Style Me Pretty….features A Garden Party!By: Mary Coombs

This is such a huge honor for Mary and I…we can’t seem to wipe the smiles off our faces today. We have been stalking Style Me Pretty for years. They are one of the biggest wedding blogs out there, so when we submitted a photo shoot that we did with Denise Mabilog we were over the moon to see it had been picked to be featured on Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book Blog. Vicki (one of our favorite brides) really stepped up for us and volunteered to wear her wedding dress again in our shoot that took place at Mary’s brother in law’s farm. This whole shoot really showcased a lot of what Mary and I love….lots of bling (did you see her dress?!?!?), bright colors, and fun flowers. Check it out here, be sure to leave us a comment! Thank you so much to Style Me Pretty – this is a dream come true for us!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

South Jersey Wedding Florist – Karlie and John at Centerton Country ClubBy: Mary Coombs

Recently Mary and I have had the pleasure of doing quite a few weddings at the Centerton Country Club. We have really enjoyed working with them and were excited to share these pictures (all courtesy of T Alimario, his work is amazing!). Karlie came to us looking for a romantic wedding day filled with roses, and as you are going to see – that is exactly what we gave her.

Check out the garden roses in Karlie’s bouquet – they have about a million petals a piece and look awesome when they open up!  We added pink sweet pea, pink spray roses, and geranium leaves to finish the look.

Here is another shot – I loved the bright green geranium leaves, they were a last minute addition to her order and I love them in her bouquet.  Many times wholesalers will have items like this that are kind of seasonal and brides that trust us with the flower selection usually end up with the best final product.  We never know what exactly will be available the week of your wedding, but we always try to find a little something different to add, like these geranium leaves.

I love this shot – gorgeous!

Her bridesmaids showing Karlie some love <3

This always makes me gasp a little – but it also always turns into an amazing shot!  Check out the pink sash on the one dress, you are going to be seeing it again…

We dressed up the arbor with silk flowers provided to us by Karlie.  We are happy to work with our brides if they have materials they have already purchased.

These hanging pomanders (made of CARNATIONS…we break our rule of no carns for fun projects like these) turned out even better than we had dreamed they would.  We hung them with the same pink sashes that you saw earlier on Karlie’s bridesmaid.  Karlie scored a great deal and bought bunches of them for us to use.  The color was perfect!

The pomanders were then carried in and used to accent the reception room. Check out the ice sculpture (I believe this is part of Centerton Country Club’s wedding package).

The pomanders were also brought in and placed on fishbowls. I think the fish really liked their spruced up home, ha.

One of our most popular rental options are these Diana candleholders.  For Karlie we tinted the water pink and floated candles on top.  We have also floated flowers in them.  Lots of options for these!

Here is the coordinating Diana vase filled with Sweet Unique and Light Orlando pink roses, and of course accented with a pink sash.

The room all set up – gorgeous!

Thanks Karlie and John for letting us be a part of your special day. We loved all the pink!!! Again, thanks T for the great images!!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

Some quality Q&A for our bridesBy: Mary Coombs

I was inspired to blog about a recent email I received from a potential bride, hope she doesn’t mind my sharing! Her email got me thinking that I bet there are lots of brides out there with these EXACT questions, so enjoy the Q&A and let me know if you have any other questions! Feel free to leave them as comments and I will respond.

1. When are you able to give us an estimate of costs?

After the consultation, I will email a detailed quote that is valid for 30 days. To help you budget before the meeting, most wedding budget calculators suggest 15% of the overall budget should go to florals, but that varies depending on your needs. Bridal bouquets start at $150, bridesmaids average at $75, bouts are $15, corsages are $25-$30, centerpieces vary from $30 to $200+. We have something for all budgets and all styles.

2. Does your estimate include set-up, breakdown, and all delivery costs to and from the venue?

After our meeting, I will email an itemized estimate which includes the breakdown for delivery, set up and pick up fees.

3. Could you please send us some references of past customers you’ve worked with?

Check out our reviews page on our website or see what brides have posted about us on Wedding Wire or Wedding Channel. We are still blushing!

4. What are your recommendations for a beach wedding as far as the flowers/decorations are concerned? Will you transport these decorations from the ceremony site (a few blocks away) to the reception venue?

I adore the natural beauty of a beach setting and think that less is more. We have shepherd hooks which can hang adorable floral pomanders, simple glass bud vases or casual buckets of flowers that all look nice lining the aisle. We would be happy to stay and transport items to the reception location if the coordinator is not willing. There will be an additional service charge to cover our time.

5. How do you deal with substitutions if a particular flower is unavailable?

My horticulture degree and many years of experience in the floral design field has educated me about seasonal availability for many flowers. I am happy to share my knowledge during a consult to help guide you into selecting in all the best each season has to offer. However, this is nature we are playing with and sometimes certain crops will not make it to market. In this case, I call the bride and fill her in on the changes and suggest equal floral substitutions to please all parties.

6. What sort of deposit is required to reserve your services?  

My estimate is only good for 30 days and a 1/3rd deposit is required to reserve the date.

7. When is the remainder of the invoice due?

Final payment is due 30 days prior to the wedding, or as soon as all RSVPs are tracked down haha.

8. Who will be arranging the flowers?

We are a family owned business and proud to comfort our brides by ensuring them that everything is done by either myself, my sister Dawn or my mother Melanie! I suppose this is a reflection of my control freak nature, but I wanted to found this business to service all of my brides with the highest attention to detail, not just crank out designs.

9. How many other weddings or events do you schedule in one weekend?  Do you ever overlap/simultaneously schedule events?

I would love to say that I only take on one wedding per weekend, but since this is mostly seasonal work and focused on Saturdays, I do take on other events to help keep the wheels turning. Often, I will have a Friday wedding, one larger Saturday wedding and maybe a smaller Saturday wedding to keep things interesting haha. Every single one of my clients is important to me, small or large. Between the 3 of us, all of the work gets done perfectly, I can rest on Sunday at 6 pm when my husband takes me out to dinner <3

10.  Are there any other costs we should know about?

If you would like to see sample bouquets or arrangements, I do charge the full estimated price, as these are perishable products that I cannot reuse. Additional consultation fees may be added if we have to meet several times to finalize the order. Thanks for understanding the value of our time.

11. Do you have rental supplies (vases, etc.), or do we need to rent those separately?

Ooooo we have lots of rentals to show you! All are displayed in our consultation space and most are featured in our slideshows online.

12. I would like the schedule a consultation, can we meet next weekend?

Sorry, but due to our heavy bookings, we cannot meet on the weekends. I am happy to schedule an evening appointment during the week if that works better for you. Mon-Wed are preferred, but email us to check the schedules, we do our best to fit everyone in asap.

I adored how many thoughtful questions she presented, it made me realize that I could do a better job sharing that important info on my website! A Garden Party has been the source of lots of excitement recently (yes, these weddings every weekend make our hearts race for sure!) but the biggest change is that Dawn is now on board as a full time partner!!! She has decided to leave her other full time job and I am welcoming her with open arms into our office <3 What does this mean for you? Better service, faster response times, more blogging and all kinds of goodies! I gotta say, it has been a lot of work for one mama to handle and there is no other person I would rather share my workload with than with my loving, brilliant, creative sister Dawn (I gotta butter her up, her project list on her new desk is pretty big for her first day tmrw!) Think of all the things we can do now…..hooray!

 

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

South Jersey Wedding Florist: Karen and ByronBy: Mary Coombs

Karen and Byron’s wedding was a really special wedding for A Garden Party, we have known Karen for our whole lives! Both of our moms had a baking 4-H club that we were in (Bakin’ Bits <3) and not only did we learn how to make barbie cakes and all kinds of goodies we now spoil our husbands with, we formed a strong friendship.  And as for Byron, he was John’s college roommate and I often define our relationship as BB and AB (before Byron and after Byron haha), he has been there by our side for many years and even on our own wedding day. John and I were happy to return the favor for them! Together, Byron and Karen are one of those couples that are just so perfect for each other, watching them is seeing a couple that really interacts as one.  Byron farms in South Jersey (his farm actually touches our farm!) and they really wanted to make that a part of their day.  Their photographer, Millie of Millies Photography, got some great shots on the farm and at the bride’s grandmother’s historic home in Elmer.  Millie was a perfect addition to the wedding day, I just loved her wit, attention to detail, artistic eye and genuine enthusiasm for her job. Thanks for the sharing the images!

A Garden Party made sure to incorporate lots of little “down-home” touches that showed Karen and Byron’s personalities.  The boutonnieres were all accented with a touch of dried wheat, right from Byron’s fields and we wrapped Karen’s bouquet with a family heirloom crocheted piece, accented with a vintage brooch (also a family piece).  In the bouquet we used pale pink mini callas, bouvardia, dahlias, waxflower, and freesia. Look closely at the picture of the bridal party…Mary was proudly holding one of our creations.  We love doing wedding flowers, but especially love doing the flowers for couples that we know.  Congrats Byron and Karen and thank you for letting us be such a big part of your day!

Check out the crochet work and brooch….details like this are so pretty, and really meaningful.

Karen and the sweetest little flower girl (love that Caylen!), I love the wreath of flowers we made for her hair. This image is truly magical.

Check out this ring bearer - he is keeping his eye on things! Love you Bradley!

There’s Mary and John, 2nd couple in from the right hand side….gorgeous bridal party!

I love this picture, Millie really caught the perfect moment here.

 May your love always reap bountiful harvests…..xoxo

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

Less Paper, More FlowersBy: Mary Coombs

We love meeting with our brides – sitting down with them, bouncing ideas around, looking through our albums and books…and we started to feel as if our brides were getting bogged down in too much paperwork.  Soooo to make things a little simpler, and to give us more time to look at the pretty pictures, Mary came up with an online pre-consultation form that can be filled out and sent to us prior to that first consultation.  No more papers to fill out during the meeting and lots more time to talk about flowers, cool! So for all you brides out there that haven’t had your first consultation yet, you can find a link to it on our contact info page. Next on the horizon – an online contract that can be signed with an electronic signature (give us a week or two to get it set up).

Also – we have been busy, busy, busy with weddings and it shows in the positive feedback we have been getting! Read our reviews and leave your own on The Wedding Channel /The Knot and Wedding Wire. We love hearing from our brides so if you haven’t left us a review yet, please do!

Now – back to work, we have 3 weddings this weekend and lots of flowers out in our studio waiting for us….you can barely walk through there with the hundreds and hundreds of roses (I think 700+ this weekend!), hydrangea, lilies, gerbers, callas, dahlias, and I could go on and on. Stay tuned for more of our bridal blogs, we have some amazing professional pictures on the way!And just because I couldn’t wait to share this beautiful picture from Douglas Photographics…..

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

South Jersey Wedding Florist – Jaclyn and BrandonBy: Mary Coombs

Cornflower blue has been showing up a lot in our flower studio lately and we love it, especially accented with yellow.  Jaclyn and Brandon were married about a month ago and were kind enough to share these pictures with us. All photos are courtesy of twoweddingphotographers.com (check out their website – looks like they have some great packages). Jaclyn was such an adorable bride, the yellow flowers definitely complimented this bride’s sunny nature. Check out the photos!

I loved the color of the bridesmaids' dresses, perfect for a July wedding.

For the ceremony we designed these two pieces to flank the bride and groom. We used blue hydrangea, yellow lilies, and blue delphinium.

Jaclyn carried a bouquet of white roses, white mini callas, yellow ranunculus, blue delphinium, and cornflower. Look at her smile – so pretty!

The bridesmaids carried bouquets of yellow roses (accented with blue rhinestones – love that bling!), white ranunculus, blue delphinium, cornflower, and bear grass. The flower girl carried a pomander of yellow mums.

For the groom's boutonniere we used a white calla lily accented with cornflower and a bear grass loop, all tied together with ribbon.

Thanks Jaclyn and Brandon for letting us be a part of your big day.  Best wishes on your future together as Mr. and Mrs. :)

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

Philadelphia Wedding Florist – The Aldie Mansion with Roanna and ReedBy: Mary Coombs

Recently we were lucky enough to do the flowers for Roanna and Reed.  Mary went to Penn State with Roanna (or Ro boat as Mary loves to call her) and she was so excited to do her wedding flowers for the special couple! Even though Reed is a graduate of Illinois, Mary is happy that her fellow Penn Stater found love in the Big Ten.  Tina (another college friend of Ronna and Mary), of Tina Jay Photography, caught some amazing shots of the day that we couldn’t wait to share with everyone. The wedding took place at the Aldie Mansion in Doylestown, PA, with an outside ceremony on a gorgeous summer day in July. Roanna was a gorgeous bride, I <3 her hairpiece! Her bouquet featured red orchids, red roses, yellow freesia, and red hypericum – all circled with a ring of galax leaves.  The bridesmaids carried bouquets of red roses, circus roses, red hypericum, and yellow freesia – accented with a collar of galax leaves.  Inside the mansion the centerpieces were done in glass bowls filled with lemons, circus roses, red roses and those amazing orchids. The centerpieces were done in a modern dome of roses with the exotic red orchids adding height to the pieces.  All of the centerpieces were pin spotted with extra lighting and the room was just gorgeous.  Every detail was thought of, right down to adding tall vases of yellow calla lilies to the place card table.  The overall theme of the wedding really shone through and it turned into a gorgeous, fun, wedding.  Mary and I were so excited to be a part of this wedding and have loved sharing it with you. – We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Roanna with her bridesmaids :)

Roanna and Reed had a first look session before the ceremony….I love how he is looking at her, so sweet!

Roanna's bouquet featured red roses, red mokara orchids (love these!), red hypericum, yellow freesia, and galax leaves.

All the bouquets lined up pretty :)

Who knew yellow and red was such a stunning color combo!

Check out the mokara orchids in these – we def plan on using these more. The lemons worked perfectly with the red roses, circus roses, and orchids.

For the place card table we used long stem yellow callas accented with red ribbon.

Thanks Roanna and Reed for letting us be a part of your special day!!!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

A Garden Party – now on Style Me Pretty!By: Mary Coombs

Mary and I love browsing wedding blogs as a way to find inspiration for new ideas and one of our favorite blogs is Style Me Pretty They always have the most gorgeous weddings featured on their blog and I know I have spent many an hour drooling over their photos….that counts as job research right? Recently we decided to submit A Garden Party and see if they would be willing to add us to their Little Black Book of preferred vendors. We were thrilled when we were contacted (right in the middle of a crazy busy wedding weekend) that we had been selected. We got the sweetest e-mail from them and were again reminded of why we love our jobs so much. The e-mail said that we had been selected because of our “exceptional customer care, superior design style, the continual honing of one’s craft, a genuine interest in fostering a relationship with the client, and being highly recommended by colleagues and clients”. Both of us were so honored and thrilled….I think tears may have snuck up on us both when we read the e-mail. Check out our Portfolio on The Little Black Book when you get a chance!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

A Garden Party’s First Bridal Open House was a success!By: Mary Coombs

I often think back to where I was or what I was doing a year ago, do you ever do that? I can’t believe how much life has changed for me in the last year; Lee is already a year old, John and I have been married over 3 years and my business is booming! Pinch pinch, is it real? Dawn and I have been a part of so many beautiful weddings, all of them memorable for different reasons. Every time we add a new bride to the schedule I feel like we have made a new friend! I love the feeling I get welcoming blushing brides and families into our new consultation space, the ideas start flowing right away for everyone. With this new space pretty much finished up, we just had to plan a big party to celebrate and what better way to do it than invite some other great local professionals and tons of brides?!?! A ginormous thank you to all of the talented and friendly vendors and all of the excited and supportive brides/friends/family that came out for the big night! If you missed the fun, let me fill you in…

Rental City provided the beautiful tent, linens, tables, chairs, china – the works for us! They have EVERYTHING you could ever want for your event, be sure to give Nandi a call!

Inside the shop we had our consult space all done up with many bouquets, centerpiece rentals and albums for inspiration.

All of our ladies lined up ready for the party…

I am thinking that our centerpiece inspiration table is going to need another table, there are just too many options!

The bride wall of fame gets lots of rave reviews!

These chairs are the perfect place to sit and relax while we help you with your flower order!

The beautiful and talented ladies of Salon Nicole were busy doing hair and makeup most of the night!

Bella Limo of Elmer came too!

Rental City with their impressive array of rentals!

Stephen from The Sweet Life Bakery showed off some tasty and trendy sweets!

Sarah had lots of lia sophia jewelry for all to admire.

An overflowing gift basket from Auburn Road Vineyards for a lucky winner!

Auburn Road Vineyards provided samples of their sparkling wine. Located in Pilesgrove, they host many events including showers and receptions!

Maria from Designed by M.E. stationary had an amazing collection of stationary samples! Her work is detailed, classy, thoughtful and of course she was the sweetest person to work with. I am so happy Irene sent me to her!

And of course the lovely Tina of Tina Jay Photography came too! Her new albums were a hit!

In the center of the tent, we hung our own vintage chandelier dripping with roses and crystals, I fell in love!! I can just see someone getting married under it, hanging so romantic in a tree or something. LOVE.

The hot centerpiece of the show was our peacock inspired creation in our bell vase. Hydrangeas, dahlias, callas and dendrobium orchids complimented the hues of the feather perfectly!

Just loved the shimmer of this tablecloth from Rental City! And you can kinda see the hanging feather in the bottom of the bell vase too…

More brides should do napkin details, it ties it all together!

Ohhh Casey, this one is for you!

Again, the linen makes this black and white tablescape complete! And who says yellow football mums are old news?

Our new black vases popped with yellow flowers and feather accents.

LOVE the linen!

Our new lanterns (rental) with a lush floral ring of coffee break and quick sand roses…I want to get married again (same guy) and do this! I also think these would be cute hanging in a tent with LED pillar candles!

Loved the color combo of this one!

Dear Free Spirit Rose, you make my job so easy and fun. Love, Mary

Pink tinted water in our chic vase with gold manzanita, pink crystals and orchids….pretty!!

A close up…

Another cute cocktail table arrangement featuring our picture vase with a moody mix of purple carns and roses. Vintage mercury glass votives hold a few candles and a few roses to extend the design.

Every time I walk by our new sign, I feel so proud!

 Again, thank you to everyone who helped make this event a success (and thanks to Tina for sending me these pics)! It sure was a family affair, Mom, Dad and our other sister all came to help us out too. Maybe next year we will have Michelle from All Things Beautiful do most of the planning….and we can just show up :)  We are thinking of adding a bridal salon and live music next year, so that will be something else to look forward to. Now, I better get back to my brides…the phone has been ringing off the hook the whole time I have been blogging!

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below:

South Jersey Wedding Florist: Tommy and Shannon at the Smithville Inn!By: Mary Coombs

Tommy and Shannon were hands down one of my favorite weddings we have done recently.  I am a sucker for lots of purple…add to that all these gorgeous butterfly accents and it was perfection.  They got married outside at The Smithville Inn in picture perfect weather.  When Mary showed me all the details in this wedding I was so excited to see that the couple had come up with a theme (butterflies).  It is always fun to add special little details and watch it all come together in the end.  Denise Mabilog was the photographer for this wedding and she caught some gorgeous shots – check out her blog, she does amazing work! Now on to the good stuff :)

Shannon's bouquet featured picasso calla lilies, vanda orchids, lavender and ivory roses, and dark purple stock. We added sprigs of fresh lavender and this bouquet smelled amazing. We wrapped the stems with a handkerchief that Shannon provided to us (I think it was her grandmother's). Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

Here is a close-up shot of the bride's bouquet. If you look close you can see that we snuck in a couple of jeweled butterflies – so pretty! Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

For the bridesmaids we used similar flowers and accented the stems with a butterfly. I love the pops of bright green against the purple. Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

Shannon was such a gorgeous bride! I love this shot, these girls all look so pretty and that covered bridge is picture perfect. Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

They got married outside under this pergola. We added butterflies to the urns, perched on the branches and put a few in the top arbor piece. We even hung strands of white butterflies on each side <3

I loved these urns. We use our manzanita branches, hydrangea, roses, stock, and of course those butterflies!

Mary designed this piece and I have one word for it – LOVE!

This piece was featured on their seating card table. Adding a tall piece like this to the placecard table is so eye catching.

Check out the little butterflies that Shannon gave us to put on all of the wineglasses – I love these little details! Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

We made floral rings to go around hurricanes for half of the tables. The floral rings are a great option for brides that want to give their centerpieces away to their guests at the end of the wedding.

The other half of the tables we did these mounded silver bowl arrangements. The silver metal bowl is a rental and the arrangements are designed for guests to remove and take home. I love hydrangea; especially mixed with roses, kale, bupleurum, and butterflies. Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

Instead of a traditional cake topper, we decorated the top of their cake with just a few spray roses and a beaded butterfly. Photo courtesy of Denise Mabilog Photography.

Lots of pictures, but they were all too good not to share!  Congratulations to Tommy and Shannon and thank you so much for letting us be a part of your wonderful day.  July has been such a fun wedding month for us :)   This Friday we are so excited to be hosting our first annual Open House.  We hope to see you there! Contact Mary via e-mail, Mary@gardenpartysisters.com to RSVP or for details on the Open House.

If you are interested in our floral design services in South Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area or Northern Delaware please contact us by filling out the form below: