm Events! Thank you ladies for thinking of us.

Sawgrass Mariott Bridal Show — North Florida Wedding & Event Florist

We recently set up at the Sawgrass Mariott Bridal Show. It was so nice to see so many of our current brides as well as to meet so many potential brides!

I do have to say that probably the biggest hit in our booth had to be our designer Amy Dwarika’s hand painted work, including these marvelous bridal shoes!

She received soooo many nice compliments from brides and vendors about them. She’s already started taking orders from brides. She can hand paint them in a fun and funky styling like this to match your wedding day decor, flowers or just something different to reflect your personality! We can’t wait to see her shoes popping up in our clients’ wedding day photos!

If you didn’t get a chance to stop by and see them, no worries, come by UNF this Sunday from 1-4pm for their bridal show, we’ll be there!

Thank you Christy Whitehead for the photos!