What's up buttercup!

Hellooooo...is anyone still out there?  Long time no blog.
Well if you are wondering, "What happened to Fiori Del Sole?" here is an explanation and a plan.

I lovingly ran Fiori Del Sole with the help of my Husband and Family and many others along the way...for all of my married life.  My Husband and I throughout this have always wanted a child, but the business was always our child.  One day we decided to try to cut back to have more time for ourselves, but that was hard because not only were we running Fiori Del Sole full time for weddings and events we also had a retail flower shop in my home town of Seguin.  About the time that all of this was going through our minds a wonderful opportunity came my way to work with a charitable organization that I had been on the board of for years.

To my amazement I was chosen for this job, which is part time, and thus began the juggle of essentially three jobs.  I know, I know...trying to cut back remember.  Well that was the tipping point.  It became clear that something had to go, the retail shop was my least favorite and so began a transition of either closing or selling.  Whelp we are definitely being looked after because our prayers were answered and we were able to sell the retail shop a year after seeking out a buyer.   We were actually within two months of closing the doors if we did not have a buyer and selling off what we could and storing the rest.  It couldn't have happened at a better time.   The moment however was bittersweet.  The shop had become a tribute to my late Grandmother so on that note I was sad to let go of it, and it was something I was doing with my Mother so that also made it hard to see it sold.

Now onto Fiori Del Sole, I LOVE wedding and event floral. I LOVE being a part of the special days of soooo many wonderful people.  Typing this right now I MISS it sooooo MUCH!  But my Husband and I had NEVER in our married life together had a multiple weekends off in a row together.  If your job doesn't involve you working weekends, think about what you do on your weekends...those things, we never had done those things.  I longed to do those things.  Then the stress, I took each wedding and each event with me at all times, I agonized over each detail and labored over every petal.  Because you  only have "one change" to have the "perfect" day.  I needed to give that to each client I worked with.
It became obvious, without taking some time off we would never have the child we dreamed of...the child that I had wanted every since I played house as a little girl, thinking of what it would be like to have a family of my own "when I grew up".  With that I stopped taking on new clients.
In January of 2010 I did my last wedding for a dear high school friend.  I have not taken on a new wedding since.  Our plan was to take a year off and evaluate at the end of that time and see where we are with the baby plan and go from there.

Currently, as of this post I am not pregnant.  But we are actively trying.  Your happy thoughts on the matter are greatly appreciated!

I hope that in a year I can come back into taking on a wedding here and there because we have been able to get on track with a baby plan.  Luckily I have the charity management job to help in the household.  But I do miss the creativity of Fiori Del Sole.

This past week I started brainstorming a plan to put Fiori Del Sole to use again in the meantime.   I want to make it a place for people with floral questions to come and hopefully I can answer, if not I will work to find the answer and we learn together.  Do you think that will be helpful?  If so what would you like to see on a helpful floral website??

Any comments, suggestions are welcome.  Thanks for checking in with me and I hope this explains things...

My youngest employee

As I have been sorting through pictures there have been so many memories from the summer that when I found this one I had to blog about it right now :)

We had a wedding at the Wildflower Center this summer where we had to hang floral balls in the butterfly garden. Whelp, I hate ladders but yet I always find myself agreeing to do things in high places (there is a really good story about this I will share later).
Now Richard (my husband) will always step up the plate and go to the highest of highs to achieve my ultimate designs. But we always end up fighting about it....
For some time now Richard's Sister and Brother-in-law have been offering to help out with wedding deliveries. So on this particular day I called them into help. Knowing that if Jim went up the ladder Richard and I might have a peaceful wedding delivery :)

Here is Jim's action shot!


So you are probably wondering why this post is entitled "my youngest employee"....
Although Jim would probably love to have the title it actually goes to his daughter Madison.

Madison is the newest addition to the Supervisory Team at Fiori Del Sole.

Here is Maddie with the Scorpion Sculpture at the Wildflower Center. (Badge Photo?!?)

Maddie came along to supervise and help out where needed. She was an incredible help and even carried around that flower all afternoon in case I needed it! She also handed me ribbons and I feel that she gave her seal of approval as she smiled when she saw the different arrangements.

Now I know you can make the argument that she is too young to be employed, we did treat her very well by ensuring she take her mandatory breaks. Here she is checking out the frogs in one of the many ponds on the grounds. (She still has the back up flower!) Oh and with her is her assistant Karen (Richard's Sister), yes Maddie has an assistant...she is a very important person in the ranks of Fiori Del Sole.

Now she is telling us to wrap it up! It is wedding time!!

Thanks Jim, Karen, and Maddie for helping us delivery a beautiful wedding and keeping us entertained in the process.

Here is the finished project of the ceremony site.

More to come...

So I haven't fulfilled my promise of a new blog but I am in the process of sorting through pictures from the summer months and I will do a summer blog extravaganza ~ Promise, Promise!

But until then, here are some of my favorites from the summer:

This was from the KNOT party in Austin just a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun decorating for this "Green" Event. One of my favorite aspects was this moss table complete with succulents and sanded Manzanita Trees which had Yellow Cymbidium Orchids blooming from the branches.

We dropped off this wedding in Round Rock a few weeks ago and found this bench outside the venue and I loved how this picture of bouquets turned out. These bouquets smelled so good, I can still smell them from looking at the picture (and I never notice these things anymore, people always tell me how good the shop or studio smell and I just take their word for it but I could completely smell these!) Bouquet have Tulips, Thistle, Freesia, Stock, Hypericum, Scabosia, Yoko Onos, Scented Geranium Leaves, and other herbs and pods.

Chuppah at the Four Seasons, I love getting the opportunity to work with Mancino's Iron (http://www.mancinoiron.com/ ) and in the last couple of months I have gotten to on several occasions. This turned out so delicate and soft, and we used chair sashes to tie off the material covering the iron so it wouldn't flow away. We used Hydrangea, Tulips, Peonies, Roses, Callas, and Greenery.

What a fun Flower Girl basket! The vibrant colors make me happy. The basket contains Anemones, Stock, Tulips, and fresh moss.

Now the Bride didn't order this exactly but I loved her so much and there was a meeting that I went to the wrong place and it was kinda of a disaster so I made some little "extras" for her the day of the wedding. I loved this arrangement so much that the week after the wedding I made a replica of it for my own home. Now for being a floral designer I hardly ever have flowers in my house (but I have been changing that this past summer)! It was so pretty for so long, I amazed myself. Vase contains Tulips, Gerberas, Roses, Seeded Euc, and these AWESOME hot pink Freesia out of California - (PS. I love California flowers).

Sorry to leave you guys hanging...but till the next time...hope someone makes your day with flowers :)

Terri

I have been a bad, bad blogger....

Okay so I am loooooooong over due for a blog and so much has happened and changed. So I promise a juicy blog over the weekend then I will start working to post all the weddings and events you guys have missed out on :)

Hey if you read this leave a note!! I am always hopefully that someday I will see a comment but other than the lovely, talented, wonderful, amazing Stacy!!! No one has left one - so say hi if you read this....I will try to talk more on here, just don't want to be talking to myself!

Thanks Bunches,
Terri

Winter Ice

This was amazing event at Texas Federation of Women's Club...

We had so much fun and got to work with some great vendors! First of all Lindy http://www.36thstreetevents.com/ did an amazing job of the coordination.

We do a lot of Moss letters, you can't see them in the picture because we did them later, but we accented the letters with crystals.


The cake was simply breathtaking! If you need a great cake for your wedding Contact Stellar! http://www.stellarcakeco.com/



We had snow on the tables - how fun!

Ilios did the lighting http://www.ilioslighting.com/ After working with them once, I just don't think an event is complete with out them!

Of course the wonderful Mancino Iron Works http://www.mancinoiron.com/ did the trees, we added the orchid/crytal drops that made the room stunning.

December in April

I thought I would take a moment and post some weddings from December 2007. As soon as I find the camera downloader...I will post recent weddings :)

Richard did a great job taking these pictures at Vintage Villas - LOVE the blue sky and green grass!

More Anne Marie Photos

Here are a few more pictures courtesy of Anne Marie Photography

www.annemariephotography.com