So we’ve been in the wedding business almost 6 years now and it is safe to say we have learned a few things along the way (and continue to learn every day!). Dawn and I would love to share some of our insights with you, let us know if you agree or have anything to add!

***One more plug before you continue….Administrative Professionals week is next week (April 22-28th), don’t forget to thank your staff with a beautiful flower arrangement or thoughtful dish garden! We have lots of options!***Ok, now continue on your way…

TOP 10 MISTAKES BRIDES MAKE…

10. Being too matchy matchy.

While we love a cohesive look and want the colors to blend perfectly, it is kinda impossible to find tiffany blue flowers. We suggest going with complimentary hues for contrast (think jade green and yellow like Kim did below) or shades of purple (instead of all eggplant flowers).

Photo credit: Jac and Jules Photography

Also involved with this…letting the season dictate your colors. Just because you are having a fall wedding doesn’t mean you have to do orange. Look at this lovely November wedding with pale pink accents, so pretty! Photo credit: Marc Anthony Photography

9. Not trusting your professionals.

Most of our brides come in needing some guidance on what flowers to select, proclaiming they know nothing about flowers. We are happy to offer up some great ideas! However, some brides come in with exact recipes for us to follow. I always think it is best to ask the professional what they would recommend to achieve the best end product, I always do this to my contractor, hair dresser, etc and I have total faith in them! Allow the professional to do their thing, sit back, relax and be pleasantly surprised!

We love when brides say “I trust you, make me whatever you want!”. That’s what this bride did and she loved it! Photo credit: Caitlin Scott Photography

8. Thinking you can do it all.

One of my personal goals this year is to delegate more. It is too stressful to do it all, right brides? Ask your mother or mother in law for help with certain tasks, they would love to pitch in! Some of my brides ask me to just send everything to their mom and communicate with her. I think it limits the bride’s back and forth to her mom about the order and since mom is usually cutting the check, everyone thinks it is easier.

7. Keeping the budget a secret.

Ahhhh, the budgeting issues my brides face. I always appreciate when a bride lets me know the budget in mind ahead of time, it helps me guide her toward the best option. No use talking about an all orchid centerpiece if it isn’t in the budget.

6. Making your own centerpieces, there is a right way and a wrong way.

Oh boy, I could really go on about this. We get a lot of phone calls a month before a wedding from a frantic bride now hating her DIY centerpieces. She brings her bags and boxes full of stuff she has purchased from 8 different Michaels stores and pleads for help. The thing is, I often wonder if it was even going to save money since she had to go out and buy all the materials. We have so many rental options, let us carry the cost of purchasing the glassware. Besides, what are you going to do with 30 lanterns after the wedding anyway? If you do decide to do DIY, make sure you think about who is going to set up the centerpieces on the wedding day. We are happy to help out, but will have to charge a labor fee. It really isn’t the responsibility of the reception venue either.

This was one of the cases of “I had an idea but wasn’t sure what to do exactly” so she brought us the grasses and feathers and we did the rest!

5. Waiting too long to book vendors.

I read all the time on blogs and in wedding magazines that you should book your florist 6-9 months before the wedding. For popular months (May-October), we have had many Saturdays completely booked 9 months out. So if you wait to meet with us until 9 months before and then take another month to send in the contract, you might miss out! We book a limited number of events/day, usually a max of 3 (one per sister).

4. Not using seasonal flowers.

Now, this is our job to really guide you toward what looks best and is a good price at certain times of the year. Yes, we can get peonies November, but they are expensive, about 4 times the price of a rose. Same with dahlias, when we push the season (too early or too late) they start to look rough. Lily of the valley exists for about 3 weeks of the year (starting now!).

3. Hiring a cheap photographer.

This has nothing to do with flowers, sorry about that. But we see a lot of wedding photos from our former clients and you can really tell the difference between the inexperienced photographer with a crazy flash (think staged photos inside with awful lighting) and a true professional (see our vendors list for our favs!). Make sure you hire 2 photographers to capture all the details you worked so hard on to pick out, from the pre-wedding brunch to the farewells. It is a shame to see $4000 worth of centerpieces not make it in one photo and we have seen it too many times.

2. Thinking your fiance needs to decide on every detail.

Don’t get us wrong, we love meeting the bride AND the groom so we can do our best to meld both personalities into our designs (and for some reason, the guys love our shop!!). And there are some men who have more of a preference than you would think about the flowers! And then there are the men who just come along to please their bride, which leads to frustration on the bride’s part when he doesn’t chime in during the meeting. The best advice we can give: know your man. If you think he cares about the flowers, please bring him along! If not, enjoy the night with your moms/bridesmaids in tow. You’ll thank me later!

The lovely couple was a great team! He really chimed in and helped her feel great about her choices, so sweet. Photo credit: Tina Jay Photography

and the #1 mistake…..

1. Sweating the small stuff.

You hear this all the time, “don’t sweat the small stuff on the big day” and it is totally true! Surround yourself with positive and capable vendors and you won’t have a thing to worry about! True, every little thing may not turn out as planned (gasp, the pumpkin dahlias are not the exact shade of pumpkin) but what really matters that day is the commitment and love you are proclaiming to all of your friends and family. Nothing can compare to that feeling. Still get chills thinking about that experience on my own wedding day almost 5 years ago (4 years and 11 months ago to be exact). I recall being so anxious about my hair/makeup/dress/jewelry/weather/schedule/everylittlesillydetail until the wedding day came…and on that day I was so happy and excited that I got all dressed and never in looked in the mirror before going to the church! I remember turning to Dawn and asking her if I looked ok 5 minutes before walking down the aisle haha! All of those details were the last thing on my mind as I was about to start my new life with the love of my life. I hope all my brides feel the same way.

Did we miss anything?? What do you think?

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:

One of our main goals last year was to be voted one of The Knot’s Best of 2011 Wedding Florists, and today we got the notice that our brides really came through for us and we won   YAY!!!!!  We have been a featured vendor on The Knot for a few years now and have always kept tabs on the yearly winners in “The Best of…” contest.  To be chosen an anonymous survey was sent to all of The Knot’s registered brides and those results in combination with our reviews from our brides resulted in us being awarded the prize.  We are so excited…literally we have been on pins and needles waiting to hear if we got this award.  We can’t thank all of our brides enough, for their devotion to us and their willingness to recommend us and take the time to leave us awesome reviews.  You guys are the reason we are where we are today.  Thank you ladies!!!  The results haven’t been posted on The Knot’s website yet…I think the official announcement is January 21st, but we couldn’t wait to share this news with you all and say THANK YOU!!

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:!

We are back to work this week! Thanks for bearing with us as we dealt with the passing of our dearest Poppop. He was a huge fan of A Garden Party and loved to see what we created for our lovely brides…we will all miss him.

Back to business…we love to hear feedback from our brides and have had a little dilemma recently, so we are asking for your advice. A lot of what we do features rental items, vases, crystals, lanterns, etc.  We like to suggest rental items for potential brides because it is such a money saver.  You can get a lot more bang for your buck if we design an arrangement in a container that is returned back to us for future use.  Unfortunately we have had some problems over the last few months…not with our brides (we love you all!) but with reception halls.  We have had quite a few vases broken / missing when we go back to pick up the rental items.  This leaves us in quite an awkward situation because of course we don’t want to bill the bride, yet the reception halls aren’t really willing to take responsibility for the situation.  We have recently started adding a security deposit to any weddings that have rental items….what is your opinion on this?  The deposit is 100% refundable, as long as all rental items are returned to us in good condition.  So say the security deposit is $100 and everything is picked up in perfect condition except for one broken vase valued at $20. A Garden Party will refund the bride $80. Of course we hate taking more of your hard earned money (we know what it is like to work for a buck!) but we are hoping that our brides will stress the value of the rental items onto the on-site coordinators. Recently, we have also started to leave a detailed list of items that we expect to pick up with the on-site coordinator, which has been a great help. We always want to be fair to our brides (and keep our prices down as much as possible!) so we want your opinion…..would you be willing to agree to a security deposit?  Help us find a solution!  And of course there is no way we can do a blog without adding some photos, so here are some ideas using some of our popular rental items.

These lanterns have been a huge hit lately.  We have used them in centerpieces, lined them down aisles, and hung them from arbors.

This centerpiece was done in our Diana Pedestal Vase.  We have coordinating Diana Candleholders that match this vase – see the next picture.

This is our Bell Vase – here it is used with a centerpiece that is done a seperate dish, so it can be removed and taken home by guests.  This vase can also be flipped over and used the opposite way.  Very versatile!

This chandelier is fairly new – imagine this hanging over you as you stand outside saying your vows!

Be sure to leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts on the security deposit. Thank you in advance!

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:

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:

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:

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:

First things first, congrats to last weekend’s brides – Jaclyn, Shannon, and Roanna.  There will be some fabulous blogs coming up shortly about these girls, we were in love with ALL of their flowers! Now on to one of the many reasons we love this job SOOOO much. About a year ago Mary and I started sending out 10 question online surveys after each wedding.  We were looking for feedback on how our brides would rate their experience with us.  It is so important to us that we are giving our brides what they are looking for.  Last week in the middle of wedding madness (July is definately a top wedding month for us!) we got this survey response back and it really reminded both Mary and I why we love this job so much; we really love hearing how happy and how much of an impact our flowers can have on a bride’s wedding.  My hope is that our brides always love what we do, just as much as we love what we do.  This job is a dream come true for Mary and I and we thank all of our brides (and the moms, bridesmaids, etc.) for giving us a chance!  Now on to the survey!

We are proud to share with you this article that was written about A Garden Party on New Jersey Wedding Buzz, which is New Jersey’s own The Knot page. I guess the word is getting out about these 2 crazy sisters in South Jersey…enjoy and thanks for the support!

New: A Garden Party’s Floral Design Studio

Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2010 11:45 AM

Brides are raving about A Garden Party‘s newly unveiled Floral Design studio! The South Jersey floral company renovated a charming 1920s barn specifically with brides-to-be in mind. The space features a variety of new albums for viewing, as well as a “wall of fame” showcasing A Garden Party’s gorgeous bridal designs. But perhaps the most exciting part is the workspace where brides can experiment with centerpiece options and vases. The stocked flower coolers are just a few steps away and the experts are happy to bring out the floral bounty for a more in-depth planning expereince. It’s like a hands-on toy store but for flower-loving adults! – Lauren Howley

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

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So it has recently come to my attention that not only are brides so called “stalking” our blog, their bridesmaids and mothers are too! Well, this post is for you ladies! As you are planning the bridal shower, don’t fret about the centerpieces, let us take care of it! We would love to help carry the wedding theme (or any other style) through the shower as well, and with all the showers that Dawn and I have planned and participated in, we are really shower pros! Between the invites, favors, gifts, food – you have enough to handle, am I right? Allow me to show you some of our shower options…

Our very popular rose "present" can be done in any color combo and the "gift tag" can be personalized to send warm wishes to any bride.

In Running Deer's Chocolate room, we added a coordinating centerpiece for the bride to take home after the shower. As if her car wasn't full enough hehe!

A simple colored glass cube with roses is affordable and chic!

We just did these lovely flower arrangements for our sweet Shannon who is just a month away from her July wedding. Her fiance sent these to her at the shower! Shannon is having a beautiful purple wedding with butterfly accents, so of course I had to order these phalaenopsis "butterfly" orchids.

Coordinating centerpieces sat on bistro tables, guests of the shower took these home as a sweet reminder.

Dawn and I loved making these!

I am doing this for a baby shower this weekend, it is a wishing tree! Guests write advice on little cards and hang them on the tree for everyone to admire, the bride or mother to be can take them home later and add them to her album. This would be a beautiful way to welcome guests!

Sweet little tags (these are from etsy) are the perfect size for a few words of advice. We did something similar at my baby shower, my favorite advice from a dear friend "Let your house be dirty, play with your children before they get too big."

I just got these cool vases in and I am excited to be booking them already! These are the perfect way to show off your engagement photos…2 4×6 photos can be placed inside the vase and fresh flowers can be placed in a smaller hidden vase. Guests will love to admire the special couple!

Ok, so we did this for a wedding, not a shower, but you could do this adorable umbrella/parasol for your shower!

   We are happy to share all of our party planning ideas and help out in any way, give me a call at 609-364-2529 to discuss the fun details of your bridal shower or baby shower today! Lots of our ideas are budget friendly and full of style and creativity to help you create a shower to be remembered. Have a great weekend ladies! Stalk your little hearts out…

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:

Wouldn’t you love to admire your wedding bouquet each anniversary? It is possible! Get your bouquet (or any other flowers) preserved and display it inyour home. Many of our beloved brides have asked us about preserving their cherished wedding bouquet and while we do not perform the service, we are happy to recommend a company specializing in preserving flowers called Keepsake Floral. I wish I had done this with my own wedding bouquet!

This is how it works in a nutshell: You send them your bouquet, they take a few weeks to dry it down and preserve the color and shape of the flowers, you will work with a rep from Keepsake Floral to design a shadow box or jewelry box or whatever you want to include the flowers (or even photos and your invites!) and after a few weeks, it will be sent back to you as a new work of art! I have attached some pictures, just so you can get an idea of what they can do. It is such a special way to keep those memories close to your heart! I love it!

Your bouquet and invitation in a shadow box.

They can even make a monogram for you!

The colors look great!

So elegant and pretty.

All photos are from Keepsake Floral.

That is one of my many tips for brides! Stay tuned for many more…have a great day!

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

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