Harbingers of Spring

Last weekend - the last weekend of March - my bride chose colors which truly personify the month of March: silver and brown. The landscape is one of silver raindrops on leaden stones and sidewalks and spindly outlines of ashen trees set against the richness of damp, coffee-colored earth. And then, one day, when you least expect it, the branches burst forth with flower. Such are the juxtapositions of a springtime garden - a seemingly barren terrain suddenly erupts with life.

My wonderful bride had a very distinct look she wanted for her evening wedding and she chose chocolate brown cloths with a lovely somewhat liquid sheen and silver charger plates. To complete the look, I created sky-scraping all-white arrangements - half were hydrangea, stock, and Tibet roses in glass pilsners and the other half were the most gorgeous bundles of cherry blossom and hybrid white delphinium grounded in white stones within enormous ginger jars.

Guests were greeted in the foyer by a spring white arrangement bursting with cherry blossom, casablanca lilies, stock, larkspur, snapdragon, and Tibet roses circled with amaranth and set in a granite-colored urn atop a table strewn with rose petals. In the bridal bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets, I used hydrangea, Tibet roses, white freesia, and many stems of the most perfect white ranunculus.

My photos don't do the room justice - at night, awash in candlelight, the room simply shimmered - the outside was brought in and the guests celebrated under the flowering cherries. Magic!