In January, Erin and I had the privilege to attend Florabundance’s first annual floral design conference at Dos Pueblos Ranch in beautiful Santa Barbara. Its purpose was to bring together the industry’s top wedding and event designers, while providing workshops on inspirational design, the industry’s latest trends, social media expertise and more. Plus, sunshine and the ocean in the middle of the winter seemed like a no brainer!

The first morning, our group (99% women, of course!) was picked up by an antique trolley and carted to Florabundance’s warehouse. If you haven’t experienced the thrill of flying down Cali’s busy freeway in an open window trolley, we definitely recommend you do! Florabundance is a direct shipper of wholesaler cut florals located in the seaside town of Carpinteria where the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest meet the Pacific Ocean. We were able to get to know our peers while we toured their warehouse, which was stocked full of fresh and fragrant buds and blooms.

Next, we headed to our classroom, the spectacular Dos Pueblos Ranch. This barn-style wedding venue (among other things) consists of over 2,000 acres including a private sandy beach, abundant agriculture, livestock (the baby goats were obviously our favorite) and 13 homes and residences.  Despite it’s size, we were blown away by its quaint beauty and character.

We spent the next few days buried in everything flowers. Holly Heider Chapple and Ian Prosser (check them out if you haven’t heard of them) led various discussions on the wedding industry, business models, pricing, etc. and Alicia Schwede and Chuck Graham, co-bloggers on Flirty Fleurs, led discussions on social media and blogging. Most presentations led to open forums where we all could openly chat, give advise and ask questions. We were given many opportunities to design and learn new tricks with an endless supply of flowers. We were all in heaven!

To wrap up the workshop, we had the pleasure of working together as a group in designing aisle décor, a chuppah, an arch and a fabulous tablescape. It’s pretty amazing what 38 florists can create when working together!

Enjoy our photos… click to enlarge for a better view.

Caitlin

We are off to a wonderful start to 2013 at Plum Sage! Let’s look back before looking forward….

Last year we produced flowers and decor for just over 75 events. Although that is still a LOT of blooms, that is dozens less than previous years. Last year was the first year we set a minimum order requirement for delivery services. We did this so that we could concentrate on a fewer number of events, and ensure quality product and excellent service for all.

Jenny was blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Zoe, last February and returned to work in May for her sixth wedding season with Plum Sage.  Last fall, Caitlin Caldwell joined us after relocating from Vail, where she managed a retail and event florist. Caitlin brings with her a marketing degree and the work ethic and amazing customer service skills that exemplify Plum Sage standards. She blended into the team seamlessly, is busy networking in our ideal market and is booking 2013 brides by the day.

Caitlin’s efforts have recently placed us on the 2013 referral list at the esteemed Four Seasons Hotel and the newly renovated McNichols Building, as well as created a new and exciting partnership with Footers Catering. We continue to be a member of StudioWed and Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book, and are still the preferred florist of the beautiful Devil’s Thumb Ranch.

Caitlin and I started the year with a trip to Santa Barbara in January to participate in a design conference. This was a wonderful week of “play” in a beautiful setting. The conference was sponsored by Florabundance so we were exposed to beautiful wholesale product at a privately owned ranch (also a wedding venue). We worked alongside 30 other florists around the country and created dreamy, over-the-top table and ceremony pieces for a photo shoot. Look for a blog post featuring images soon.

Also in January we did a community outreach afternoon and volunteered with 2nd and 3rd graders at Girl’s, Inc. We had a great time helping the girls create pipe cleaner blooms and paint terra-cotta pots that we then put fresh flowers into. You can see our group photo below, which was photo-shopped to look like we had the pleasure of being outside in January. It’s obviously fake but makes us smile to see their happy faces with such a silly backdrop!

Back in the studio, we are now brainstorming weekly to come up with unique, gorgeous floral and decor ideas that we can pitch to our future clientele. We are looking for ways to think outside the box and and fuel our creativity. We just participated in the first annual WestWord Whiteout Fashion Show where we created table and runway decor, as well as floral accessories that complimented the fashion and adorned the beautiful models. Look for an additional blog post featuring those images.

There is a sense of excitement, enthusiasm and ease in the studio as we approach the new wedding season. We look forward to working with all of the vendors that we respect and love and we look forward to the opportunity of meeting and working with new talent. As always, we see our fellow florists as allies. We refer to them if we are booked for a certain date. We will also welcome a new and very talented team member to our family in late March. More to come on her in the future!

Plum Sage has stayed true to it’s healthy roots over the years. We have grown a little taller and now produce a bit bigger blossoms (pardon the corny pun) but we still stand for the same excellent service, creative ideas and personable approach that we always have. We look forward to sharing our next year with you and thank you for all of the support you have provided over the last eight.

Cheers! ~Erin

Hello and happy new year!

We FINALLY have a moment to pause and collect ourselves after a whirlwind of busy in 2012. In the weeks to come, we will be gathering beautiful images from last season’s weddings. We will increase the frequency of our blog posts and Facebook activity as well as highlight our goals and objectives for the new year.

In the meantime, we wanted to share this time lapse created for us by Chris with Pure Cinematography that showcases an outdoor ceremony set up in collaboration with Pink Monkey Solutions and Save The Date Events last August at Catamount Ranch in Steamboat Springs. Click below for a glimpse… 

AUGUST 2012 CATAMOUNT RANCH CEREMONY SET-UP

We had the pleasure of creating a large, lush headpiece for a fashion shoot last month for Goldyn boutique with flowers including dahlias, ranunculus, helioborus, cymbidiums, celosia, gomphrena and sweet peas. 

The shoot featured beautiful clothing from the gorgeous store located just up the street from our studio at 2040 West 30th Avenue Denver, CO 80302.

The photographer was the talented Sara Ford and the beautiful model’s name is Cassie. Visit Goldyn on November 1st for their Dia de los Muertos Event for magical practices, spirits and a trunk show with Collarbone Jewlery. 

During the summer months we visit Cherry Creek Farmer’s market and buy fresh flowers from Lyle with Pastures of Plenty Farm. We document what is available at what time, so that we are a resource for brides looking to incorporate local, organic flowers in their wedding decor. Here is a plethora of gorgeous flowers available in late June and July including scabiosa, sunflowers, crocosmia, heliopsis, phlox, asiatic lilies, bells of Ireland, bachelor buttons, red hot pokers, celosia, safflower, snow on the mountain and feverfew.

August is upon us! Although we are quick to update our Facebook page with event photos, it has been difficult to showcase recent work on the blog due to the busy nature of the studio during the summer months.

We have done numerous stunning weddings this season and will continue to do so for the rest of 2012.

Here are a few gorgeous photos from IN Photography, as well as amateur photos from our camera (and phone camera… love Instagram!) of bouquets and centerpieces from weddings at amazing venues including The Sanctuary, The Grand Hyatt, The Denver Country Club, The Denver Art Museum, Grant Humphrey’s Mansion, Devil’s Thumb Ranch and Della Terra. 

Our apologies, the blog is stagnant!

Please head over to our Facebook Page

to see beautiful photos of recent events, 

 features on Style Me Pretty,

 and images and updates from studio activity. 

Hope you had a fun holiday! 

Erin and the staff at Plum Sage

I wasn’t intending to work on vacation but I love these gorgeous photos from our adventure to the botanic gardens, a protea farm and a lavender farm on Maui this week. 

So many of the items I photographed are available in Denver  in cut bunches at our wholesaler. It was awesome, how ever, to see them in their natural state, growing in abundance. There are a few blooms that we would love to work with but can not import (like plumeria) as they are only happiest here, on the branch. 

The flowers available to us include (but are not limited to) numerous types of proteas and protea foliage, kangaroo paw, various orchids, bromeliads, agapanthus, anthuriums, gomphrena, dusty miller, ti leaves, heliconia, birds of paradise and fern shoots.  I also snuck in a few photos of my little peanut, Bennett and a local lizard named Jordan. 

The newest member of the Plum Sage family is due to arrive any day now…

and we can’t wait to meet him, or her!!!

We showered Jenny and the baby with love a few weeks ago at Beatrice and Woodsley. Below are a few photos of the the beautiful mom-to-be and her sister Lindsey, the cozy space, the decor . We complimented the venue with an owl motif and used owl mugs (found at Urban Outfitters) as vases and filled them with bright tulips, yellow button mums and green trick dianthus. We also created colorful yarn blooms with yellow billy ball centers to place in bud vases with green Fuji mums. Lindsey and Maureen (Jenny’s mom) made the tasty owl cupcakes. It was a happy afternoon filled with fun and love for baby Geyer.

ps. I’ll say it again… Baby, we can’t wait to meet you!

Getting a disk of photos in the mail is a huge treat!  Our photographer friends are so talented and able to capture our arrangements beautifully.

I received one last week from the delightful Lindsay of Lindsay B. Photography. Lindsay lives in the Highlands with her husband and cute dogs and is awesome to work with. She captured the flowers we created for two weddings last season including Parker and Jess at Devil’s Thumb Ranch and Eric and Leah at St. John’s Cathedral and Gallery 1261. Below are her colorful images and please venture to her blog to see more of her work.

Leah’s bouquet included Flame mini calla lilies, mambo spray roses, orange mokara orchids, orange dahlias and ranunculus, billy balls, bupleurum and mini sunflowers. Her bridesmaids carried vibrant orange spider gerbs and milva roses and bright green trick dianthus. Eric had an elegant mini calla lily boutonniere.

Jess’ bouquets included colorful, seasonal product with almost too many types to list! In case of curiosity some included dahlias, rust sunflowers, scabiosas, mini gerbs, ecchinacea, lisianthus, yarrow, feverfew, jade roses, poppy pods, freesia, delphinium and cornflower. Parker had a scabiosa pod, kermit mum and spray rose boutonniere.

These vibrant flowers make me yearn for spring… but it’s a lovely day in Denver so they are quite the compliment!