BOUQUET STORIES: A HOLIDAY CENTERPIECE

Decadent centerpieces just make life better, and there's no better time to make an extravagant flower arrangement than the holidays. I chose colorful blooms in non-holiday specific hues to make this bouquet, making it perfect inspiration for just about any holiday. With Christmas just around the corner however, let's just call this inspiration for your yuletide gatherings. 

I originally created this arrangement for our small and quiet Thanksgiving feast, but as that holiday is now two weeks past I'll spare you the recap of our mostly cheese, protein and bread stuffed holiday and instead turn you attention to the flowers. Imagine if you will (for reference) that this centerpiece was actually larger than our 11 Llbs turkey. I'm not exaggerating, this centerpiece was huge! Now let's build backwards from there.

The only thing I knew for sure when first thinking about this centerpiece was that I wanted to use a large vintage brass vessel I'd recently found at a thrift store to hold the flowers. I then knew I wanted to create a design that felt natural, languid and punchy against our wood dining room table and mostly orange-brown food. This thing had to bring our meal to life!

We went to Whole Foods to source the flowers (I haven't had much luck elsewhere in Philly) and I found magenta peonies, bright pink spray roses, yellow solidago, flowering dill, lamb's ear, clover, and a small seasonal mix of other blooms. I like mixing a lot of different textures when arranging flowers and I feel like each arrangement I create becomes more complex than the last.

To start, I put a glass flower frog in the center of the vessel- the glass frog has bigger holes to the meaty stems on the peonies and lamb's ear. I then filled the vessel 3/4 the way with water and started laying out a base of leafy filler around the edges. After the base felt nice and full I started adding the bigger blooms into the flower frog and filled it out from there. It's important to add a lot of varying heights in the flowers and to constantly turn your bouquet as you work so that no side is left unfilled. I tried not to cut things down too much and instead let the stems droop gracefully out from the vessel creating a bouquet that is as relaxed as it is elegant.

I think my love of full, big bouquets is just beginning to blossom. - b.