Simply Flowers of Fresno

We’ve moved!

Simply Flowers has moved into a bigger location.  We are now located at 1493 W. Shaw Suite B, Fresno, CA 93711.  Our e-mail and phone contact information is the same.  By appointment only.

Living flower dress

Check out this amazing link for living flower dress.  It’s so awesome we just had to share it.  It took over 1700 flowers to create and 170 man hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZclJgkawfc

How to make your floral consultation go easier and faster

As a florist who loves what I do I always look forward to the beginning of the wedding season.  I love meeting new people, hearing new ideas, and feeling the excitement of brides-to-be who are planning there once in a lifetime special day.  It really is an honor to be a part of our bride’s day.  We know that our clients have entrusted us with their vision and it’s up to us to exceed their expectations and make their dreams come true.

However, I’m also reminded of how difficult consultations can be, especially for brides who don’t know much about flowers.  They often come into our office not knowing what to expect and therefore, aren’t as prepared as they could be which can lead to frustration or sense of feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of choices being offered.  Not only can most wedding florists offer you amazing floral bouquets, but they can transform your plain banquet hall into something fabulous with chairs, linens, napkins, draping, etc…  The options of choosing ribbon, accessories, sizes, colors, and textures can be a bit intimidating.

So here is my attempt at helping brides-to-be navigate their way through a basic floral consultation.

1. Have your date and venue selected. 

-           This sounds like an easy one, but you would be surprised at how many times this happens.  Having a date and venue selected helps your florist select appropriate seasonal flowers and make suggestions for the correct flowers based on your venue and time of year.  Often times an outdoor venue means suggesting hardier flowers than if you’re venue is inside (especially in the summer months of Fresno).   If your date is in December, your choices of flowers will be different then if you are getting married in June.

2.     Choose your colors before you appointment.

-          Knowing your colors ahead of time helps the appointment go quicker.  Your florist can easily suggest dozens of flowers in the shades you’ve chosen which will help narrow down the choices and make the process easier for you.  If possible, bring a swatch or paint card from a local hardware store.

3.      Bring magazine or internet clippings.

-          This is important.  Bringing clippings in helps give your florist a sense of your taste and style and a clue as to the overall vision of your wedding.  Even bringing in clippings of arrangements you don’t like is helpful.  Most florists can take a photo and turn it into something custom just for you so don’t feel like you are giving away a secret.  This is really helpful and important because sometimes your idea of round centerpiece is different than your florist’s.

4.   Budget

-          While this is understandably an uncomfortable topic for most people it is usually very helpful when you have some idea of how much you want to spend, especially when you have a very tight budget.  Knowing how much you are comfortable spending doesn’t mean you will be getting less or worse service it just means we can narrow the choices down to ones that you can afford (and it doesn’t mean you will be relegated to carnations, although I do love those flowers). If your budget is $500.00 your choices will be different than someone who has a budget of $5,000.00.   I hate seeing brides get excited about their possible options only to see their faces fall when they realize they can’t afford it.  A realistic and comfortable budget in Fresno for a wedding with 200 people is about $2000-$2500.  Of course there is a ton of ways to cut costs and save even more money and it’s easy to spend less than that.  All you have to do is ask!  So when you get your estimate and it’s more than your comfortable spending just ask your florist what they can do to save you some money.

5.   Selecting Appointment Times

   -     When scheduling appointment times with a potential florist it’s important for brides to realize that weekends and Fridays are sometimes impossible to accommodate especially if they are an event florist.  The florist wants to give every bride the best possible service and typically most weddings are on the weekends, which mean that weekend appointments can be extremely difficult to schedule.  For example, as the owner of my company, Simply Flowers, I am extremely hands-on and I am usually at every event to ensure that everything is just perfect so I don’t offer Saturday appointments because I’m not in the office.  We also don’t offer Friday appointments because those are our design days for the wedding that is going to happen on Saturday.  With all that said, we realize that our brides are busy people and have busy work schedules so we do offer evening appointments one day a week.

When you finally pick your florist find someone that you are comfortable with and with whom you feel can communicate effectively with.  All florists want to do a great job for their clients, no matter their budget, style, or taste.  However, we aren’t mind readers, so come in prepared with your clippings, colors, venue, date, and budget.  Visiting, www.pinterest.com, www.facebook.com, and other floral websites (www.fresnoflowershop.com hint, hint) will help inspire you.  Also visit with approximately 3 different florists to get estimates.  Visiting more than that will just confuse you.  Most of all just come in ready to have fun.  Your engagement is just a blip in time so cherish every moment.

We Won!!! Thank you. Thank you.

The votes have been tallied and the results have just been announced.  We are so happy to say that we have just won “The Knot Best of Weddings” 2012 pick in the florist category. 

Thank you to all of our past clients who voted for us.  We are now being honored as one of the top florists in the nation and our region.  Without all of our great clients this award wouldn’t have been possible.  So “Thank you!  Thank you!”  Our clients and staff are the best and we are so grateful and humbled by this recognition.  It has been a joy to work with all of you and we can’t wait to see what 2012 brings!

Senior Holiday Gift Drive

Help us spread joy to others in our community by participating in a Senior Gift Drive to benefit the elderly in our valley and earn a $10.00 credit on your account.

By donating a new gift and bringing it to our office we will give Simply Flowers clients a $10.00 credit off their current or upcoming order.  We will have a basket by our office door so feel free to drop off your gift anytime.  Just be sure to tag the gift with your name so we know who to credit.

Some gift ideas are below:

Lap Blanket

Socks

Handkerchiefs

    Knit Hat, Gloves & Scarves

    Wallet

Coin Purses

Perfume Set

    After Shave Set

Hand & Body Lotion

Manicure set (Clipper, File etc.)

Watch (Large Easy to Read)

Jewelry,( Bracelets, Brooches &
Necklaces)

Bath Towel Sets

Kitchen Towel & Pot Holder Sets

Place Mats & Napkins

Cashews

Mixed Nuts

Christmas Candy

Artistic Trend- Rose Petal Carpets

At Simply Flowers we constantly strive to stay on the cutting edge of floral design and bring couture ideas that are budget friendly to the Central Valley.  We recently stumbled on an article highlighting rose petal carpets and instantly fell in love!  We love the inspiration it provided as well as the numerous ideas that can be designed to fit various sized budgets and color schemes.  While we have all seen the basic petal carpet down the aisle the pictures below open up new ideas that will hopefully inspire all of you.  Take a look and let us know what you think.

October Special!

Receive 5% off your event by booking at the time of your consult!  Hurry and call for your
appointment, because like our fabulous Fresno fall weather, this incentive doesn’t last forever – it ends October 31.

August Bridal Show

We had so much fun at the Bridal Show! Here’s a few fun pictures of what our booth looked like . . . hope you enjoyed it as well!

DIY Floral Design Class- September 18th

Mark your calendars for Sunday, September 18th from 1-3. We are going to be hosting a floral design class where we will cover the basics of how to create bridal bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages. We will also provide some great ideas on easy and inexpensive centerpieces.

Weddings by Cassandra will also be talking to our brides about how to plan the wedding of your dreams on any budget.

A $50.00 non-refundable registration fee includes light refreshments and all of the flowers/materials you need to participate in this fun class. No seats will be available the day of so be sure to sign up early. Limited seats are available.

Call us at 799-9525 or email us at staff@fresnoflowershop.com. You can also find us on facebook under Simply Flowers Fresno.

How to dry a bridal bouquet

If you ever wonder how to preserve your bouquet take a look at a video we filmed for www.ehow.com. You will be surprised at how easy it is.

China Peak Weddings

If you are looking for a beautiful and unique wedding venue try China Peak.  They are hosting a wedding show on July 23 from 1-4.  They have 3 different options for your ceremony and recepiton.  They also offer onsite hotel rooms and amzaing food!  Visit www.chinapeakweddings.com for more information.

Educational/Instructional Videos

We were recently hired by www.ehow.com to film some eduational/instructional videos and wanted to share the first one with all of you.  We will be posting more as time goes on and our hope is that is helps all of you with either doing the flowers yourselves or providing some inspiration for your upcoming event. Let us know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i4CFNywJo0

New rental items available

Check out some new rental items that we have available.  All of them are sure to add sparkle and pizazz to your event.

 6″ mirrored rhinestone vase. $10.00 each

 24″ mirrored pilsner vase. $17.00 each

 Square chargers in either gold or silver.  $3.50 each.

Mention this blog posting when renting these items and save 10% off your total.  Good through July 15, 2011.

Vintage Romance at Copper River

We had the best time last weekend with Missy.  Her goal was create a vision of vintage romance and I think we succeeded.  Missy had a combination of three different centerpieces in shades of pinks, lavenders, and purples mixed in with ivory.  It was stunning.  We used our crystal globe centerpieces and a combination of 2 different types of ivory candelabras.

She chose a mix of lisianthus (pink, lavender, and purple), Old dutch and Sahara roses, pink bi-color dahlias, and phalenopsis orchids.

The Linen Shoppe did the amazing draping and the event was perfectly coordinated by Weddings by Cassandra.

Spring Weddings

Here are some new pictures from a wedding we did last week at Wolf Lakes Park in Sanger, CA.  It was perfect Spring day and the brides choice of colors hit the mark perfectly.  She looked stunning in her bridal gown and groom looked quite dashing in his traditional attire.

The bride chose lavender roses, purple stock, purple and lavender lizzy, with hints of lavender sweet peas.

A special thank you to Mark Janzen at Janzen photography for the great pictures.  www.markjanzenphotography.com.  

The linen shoppe (www.thelinenshoppe.net  )did a fabulous job with the linens and chair covers and of course Wolf Lakes was just beautiful (www.wolflakespark.com)

Another wedding we did recently was at Wonder Valley Resort.  It was such a beautiful setting to have a wedding and the staff there is truly fabulous.  This wedding is one of more recent favorites and it was truly a pleasure to work with this family again.  Victoria was stunning, and the flowers chosen really brought out the Spring feel to this event.

White daisys, white roses, gerberas, asiatic lily’s and butterflies were the predominant choice of the bride .  The white on white color scheme worked is magic on the guests and left them all feeling a sense of wonderment.  The dancefloor was elegantly draped in white chiffon from corner to corner to meet in the center of the dancefloor.  The centerpieces were tall arrangements of white flowers, shimmering white fabric filled the vase and crystal garlands adorned the sides.  The backdrop was beautiful and again carried the theme of butterflies with over 25 of the winged beauties making their presence by “floating” on the fabric.

A very special thank you to CJ Hopper photography for these amazing photos.  Be sure to visit her at www.cjhopper.com.  We also want to once again thank The Linen Shoppe (www.thefor their assistance with the draping of the dancefloor and Wonder Vall

Royal Wedding Party in the news

So today we woke up at 2:00 a.m. and headed to our office inside the Premier Bride Wedding Center to attend our Royal Viewing party.  It was great fun and we loved watching all of the details of the wedding unfold.  Especially the floral wedding pieces.  While her bouquet was understated it was certainly a pleasant surprise.  We felt it was absolutely perfect!  We also LOVED the tress that lined the aisle of the Westminster Abbey and are looking forward to seeing the centerpieces from the reception.  Stop by the wedding Center to see our version of what we thought the centerpieces might have looked like.  It was sure fun.

All of the news channels attended our event along with the Fresno Bee and we were interviewed for for part of the news segment.  Check it out.  We hope all you had a great time watching the wedding and maybe even finding inspiration for you upcoming event.

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/entertainment/royal_wedding&id=8097923

Mother’s Day Flowers

Help celebrate all that your mom does by sending her our sunshine bouquet filled with sunflowers, purple stock and /or mums and solidago.  This bouquet is only $29.99 if ordered by April 29th.  We will deliver on May 6th or May 7th.   Limited quantities are available so be sure to order early.  First come, first serve.  Mention this ad to receive this great deal.  *Delivery is $10.00 additional.

Crystal Globe Centerpieces

Guess what?  Our crystal Globe centerpieces are finally here!  They are so pretty!  Feel free to rent them all by themselves or add some amazing floral adornments to them.  They are only $35.00 each!  36″ tall and include candles.

Bankers Ballroom- Rose Splendor

Last weekend we had the pleasure of setting up at the Bankers Ballroom.  The bride chose all red roses and we custom built 5 foot rose tree centerpieces on site the day of the wedding and were able to use our massive 6 foot manzanita tress for the 1st time.  We draped those in crystals and hanging votives.  The bride had 3 different centerpieces that created a dramatic look to fit the stunning architecture of the Bankers Ballroom.  We had an amazing experience and wish Annie and her new groom all the best!

Location: Bankers Ballroom

Photograper: Brittaney Osbourn/ www.brittosburnphotography.com

Linens: The Linens Shoppe, Best Party Rents/ www.thelinenshoppe.com www.bestpartyrents.com

Chargers: Maty’s chair covers/ www.matyschaircovers.com

Lighting: Media Solutions/ www.mediasolutions.com