Have you ever wondered what goes into creating a beautiful bridal bouquet?  We recently followed one bouquet designed by Tipton Hurst’s Chris Norwood, AIFD, from the cooler to the photoshoot.

“It’s great to give your florist guidelines and inspiration photos, but let the experts be the designers so that you get the freshest flowers arranged in the most artful way for your special day,” suggests Chris.  “Our bride wanted all white flowers with one caveat, no roses.  Those are perimeters I can certainly work with!”

Chris peruses the assorted white flowers available, looking for the right textures and color contrasts.  Lilies, carnations, mums, daisies… so much to choose from!  That’s be beauty of the Tipton Hurst cooler.  Our wonderful Ms. Freda keeps it stocked with all the good stuff.  Chris selects creamy white hydrangeas, peonies, lisianthus, and white orchids.

If you’ve never seen Chris work, try to catch him on one of his live TV segments on KATV or KATV.com or one of his great video blogs here at tiptonhurst.com.  He is fast!  Quickly assembling a base of hydrangeas into a round mound, he has the form for his bouquet.

“I like to start with a hydrangea base on round, clutch style bouquets because it gives you a structure for supporting the rest of the blooms,” Chris explains as he works away bringing the bouquet to life.

The designer then adds in peonies, a favorite of our bride.  These peonies are in various stages of bloom so the ones that are fully blown out are frilly and show faint hints of pink inside while the ones that are still tight look more ball-like, giving a completely different contrast to the white hydrangeas.

The lisianthus also benefits various stages of bloom.  The tighter the bloom the more green you can see in the flower, but the more open ones have an ivory tone to them that’s charming.  Bright white orchids are plucked individually off the stems and wired and wrapped.  Orchids are long lasting blooms and are lovely in an arrangement such as this white-on-white textural mix.

Chris finishes with a collar of greenery and an ivory ribbon wrap before the bouquet is loaded in the delivery truck and taken to the salon where the bride is having her hair done before her photoshoot.

Moved to tears, the bride receives the bouquet and expresses her delight.  Thumbs up!

Then it’s off to the photoshoot (and no, we’re not giving the dress style away).

Only a few days left until this young lady’s big day and Tipton Hurst is so proud to be a part of her wedding.