LoCoFlo in Paris: Marche aux Fleurs

When planning our trip to Paris, I was excited that the Marche aux Fleurs (or Paris Flower Market) was within walking distance of our apartment. The guidebook made it sound like such a treat "the stalls are ablaze with color" "artists and photographers love to capture the Flower Market on canvas and film". What a bust! As you can see from the picture-no color-not really any flowers-no artists...There we alot of potted plants, bookmarks with flowers on them, weird little french gnomes for your garden...but no flowers to speak of.

The florist shops and farmers markets however, are on just about every corner and they are filled with beautiful, colorful flowers!

The Dahlia's have been my favorite!

I also have been loving the hydrangeas...

And these long stemmed, ornamental peppers...(MD/VA farmers, if you're reading, GROW THESE!)

LoCoFlo in Paris: Jardin Des Plantes

Paris' Jardin des Plantes is just a few blocks from where we are staying in the Latin Quarter. This 69 acre garden was first created back in 1626 (everything in Paris is really old) as the royal garden of medicinal plants.

As you can guess, I was drawn to the "orange" garden. The sunflowers, rudbeckia, cosmos and dahlias were really beautiful. They made me excited that when we get back to Baltimore, it will be fall-which means weddings with deep autumn colors and berries and dried seed pods and veggies and more. Check back to see what the Fall has in store for us.

Real Weddings: Sara and John

Congratulations to Sara and John who were married on a beautiful June day in downtown Baltimore.

We met Sara at Flowermart back in 2008. She was having a classic style wedding at the Tremont Grand in downtown Baltimore. You may recognize her as LoCoFlo's new "intern".

Sara's bouquet was made up of white lilies, white campanula, white sweet william and white mini calla lilies and mountain mint.

The wedding colors were deep, rich, reds and golds which worked pefectly in the ballroom at the Tremont.

Sara chose two types of table arrangements. The first was a gold vase filled with red lilies, red gerber daisies, white campanula, white sweet william and mountain mint.

While her style was conservative, Sara did choose the non-traditional stick trees for her other center pieces. These centerpieces were made up of tall curly willow branches with small hanging vases full up red gerber daisies and red sweet william. The stick trees were a big hit!

Thanks to Linton Photography for the great photos!

Why We Do What We Do

There is a lot of joy in seeing a bride's face when she sees her flowers for the first time. I'll post more pictures of Janell and Eric soon, but I couldn't wait to share these pictures by Wendy Hickok.

Real Weddings: Tami and Chris

Tami and Chris were married on July 25th at the Valley Country Club. Tami's bouquet was made up of white hydrangeas, white dahlias, green sedum, pink lisianthus, green lisianthus and pink celosia. Tami wanted a classic style bouquet; tight, rounded, with short stems.

The bridesmaid's bouquets were made up of white lisianthus, pink lisianthus, pink sweet william, green sedum and pink celosia.

The cake was decorated with pink, white and green lisianthus.

All of the flowers were grown on Maryland Farms including: Farmhouse Flowers, Locust Point Flowers, Belvedere Farm and Bridge Farm Nursery. Photos were taken by The Pro's.

From LoCoFlo Bride to LoCoFlo Intern

I'm never sure how things work with "regular" florists or floral designers. Maybe they've had this happen-maybe not. Either way, we here at LoCoFlo think it's pretty cool.

Back in June, we created the flowers for Sara Gervase and John Hill's wedding.

Marina and I knew when we met Sara back in the fall, that we would hit it off. She was so easy going and excited about her wedding. She was interested in learning about the flowers that would be available. She was from Buffalo! (in case I haven't mentioned it-I'm from Buffalo and so is Marina's husband-whose family lives one block from Sara's family...i know, i know, it's a small world).

Anyway, we loved working on Sara's wedding. We were equally excited that Sara let us know that she would be interested in "interning" with us. She said she was interested in learning about what we do, about the flowers, about designing etc. So, last Friday, as we prepared for two pretty big weddings, Sara came to help. For a while she just tied raffia on buckets (not much of a learning curve there) then she started working on the table arrangements with Marina.

For her finale, she made two beautiful poseys.

We are definitely looking forward to having Sara come back to help again.

San Francisco: Flowers in the City

Last week Eric and I went to San Francisco for our friend Craig's 40th birthday party! It was great fun to see our old friends, check out our favorite spots and eat our favorite foods! Our fist day in San Francisco was spent walking through Bernal Heights, the Mission, the Castro, the Haight, Hayes Valley and Yerba Buena gardens. One thing I noticed, that was drastically different from Baltimore, was the plethora of cut flowers every where we went. There are flower shops and flower kiosks; cut flowers being sold at grocery stores, corner stores and liquor stores; cut flowers being sold at dress shops and baby clothes stores. There are cut flowers everywhere.

I’m not talking about the alstromeria or carnations or spray roses that you see at the Giant either. I’m talking about a dozen varieties of dahlias, hydrangeas in every shade of pink, blue and purple you can imagine, lisianthus, orchids, alliums in all sorts of shapes and sizes, proteas, bells of Ireland and more. There were loads of flowers I had never seen before too. What I especially loved was that at most of these spots, there were a dozen or more types of branches, seed pods, berries and leaves.

All this and it was just the first day! Coming soon...the farmers market and the San Francisco Wholesale Flower Market!