Floral Fever

When I first moved to Sydney I got a job in Human Resources for a large global company. My direct manager was an Aussie expatriated to London. One year for my birthday she sent me flowers from Grandiflora in Potts Point. OMG! I had never seen flowers, or an arrangement, like it. Incredible sculptural and unusual flowers. When Arran and I got married I wanted flowers for our wedding from Grandiflora, but they were closed over the Christmas period, (we got married on the 28th December) and they recommended another amazing florist (who unfortunately I can't remember the name of). The flowers made the (very) hot and humid day. They helped create a beautiful space for the wedding and party. 

The following two photos were taken by Andrea Thompson of our wedding flowers. You can read a bit more about Andrea here or view her website here.

For my birthday this year Arran bought me a digital SLR Camera, a Canon 60D and a digital SLR course with Sydney Photographic Workshop, which I completed in October. The course was great and I highly recommend it. I practised some of my new skills on a road trip to Parkes. The next two shots I took in Orange at this lovely old park we stopped at on the way. You can see it was spring when we were there. All the flowers were in full bloom.

The other three shots were taken at home when I was doing some more practise.

 

 

So why all the shots of flowers? Mum bought me this amazing book for Christmas, by the florist Saskia Havekes from Grandiflora and it inspired this post. It details some of the large events she has styled flowers for. The book is called "Grandiflora Celebrations". I have just finished reading about each of the events and drooling over the glossy shots, in between looking after Aiden and Charlie and getting ready to go on holidays for a week. It strikes me that Saskia is much more than a florist. She is really an artist and architect who just happens to work with flowers as her preferred medium. Her writing is also "blog-like". It is like she is having a conversation with you about each event and some of the challenges. Very inspiring.