We brought a bride to tears! In a good way....

This is the reaction that we strive for!  Not to make a bride cry, but when she is so moved, that she may shed a tear of joy, it is truly heartwarming.  This is my nephew Andy and his new wife Julie.  We went to Hawaii earlier this month to celebrate with them, but also, of coarse, do their wedding flowers :)  Thank you guys so much for getting us over there to do just that! 
These words from the photographer Sarah Rhoads, "My favorite moment of their big day was when Julie walked into the room where the ceremony would be held, saw it for the first time and her eyes welled up with big tears, as she hugged Andy she told him she couldn't believe how much everyone did... her gratitude was so sincere. You see, Julie & Andy's wedding was supposed to be outdoors but it rained quite a bit that morning so they made the executive decision to move everything inside so Jules had no idea what it would look like. Andy & his family put together a gorgeous surprise for these two indoors and it ended up playing out perfectly."
I worked along side with my sister-in-law Annie who has a floral and coordination business of her own.  I had so much fun collaborating with her on this special wedding.  Julie is also in the wedding industry, she is quite a talented photographer.  We worked on this wedding together. Julie had a huge part also in the design of her wedding and did many DIY projects that made this wedding truly special and unique.

This beautiful wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty and you can see more beautiful photos on Sarah Rhoads Photography's Blog.

Paper flowers made from maps

Congratulations Julie & Andy!  Julie, we are now both Mrs. Fitts!!  Welcome to the family!
This wedding is what Spreading Floral Love is all about!

Time is a flyin!

I can't believe it is already March 14th!  We have been very busy meeting with potential brides excited about their upcoming weddings.  I'm very much looking forward to working with some of you amazing ladies to help make the wedding unforgettable with unique floral artistry.  Thought I'd share a few recent weddings with you.

Aubrey and Andrew ~ Est. 11/14/10
Thank you to Troy Grover Photographers for sharing the photos with us.

Succulent Boutonniere

Super cute cake!

We just got back from an amazing wedding in Hawaii.  Our nephew Andy and his beautiful bride Julie tied the knot in beautiful Wiamea.  So excited to share this wedding with you....maybe even Martha Stewart will be sharing it with you ;)  We'll see....

While we were there my husband David and I renewed our vows on the beach with his Dad, Mom and our son Isaiah.  Happy 23rd wedding anniversary David, I love you!!

Thanks to our awesome sister-in-law Kathy Fitts Photography for shooting a few photos of this special moment.

Blogity, blog, blog, blog.....

Blogging doesn't come easy for me.  My creativity is through my floral design.  Thank goodness for all the wonderful wedding bloggers out there!!  Thank you for showcasing our work so we can stick to what we're good at :)  I do however understand the importance of blogging so you all can see what we are up to in our world and what we are keeping tabs on.

Soooo.....if you haven't seen them already, here are the blogs we were featured on this year....drum roll please!

We are a preferred vendor with this great website/blog and so proud of it.....THE WEDDING CHICKS
Featured on 11/10/10  See it HERE 
Nicole & Patrick ~ Est. 10/9/10

Photo courtesy of Julie Harmsen Photography
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GREEN WEDDING SHOES is an awesome blog, and Jenn, the creator loves all things vintage, so how could she not share this wonderful wedding with her followers!  
Featured on 6/1/10  See it HERE
Stephanie & Brian ~ Est. 5/1/10 

Photos courtesy of Brandon Kidd Photography
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They say that if you are featured on STYLE ME PRETTY, you've got a lot to be proud of.  I'm especially proud of the comment by Abby the writer: "If I have to call dibs on one element that has completely won me over...it would have to be the flowers by Stacey Fitts.  The holy-cow-gorgeous flowers!"
Featured on 8/11/10  See it HERE
Pam & Eddie ~ Est. 5/29/10

Photos courtesy of Christine Farah Photography






















Our next few blog features were from styled shoots I provided some florals for and helped set up the sets along side some pretty amazing and talented professionals.
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ROCK AND ROLL BRIDE is a great blog with the writer residing and mostly blogging about weddings in England.  Her blog is so much fun and she is one cool chick!  For her to feature our shoot, was a big honor.  Sugar & Fluff Design and Crissy Farah invited me to take part in this end of the year "we're over these trends, but their not going anywhere" funfest.  Our model Molly is my daughter Sydnee's best friend, she rocked it!!
Stick A Fork In It Shoot  10/30/10  See it HERE
Also featured on GREY LIKES WEDDINGS 12/14/10 See it HERE

Photo courtesy of Christine Farah Photography
















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Another GREEN WEDDING SHOES feature!  Pinch me, I must be dreaming!!  Thank you to a prior bride, Stephanie and her new company RIBBONS & RUST for actually paying me to participate in this fun photo shoot for her webiste.  We did the shoot right in my own neighborhood, so much fun!!
Featured on 12/3/10  See it HERE

Photo courtesy of Brandon Kidd Photography

Thank you to all the wonderful wedding bloggers out there, keep up the good work!!
Happy New Year everyone and let it be a year full of Spreading Floral Love!

Blogs and Magazines

This has for sure been the year of the wedding blog.  It has always been my goal to be published somehow, mostly in a magazine, but I have realized the importance of blogs and how much of an impact they have on the wedding industry.  It seems that brides are using blogs more than magazines.  I'm more tactile (duh, I'm a floral designer) so I love flipping through the pages of a new wedding magazine and the rush I get when I see something truly beautiful, even if it's an add for a new gorgeous bridal gown.  In the next few posts, I will share with you my blog features, but today...... the magazine feature!

My new found friends, the design team of Sugar and Fluff (hire them if you want to have a truly amazing event) and photographer extraordinaire Christine Farah  (who actually was responsible for my first blog feature in 2008), invited me to be part of a styled shoot that was to be featured in Volume 3 of Southern Weddings Magazine.  Here are the results from Sugar and Fluff's blog post.  We did get a few of the photos published :)  We've worked together on some other amazing styled shoots, and of coarse I will share those with you too!!

See the editorial here from Southern Weddings Magazine's website.

ENJOY!!
(from the Sugar and Fluff blog)
Wooohooooo!! Hello my readers! We have been blog overload this past week and we hope you enjoy it!
When Christine Farah asked us to help her out on this project…we were so thrilled!
She told us that Southern Weddings were looking for the next cover— and they were looking for a summery feel. So we decided to add summer shades of luminous oranges and splashes of blue. As you can tell we added the orange in the florals and in her make-up and cake. We thought the perfect dress would be from J-Crew of course and our model had to look like the perfect warm and welcoming Southern bride! Isn’t the backdrop of the lake so picturesque?  I think we nailed it pretty well!! This is what a Southern Bride means to us :) Big thanks to our AMAZING team!! See our AWESOME vendors below :)



















Event Design: Sugar & Fluff
Photography: Christine Farah
Florals: Floral Occasions
Coordination: Kerrie Underhill
Cake: Sweet and SaucyHair: Tania
Make-up: RPM Makeup
Model: Stephanie Nelson

My fave photo, maybe, of all of 2010.

Leslie Cunningham of Click Chicks Photography has captured my heart with this photo.......

I heard she got in trouble for doing this....so worth it!!!

A little experiment.

I've usually said a big fat NO to floral sprays and preservatives for my flowers after I have designed and made them into the beautiful floral creations you see in many of my photos.  But after reading some recent blog posts in some of my favorite florist industry blogs (UBloom & JTV), I was re-thinking this and wondering if I had been making a mistake for all these years.  I am always learning new things, ALWAYS.  I'm open to suggestions by those who have gone before me and admiring the up and coming new designers and current trends.

With that said I decided to put 4 "floral preservers" to the test.

The contenders from left to right:

Floralife Finishing Touch, Floralife Crowning Glory

Prestine and Design Master Clear Life

We did this experiment with standard daisy pom flowers.

As you can see on the pink papers it shows the product and the time that the photo was taken.  We started at noon on a Friday.

I decided to add one with no treatment at 5pm Friday. As you see below, one day later,  25 hours later on Saturday.  Here is in order of best looking and freshest day two:

1.  Clear Life

2.  No treatment

3.  Crowning Glory

4.  Prestine

5.  Finishing Touch (an industry favorite)

Another 24 hours later on Sunday at 1:00  Day 3:

In order of freshest/strongest to weakest:

1.  Clear Life

2.  Crowning Glory

3.  No treatment

4.  Pristine

5.  Finishing Touch (still an industry favorite?)

The winner!!!  Clear Life by Design Master.  It is an aerosol spray, kind of like hairspray.

I still took note on Monday (sorry no photos), at 8am and it still looked as fresh as the day I picked it.

Crowning Glory was still pretty to the eye, but a little droopy.  Pristine and Finishing touch still looked worse than the daisy with no treatment.