Flower Flavours

We dug through our phone galleries to pull up some real-life floral combos that we’ve used for weddings. #throwback!

This was an interesting exercise for us to see the sort of floral mixes that were resonating with our brides. As you can see, the combinations are endless, and, over the years our brides have been getting bolder in their choice of florals (someone say hay?) and colours (check out the pops of black and burgundy!), which we love, love, love!

At the end of the day, there is no rule as to what wedding florals or colours should be. It’s your day so you get to pick your flavour!

If you’ve been an SF bride, do you know which combo’s yours??

'Tis the Season for Red Roses

So Valentine’s is nearly upon us. It’s quite a polarizing holiday with some couples completely swearing it off and others, who take it to a whole other level!

Well, for the record, in the Vlajic household, when it comes to Julia and myself, there is a little bit of both. My squidgy heart just LOVE’S Valentine’s!! I love that it takes a simple gesture to make someone feel special. I love heading to a delicious dinner after endless days at the shop, with my special someone. And most of all, I love seeing everyone come through our doors making that little bit of effort for their loved ones, and knowing that we played a little part of being Cupid for the day (I told you my heart was squidgy!!).

At Singapore Flower, Cupid tends to look a little crazy though! 

The Case for Keeping Flowers Seasonal

One of my roles at the shop is to assist with the purchasing of our weekly flower order for events and to stock our shelves. For the most part, it’s one of the tasks I really enjoy—it’s pretty much online shopping with none of the guilt!

But, I’m not going to lie, there are weeks when it gets a bit tiresome… especially when you’re deep into a season and you’ve been seeing the same flowers on the market for months. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy seasonally available flowers like branches in Spring (think Cherry Blossoms and Magnolia branches) and vines in the Summer (sweet scented Jasmine, and funky Passiflora vines) and of course fluffy Peonies during warmer summer months (LOVE!).

I do think that part of my job is to vary the rotation of flower in store so our clients are constantly surprised and our florists don’t fall into a rut of deploying the same blooms week after week. But this can be hard especially when we have customers regularly requesting flowers that are technically “not in season”.  I know you’re expecting a lecture on why you should buy seasonal flowers, but it’s not meant to be. 

To be honest, there are few flowers that are truly seasonal anymore—with temperature-controlled greenhouses and international flights that can cross hemispheres in hours you can pretty much get most blooms at any time of the year these days. That’s not to say that the blooms will be great, flower heads will be smaller and shelf life shorter. But past all of that, I feel like we’re loosing the element of surprise that the change in seasons typically brings—especially in a two-season location like Bahrain (hot and hotter, amirite?!).

While I love peonies and ranunculus, I feel like seeing them for a brief period makes them all the more enjoyable and makes me excited when they’re truly at their peak and in season. So yes, I’m going to stubbornly continue to order with what’s technically in season. But know that I’m doing this for your own good! (And my mental sanity!!).

Oh, Hi There January!

This new years resolution was supposed to be: practice “The Art of Slow Living”. (Um, yea right!)

We have a pretty hard and fast rule in the store that New Year’s Day is a universal day off and our doors are shut (not that we don’t love you guys!!) but sometimes all you want is your bed and some quality time with family. Well, it seems the New Year had something else planned for us…

On Day 1 of 2016, we hit the ground running with giant cups of coffee, to set up a sweet Bridal Shower. Seven days later, at crazy o'clock (5 AM!!), we set off with even bigger cups of coffee to set up the wedding florals for the same bride. We got to collaborate with the amazing team over at YQ Art, and got our creative juices flowing by bringing to life the most incredible wild, organic flower wall. Guys, what a way to start the year! 

But as they say…no rest for the wicked. The next day, with sore feet and happy hearts, we headed off to put together two other wedding setups. The first, a dinner party at Bice and the second—in our home away from home—La Fontaine!

January, you’ve been tiring but great. The rest of 2016, bring it on!