Winter Wonderful

We love the holiday season in the Pacific Northwest!  Our tree is up, the lights are hung.  Holiday music is playing on the radio.  Every once in a while we get just enough white snow to make everything feel like peace on earth.

It's also the best time of year to preserve memories of your Winter wedding.  Flowers available in the winter months preserve beautifully.   Our customer base tends to be lower than during the heavy summer wedding season, so turn-around of your final product can be made within weeks rather than months.
 

The Suspended-In-Time techniques used facilitate this faster process.  The flowers from your beautiful bouquet are dried in 3-8 days from the time they are brought in to us.   We seal them into an encasement of your choice with any other precious items that you want kept as a quality heirloom.  Our pricing is all-inclusive.  There are no extra charges for including photos or precious keepsakes.

BUDGETING FOR PRESERVATION

Many brides love the idea of preservation, but fear that their "money will be gone" by the time their wedding is completed.  The key to making your preservation dreams a reality is planning now.  Attending a consultation a few months before youre wedding date will allow you to obtain quotes, lock in pricing, and arrange a payment plan.

"Think of it like Christmas layaway".  Choose your items now, then pay them off over time.  By breaking your total into smaller pieces, it suddenly becomes manageable.

 

Some brides chose to pay a portion of their down-payment at their initial consultation, and to pay the rest when they receive gift money at their wedding. 

When a bride has priced out the cost prior to the wedding, she can also speak with guests about contributing to her floral preservation as a wedding or bridal shower gift.  It's really no different than registering at a department store for gift items you would like your guests to consider.

Evergreen Dreams gift certificates can be purchased and passed on to the recipient. 

You CAN find a way to make your preservation wishes come true!

The Sun is Shining! But...

We have sunshine today in the Pacific Northwest. It hasn't been that way most of the week, however. Several large storm fronts have gone through bringing high winds and leaving us with several inches of rain.

The humidity in the northwest is one of the reasons we suggest you encase your dried flowers rather than leaving them out in the open. Mold and mildew are common in the area, and they will attack flowers...fresh or dried! We've experimented by leaving dried flowers out in the open. After a time, they tend to reabsorb some moisture. This causes some types of petals to curl. Others will appear to become pliable again. Then one of two things then happens. The petals may dry out again, but not so beautifully, or mildew and/or mold take over and rot the tissues of the flower. (This usually happens starting at the point where the petals meet the stem. With roses, especially, you often don't see it until the petals fall out, or the mold starts growing and the "fur" shows up).

By encasing your flowers in a wall dome, shadow box, table dome, glass box, jewelry box, or ornament, you are preventing the humidity in our area from rehydrating the foilage of your preserved floral arrangement. It's also important to seal the joins using the proper materials to prevent seepage into the encasement. We're here to help you!

It's gotta be good!

We want our customers to have a beautiful finished product, so we're sending a shadow box back where it came from.  It just wasn't good enough.  Someone hadn't taken the care and time to make the finish everything it could be.  It appears that the craftsman started off well enough, but when he (or she) got to the last side, they just didn't care any more (or maybe they took a break and just forgot to complete it?) 

It got me to wondering about life.  How many times have I started something and just run out of steam before I could become the best I could be?  Can I send me back? I guess that's the difference between things and people.  We really can rededicate ourselves to becoming better.  Sometimes we lose steam, but we can fix that without having to start over at the beginning.  Here's to becoming better a better me!!!

Beautiful Day

It is such a beautiful day in Auburn, Washington.  The weather is mild, the sun is shining...it's just gorgeous!  A bride brought in her "autumn colors" bouquet to be dried last weekend. Golds and reds...beautiful!  They are in the drying process right now.

I've purchased some spring bulbs that I need to get planted.  Did you know that many spring flowers preserve beautifully?  Tulips and Daffodils are awesome when dried.  Daffodils retain their beautiful color.  Some tulips will change color a bit...pinks will tend toward the purple side...but we've dried several arrangements in the past that have tulips included in them.

The wide variety of bouquets, seasonal color changes, and yearly trends in color make our job fun and fabulous!

To Trash or Not To Trash, that is the question!

What do you plan to do with your gown after the wedding?

Let's down play the monetary value of the dress for a few minutes and talk about the alternatives.

1.  You can leave it hanging in the garment bag it came in. (This is, of course, assuming that you didn't purchase it from China like a friend of mine did.  Hers came in a cardboard box!).  Pros: it hangs in a closet. Cons: it can yellow...and some zippers can stain the dress over time. (Note: if you DO chose this alternative, at least have it dry cleaned within a reasonable time of the wedding). The garment bag itself can deteriorate over time.

2.  You can have the gown preserved through a reputable company such as the Wedding Gown Preservation Company. (We can help you with this!).  Pros: It is cleaned, treated, and guaranteed not to yellow.  Archival museum-quality storage items are used. It will be just a beautiful if your daughter, friend, or god-child wants to use it years from now. Cons: there is reasonable cost to do this (but you don't have to pay for dry cleaning as well).

3. You can donate the dress to charity.  Aside from the "well known" thrift stores, there are charitable organizations who specialize in wedding & prom dresses for those who are not as financially blessed as others. Pros: possible tax deduction & benefit for someone else.  Obviously an environmentally "green" solution. Cons: you won't have it if a relative wants to use it later on. If your parents paid for the dress, they might want to be the ones to take the possible donation deduction on their taxes. You'll still need to pay to have the dress cleaned before you donate it.

4.  You can re-sell the dress over the internet or at a consignment store. Pros: you get some of your money back. It's a "green" solution. Cons: you still have to have the dress dry cleaned before you can sell it.

5.  You can "Trash the Dress".  This has become an "after-the-honeymoon" party for some newly-married gals.  They get together with their friends at the messiest place possible and have a wow of a party. Some even involve a photographer. Think mud, water, wine, food, rips, tears....you get the picture. Pros: If you bought a $99 special, this could be a great get together with your BFF's.  Cons:  If the gown cost a pretty penny, imagine several thousand $$$ going up in smoke (or down in mud!).  (Not to mention the additional cost if you are having professional photography done.)

At the Autumn Wedding Show at Emerald Downs last week, a future bride happened to mention her intention to trash her dress...with her mother standing next to her.  Ooops!  She quickly said that she was "thinking" about it (fast save!), but I imagine that conversation may be coming up again...

Your choice, ladies!  If you have other options, please feel free to comment!

An Amazing Weekend!

We had an amazing weekend at the first-time-ever Autumn Wedding Show at Emerald Downs.  Lots of brides, prospective brides, grooms, parents, friends and relatives!  Thank you to all of you who showed such amazing interest in our floral preservation and gown preservation opportunities.  We truly enjoy "educating" brides on this unique methods of preserving memories.

Drawing entries collected.

The winner of our drawing was a "mother"...Cynthia B. of Bonnie Lake.  Congratulations!  Cynthia won a certificate for 1/2 off a gown preservation.  That should help the pocketbook a little bit, Cynthia!

The winner of last month's drawing from the entries at the Tacoma Dome Bridal Expo was Chelee K of Seattle.  Chelee won a gift certificate worth $100 toward preservation services of her choice.

We will be keeping in touch with the folks who showed interest in our products so we can let them know about specials, new products, etc.

Including "Special Items"

We just finished Laina's 16 x 20" wall dome.  Isn't it gorgeous?  Laina had us include her garter (camo and bright ribbon...unique!) and invitation, in addition to her hand-tied rose bouquet and her husband's boutonniere.  Congratulations to Laina and Chris.  Our best wishes for a happy future together!

Wedding show this weekend!

We'll be at the Autumn Wedding Show at Emerald Downs this weekend!

We're so excited to be a part of this new opportunity.  They've done a great job of posting it on most of the wedding related internet sites such as the Knot, My Seattle Wedding, etc.

The best part is that it is totally FREE to attendees...that's FREE parking and FREE admission!  Can't beat that deal!

For more information, you can check out this link: http://weddingshow.auburntourism.org/

Grooms are sentimental, too!

Today Leah picked up her encasement and told us that her husband, Chris, was just deployed to Afganistan, and wouldn't be able to see it until he got back.  In all the hustle and bustle of preparing for his deployment, they hadn't found the time to pick the shadowbox up before he left.  The sad thing is, in this scenario, Chris was the one who really wanted the shadowbox arranged with the flowers and the wedding items that were included.  To quote Leah, "he's the scrapbooky one in our family".  Had we known that Chris was being deployed, we would have made an extra effort to remind them about picking it up.  Chris and Leah are an awesome couple, and we wish Chris safety during his time serving our country.

We had another sweet groom come in with his bride to pick their encasement, which was also a shadowbox.  Emily was doing the consultation, and the couple were discussing using fabric from their wedding as a background for their flowers.  The groom asked if Emily could "puddle" the fabric behind the flowers, so that it appeared that the bouquet had been tossed onto satin sheets.  Now how's THAT for romantic!

Balance

Balance is important to keep you centered. 
Both Emily and I balance home, church, work, and volunteerism in our lives.  Sometimes it becomes a real juggling act...but juggling doesn't work without balance!

Creating a good display also involves balance. 

When the bouquet is basically centered in the middle of a display, balance is acheived automatically. 

Often, though, the bouquet is slanted to one side, and other objects are added to the display.  We move these other items around until the display feels balanced and pleasing to the eye. 

Balance in life and balance in art are both important.  Wouldn't you agree?   ~ Gail ~

Taking the time to say hello

Doesn't it feel good when someone pops into your life unexpectedly just to say, "hello".  I had that experience today.  I do some substitute teaching in Federal Way, Washington.  Today, I was teaching at a middle school, and a student popped into my classroom that I knew from a different school last year. He wasn't in my class, but he had seen me standing by the door earlier in the day, and went out of his way at lunch time to come and say hi.  It was a total surprise, as the two schools are literally miles apart.  But it made my day!

Sometimes its the little things that can put a smile on someone's face.  That's why we try to put extra special touches into the encasements we complete.  Sometimes it is something as simple as colored cording around the bottom of a table dome to give it a little extra splash of color.  Our goal is to make each finished product as unique as the customer it was made for, and in the end, we try to make your day!

Cute Display

Young's Flowers in Enumclaw asked us to bring them a display.  We created this one out of a variety of dried flowers that we had on hand.  There is a little bit of everthing in this 5 x 7 table dome:  Callas, roses, carnations, status, larkspur, and a couple of orchids.  As these are commonly used flowers in bridal bouquets, customers will be able to get an idea of how beautiful the dried flowers are.  We try to let local florists know that we offer this service, and we are always happy to equip them with a display!

Looking back at the 70's

I recently sent my own wedding dress (circa 1976) to have it preserved.  When it was returned I started thinking how different the style was from today's dresses.  It has a high neck and long sleeves.  Was that just me?  So some research found this site among others: http://buyvintageweddingdress.com/1960-1970   It appears that I was actually in fashion!  High necklines and long sleeves were not just the modest fashion that I prefered, but the going trend at the time. 

We have been representing the Wedding Gown Preservation Company since January of this year.  I was pleased to see the care they took to put tissue in the sleeves and have my veil showing at the top. (All standard procedure for WGPC).  If you look up in the top right-hand corner, you can also see acid-free tissue paper there, enfolding other parts of the dress that are tucked underneath.  If I had chose a Celebrity upgrade, muslin would have been used in place of the tissue.

I was also amazed that my dress was preserved and returned so quickly.  (4 weeks from the time it left here until it was returned to me.)  The company tells you up front that it could take up to 10 weeks during the height of wedding season. 

Tacoma Wedding Expo

I spent the weekend working our booth at the Tacoma Wedding Expo.  I met a lot of great brides-to-be and their families.  I also had the chance to visit with many other wonderful vendors.  What a great opportunity!  Can't wait for the next wedding shows....Emerald Downs the first weekend in October....Tacoma Dome and Seattle Convention Center in January.

Variety

It's amazing the variety of wedding bouquets and items that we get to work with.  We just finished a shadowbox that contained hand-tied white roses and included an invitation, photo, guest book pen, and serving flatware. We're almost finished with a large domed wall frame that consists of hand-tied fuschia roses, an invitation, a boutonniere and a very unique garter.  We'll post photos after they are picked up by the customers. Today, I have been working on arranging a bouquet that was mostly greenery, with red calla lilies, orange and yellow freesias, and white anthurium.  It will also be in a large domed frame, but the flowers will be featured by themselves.  That bride also chose to frame her mother's wristlet coursage in a small frame as a gift.  Sometimes simple is just wonderful! ~Gail~

Rush

It's so interesting how things ebb and flow.  Things were a little slow through "wedding season" and now things are picking up.  In the last few days we've had a few bouquets come in...and some dresses.  It's so fun to see the different styles come in.  We may have a mother and daughter each bring there gowns in...one from a recent wedding, and one from a couple decades ago.  It will be so fun to see them come in and be preserved together.

September already?

As we turned the calendar over to September today, the realization hit that Summer is coming to an end.  Emily sent her kids back to school today and headed to the office to get this new blog up and going, as well as working on some existing floral preservation projects.  We've been working on a shadow box including the unity candle and cake service.  We've also got a nice 16x20 frame that mimics the style of one of our displays.  Even though some clients choose similar styles to one another, it's always fun to see how each one is unique and personal.