We flew to New York a couple of weeks ago for two family milestones, the wedding of my niece in Manhattan and the high school graduation of my nephew in Great Neck, Long Island. If you recall, a last minute illness meant I couldn’t get on the plane with Mrs. MM and The Teen, and I followed a couple of days later, arriving just 24 hours before the wedding ceremony, without a fever but still deathly unwell! Although several phone calls with my sister had assured me that the flowers for the wedding were going to be dead simple, somehow I knew there was going to have to be a few slight “twists” along the way. For those that have read this blog from the beginning, the last time there was a wedding in the family, it entailed several voluptuous, stunning, tight and low arrangements for a luncheon at Restaurant Daniel here, followed by large arrangements at the church, here. So when I arrived at Sister’s apartment, and her foyer was filled with 40 potted phalaenopsis orchids with large white blooms, and a couple of crates filled with another 40 small potted white azaleas it seemed everything was set and all we had to do the next day was distribute them around the reception venue.
After dinner, however, Sister mentioned there were just a “few more” flowers in the building’s laundry room in the basement, and I went down to take a look. This is what Sister meant by a “few”….hahaha! Thank goodness the basement wasn’t bigger than 40 square meters or so! And consuelo de bobo that since I got there so late, several of my cousins had the task of prepping the flowers a day or so earlier, splitting the stems, soaking in water, etc. But you don’t understand the psyche at work here. It doesn’t matter how little time there was left, this basement full of blooms would, no matter what, turn into several usable arrangements, period. :)
First photo up top, taken by the Teen is a glimpse of the flowers in Sister’s apartment for various dinners and events leading up to the wedding. She had several large arrangements with pink peonies. The flowers in the basement included hundreds of stems of an unusual (for me) type of hydrangea with long blooms, more reminiscent of lilacs than big pouffy hydrangeas. They looked like they had been clipped off an unruly giant bush on some unkempt country estate. But massed together, they were great for a wedding reception. There were also a couple of hundred HUGE white roses, just opening up and the size of a small cupped hand!
Pails and pails of white or cream freesias that smell incredibly good, some frilly flowers in pink and white that I don’t know the name of…
Green and cream parrot type tulips.
White lisianthus and several other varieties of flowers I am not familiar with…
Blue delphiniums in blue and white vases (umbrella stands)…
Unruly blue hydrangeas.
Orange roses that were in the same corner as the super’s mops and brooms and maintenance pails. I suspect these were meant for an arrangement in the apartment… Needing some sleep, I decided to start putting the flowers together at 8 am on a Saturday and they had to be all ready to be transported to the venue by 12 noon…
32 Responses
All beautiful flowers.. Can’t wait on the next post on how you manage to arrange all these with very limited time and somehow incapacitated by an illness.. Lol
Whoa!Now I know why you had that bad case of allergy!I’m so excited to see what incredible flower arrangements you concocted for the wedding!Fantastic blooms you had there sister!
Hi MM! have you seen blue roses? i’m just curious …
BTW, luv the Blue delphiniums arrangement
The pink flowers (first photo up top) look so romantic…. I love weddings.
woowwww…just so much flowers. arent they all expensive Mr. MM?
terrey, Sister says prices of flowers dropped dramatically due to low demand in the past year or so, but yes, flowers are still a major expense. Doing it yourself saves 80% compared to hiring a good florist, however, so in this case, one could argue they were a bit more economical than one would think…
beautiful!! I like the idea of using the umbrella stands as flower vases. Never thought of them this way as they would normally be kept in one obscure corner of the house to be brought out by the entrance only as soon as rains start coming.
Those are beautiful! I’ve been doing some research on flowers lately, and you really can’t help but admire such beauties.
Love the green and cream parrot type tulips the best.
Those peonies are lovely!
I love all the flowers….but…I JUST LOVE…LOVE…LOVE THOSE “TULIPS”. Thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to see how they look like in the church and in the reception. Eagerly awaiting your next post.
a mere 24 hours before the wedding? wow, that sounds like “dinner impossible,” only here you’re dealt with tons of flowers.
I love the peonies. And those roses are huge!
those green and cream parrot tulips ( as with all the other flowers) are just beautiful! What a great family effort for your niece’s wedding- it must be so meaningful for her to have her whole clan pitching in to make her wedding day extra special.
Love the tulips and peonies!!
Beautiful flowers! I think those hydrangeas are the Oakleaf types. I tried growing them but was not successful. I had better luck with the Mopheads.
Very Nice.
I attend the New York Antiquarian Book Fair every year (Park Avenue Armory) which I believe is on the next block .
I am a little off topic but a lovely set of books (6 volumes) to do with Flowers from the Philippines fetched 35000 dollars on June 24 in Christies, Rockefeller Center.
(Flora de Filipinas adicionada con el manuscrito indito del P. Fr. Ignacio Mercado by BLANCO, Francisco Manuel)
I attended the auction and I was the successful bidder on two lots. I was quite staggered at the realised price for the above set of books.
Apparently there are a no. of very wealthy people from the Philippines who are pushing Philippine Antiquarian Books through the roof.
If you delete this post because it is off topic and does not really refer to the weddding I will completely understand.
I simply thought of the books when I noted the lovely photos of flowers,ect.
Best
Jody
Wow! The flowers are absolutely amazing. I hope that they last until the wedding. There is an abundance of flowers and the types I love. They will look amazing and I hope your niece’s wedding is everything she expected :)
OH HOW LOVELY!!!!!!!!!!
Jody,
I have seen individual plates from that particular set of books, they are wonderful. But $35000 for all six does sound rather high. I guess it’s extremely rare to find them all intact and together as a set. At least someone is trying to preserve them…
jody,
individual blanco prints are sold at 80 euros each in madrid — they are not difficult to find. but a complete set is truly a rarity, hence that price. and yes there are antiquarian collectors in the philippines who will readily pay that much
the “frilly pink and white flowers”, the tall ones look like astilbes..
natiw, thanks, I never know what those are… :)
Good Morning.
I should have qualified my observation by noting that volume five was missing a title page and so I believe the set was not a good buy.
Mind you no other set was for sale on any database throughout the world.
However many wealthy buyers from the Philippines are setting new records for rare books to do with the Philippines. It is truly astonishing; these guys simply keep their hands raised in the auction rooms.
Best to all
Jody
i used to have plenty of astilbes, MM–they look like a colorful wave in a breeze
i reviewed all the pics last night after work, and they just made my day!! sister really went all out!! it was such a celebration!!
Jody, notice any 16th century distorted maps of the Philippine archipelago in those auctions? We have a small collection of old distorted maps but prices in the last decade have become astronomical… I think I even have a post on old maps somewhere in the archives, ah here it is… natie, thanks again for the identification!
Hi,
Flowers were ordered the week before and flown in from Amsterdam Wednesday before the Saturday wedding so they could be fully open. Had to buy them by the box full hence the bounty featured. Peonies in the apt. came from Union Square as well as the phaelanopsis grown on Long Island. The orchids were in honor of MM’s and my mother who grew them in her garden and the blue and white pots in honor of our grandmother who collected antiques. They were then there in spirit for the occasion.
We could have used a few more hours to use up all the blooms but the arrangements made were very beautiful and added to the elegance of the evening. Thank you MM!
Stunning flowers!
What gorgeous flowers….they make me remember the Flower market there and are making me miss new york already………….
They are all gorgeous and what beautiful colors!
Those flowers are all a beauty. And they were arrranged exceptionally with very unique vases. My favorite are those white roses. They’re splendid in bunches.