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Love
blooms in winter
Evoking
the season’s beauty & tranquility with exotic &
white-on-white arrangements
By
Hugh Ryan
for The Brooklyn
Papers
For any bride, incorporating flowers into her wedding decorations
can be both beautiful and difficult, with questions of kind,
color and placement all needing to be addressed.
Winter brides in particular face a further set of complications:
• Do they use more affordable seasonal plants, which
can mean fewer choices and colors, or should they use more
expensive exotics?
• How should they incorporate the beauty of winter itself
into the occasion?
• How can they tastefully embrace (or avoid) looking
like a Christmas event?
There is no one set of answers to these questions. Each bride
must strike a balance of her own, and an important part of
that process is finding a florist who shares her personal
vision.
The Brooklyn Bride spoke with two experts in the field, Jennifer
Williams, the designer of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s
winter holiday display, and Kerri Silvestri, owner and operator
of Allow Me Events, a comprehensive event planning service
in DUMBO, to get their very different ideas on how to approach
the question of winter flowers.
Local color
Even a hurried holiday visitor cannot help but notice the
calm that radiates from Jennifer Williams’s “Japanese
Winter Garden,” which was recently displayed in the Brooklyn
Botanical Garden’s Steinhardt Conservatory. Expressing
the tranquil beauty of the season, Williams notes, is one
of her main goals in any winter floral arrangement. This can
be done in numerous ways, and can even help to alleviate the
stress of the big day, so that the bride can focus on the
joyous moment itself.
Williams has a long list of favorite flowers for winter decorating,
such as Lunaria, which she explained are more commonly called
“silver dollar plants.” Williams also recommends
pampas plumes, cockscomb, cotton and sea oats.
An artist by training, Williams says that choosing flowers
for a wedding is “like shopping for clothes — you
mix and match, find your palette, and then start looking for
interesting textures.”
One trick Williams recommends is visiting your local deli
before going to a real florist. This will give you an idea
of what plants are more affordable at this time of year. In
particular, Williams instructs brides to “see what seasonal
dried flowers they have.” These can be the key to bringing
color and life to your floral arrangements and centerpieces,
while still staying within a winter theme.
Winter-blooming grasses, which hold their seed heads —
or flower heads — through the winter, giving them an
ornamental look, can make fantastic centerpieces when combined
with dried flowers and one or two greenhouse-grown plants.
“I like amaryllis around Christmastime,” Williams
says. The rich crimson of cockscomb is also especially nice
and easily obtainable in winter.
To further accentuate the season, Williams likes to use fake
snow around the bases of her displays.
“It’s a nice wintry touch,” says Williams.
“And you can get it in any craft store.”
Exotic elegance
“I think of myself as a designer rather than just a florist,”
says Kerri Silvestri of Allow Me Events in DUMBO. Why is this
important for a winter wedding? Because, Silvestri says, the
proper look for a winter wedding cannot be captured just through
flowers alone.
“The linen and table settings — these elements should
complement the flower arrangement,” explains Silvestri.
“And winter greens are essential.” Unlike spring
and summer weddings, which often incorporate outdoor spaces,
a winter wedding depends entirely on the decor to evoke the
season.
Silvestri says in winter she tends “to use one color
but many different types of flowers.” She especially
recommends “cream and white flowers teamed with dark
foliage and wild wood.” The wood and greens capture the
luxurious depth of the winter palette, while using only one
primary color avoids a riotous summer or spring feel.
In particular, Silvestri likes “amaryllis, thistle, orchids,
calla lilies and even tulips,” and flowers that are “solid,
defined and rich.” Mixed with the warmth of candlelight,
Silvestri says, these can provide a beautiful, yet still graceful,
appearance.
“[Candles] are under-rated and should be used in abundance,”
since they can evoke Hanukkah, Kwanza and Christmas, as well
as winter itself, says Silvestri. As an added bonus, she notes,
“candlescapes lower costs” by adding depth without
requiring larger bouquets.
In her experience, demand in winter is not particularly high,
except around Christmas or New Year’s Eve, so finding
any particular type of flower shouldn’t be too difficult.
“This is New York,” she adds. “You can have
anything tomorrow.”
Off the list
One thing both designers agree on, however, is their strong
feelings about poinsettias.
Silvestri says, “It’s a beautiful plant, but they
are everywhere” in winter, and can make your wedding
look a little bit like the office holiday party.
Williams recommends rarer peach poinsettias for earlier winter
weddings, as opposed to the traditional red-and-green, to
take advantage of the plant’s natural beauty without
overwhelming the event. She warns that they work better when
displayed as whole plants rather than as cut flowers.
For floral display
inspiration, visit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden (1000 Washington
Ave. between Eastern Parkway and Empire Boulevard in Prospect
Heights). BBG also offers Continuing Education Certificate
Courses in Floral Design such as Basic Flower Arranging and
Wedding Design, as well as seasonal flower arranging and crafts
courses. For more information about fees and registration,
call (718) 623-7220.
DUMBO-based event designer Kerri Silvestri of Allow Me Events
is available by appointment only by phone at (917) 488-3912
or via her Web site, www.allowmeevents.com.
Home Depot stores which carry potted plants include the locations
at 585 DeKalb Ave at Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
(718) 230-0833, and 550 Hamilton Ave. between 18th and 19th
streets in Sunset Park, (718) 832-8553.
January
21, 2006 edition
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