Category: Wedding Flowers

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Moody, Boho Wedding Shoot at Rivercrest Farm

the Garden by the Gate florist

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I was so lucky to work with this talented team for an amazing styled photoshoot at Rivercrest Farm in Dover, Ohio. Planned and organized by Ashley Anderson of Ash&Oak Planning, I hope you enjoy this video by NB Photography. The shoot featured our model Katherine making her entrance on the grand staircase in the Rivercrest barn. She then joined her “groom”, Russ, at the romantic sweetheart table styled with soft fabric, greenery, and flowers in retro glass bottles. Then on to the charcuterie board! Oh my, this table was literally covered with cheeses, meats, dips, rustic bread, fruit, and hand-decorated cookies. Our group then traveled up to Rivercrest’s iconic hilltop ceremony site. After a stop in the darling photo booth camper, and some shots in front of the beautifully decorated ceremony arch, our couple finished the day with a walk among the magnificent horses pastured nearby.

Being asked to provide the floral decor for this shoot was a huge compliment and I didn’t let them down. The bride’s bouquet was a large, free-form hand-tie featuring a large succulent grown in the Garden by the Gate, along with garden roses, roses, pampas grass, willow eucalyptus, and dahlias, also grown in the Garden. The groom wore a boutonniere of natural materials and a bit of pampas grass. The arch feature foraged materials from around the Garden by the Gate along with eucalyptus and flowers.

If you are planning a 2021 wedding, be sure to include this dream team of vendors:

Planner and Designer: @ashandoakplanning
Photographer: @cassiemwolf
Venue:@rivercrestfarm
Florist: @gardenbythegate
Gowns: @abridesdesign
Hair and makeup:@meghansullen @jenniferandco
Cookies: @cisforcookie_sr
Cakes & cupcakes: @clevelandand.cakes
Photo Booth: @happycamperbarcar
Models: @glimpseofwildflowers @russpitsul
Video: @nbphotographyllc

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The Top 4 Worst Ever Wedding Flower Tips from the Internet

Purple Wedding Bouquet by Garden by the Gate, photo KristinLeanne Photography

The internet is your friend. When planning a wedding you simply can’t live without the tried and true stalwarts of the wedding world; sites and blogs like The Knot, Wedding Wire, Style Me Pretty, and of course Martha. But there are a few duds out there. I’m not going to call them out here, but I’ll just anonymously share some of their worst advice. Where do they get this stuff? They clearly didn’t interview any florists before writing these clunkers.

Dud Number 1

 “Try to have a meeting with your florist two weeks prior to your event so you can get a true sense of what is in season that close to your special day. ”

Wrong on so many levels! Two weeks before your wedding, your flowers have been ordered, your arrangements and bouquets carefully planned down to the last stem of stock. Your florist knows what is in season during your wedding, he or she doesn’t need to wait until the flowers are ready to ship from the farm to find out. If you’re living on the edge, trying to get, say, peonies in January, then there might be some last-minute shuffling.

Dud Number 2

“In season, fluffy-headed blossoms like hydrangeas and peonies can stretch a budget, because you need only a few to nicely fill a vase. “

This one is part dud and part true. Hydrangeas are HUGE, and not very expensive, so they do give you a lot of bang for your buck. I use them in practically every wedding. Peonies, however, are never cheap, even when at the height of their season, despite what the wedding websites may say. That said, they are beautiful, fragrant, and are a favorite with brides. I suggest that they be used in bouquets where their beauty and fragrance will be most appreciated. If you are on a budget, substitute less expensive flowers in table and ceremony decor. I love white cremones, which are a type of large mum.

Dud Number 3

” One costly mistake people make is adding the word “wedding” before everything . . . “

This little dud would have you believe that florists mark up the flowers just because they hear the word ‘wedding.’ Wedding flowers are special and they require specific techniques of designing, ordering, conditioning, and arranging. They are not your cash and carry grocery store bouquet. This is really a disservice to the floral industry; florists are not rip-off artists just looking to separate you from your hard-earned dollars. Believe me, we could find a more lucrative way to make a living if that were all that mattered. We are florists because we love beauty, we love to create, and we are wedding florists because we want to make your wedding day very special. The best thing you can do is be honest and upfront about your wants and budget. Then we can do our best to give you the best of both worlds.

Dud Number 4

This little gem was written by a wedding photographer:

” It is no secret that wedding flowers can be very expensive . . .”

Well, they certainly don’t want you thinking about how expensive your photography package is! (Community, not competition people!) Everyone wants to get the best photographer they can afford because “the photographs last forever”, but when it comes to flowers they’re all like “but flowers just die.” Oh really? Check out any wedding photo album and you’ll see that it’s full of pictures of, you guessed it, flowers! The bride is holding flowers, the bridesmaids are holding flowers, the men and women in the family are wearing flowers, every couple and group shot at the ceremony site shows the flowers that were used. Your flowers will last forever, just like your photos!

So where should you look for wedding flower advice? Talk to a wedding florist. Do they listen to what you’re saying? Do they try to talk you into something that doesn’t ring true or do they truly get your vision? Do they respond promptly and answer all of your questions? When you find a florist that understands you and your vision, who has a reputation for doing what they promise, then you can trust them to guide you to your perfect wedding flowers and give you a good value.

Call me today and let’s talk. I’ll give you my best effort and hope you’ll trust me to bring your wedding vision to life.

Wedding Inquiry Form

Joy Walko, owner & lead designer
Garden by the Gate Floral Design
[email protected]
234-262-1253

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Choosing your Wedding Colors

Barn wedding at Rivercrest Farm, flowers by Garden by the Gate Floral Design, Photos: Loren Jackson Photography

Your wedding color scheme will have a huge effect on the mood and vibe of your wedding. Color can read hot or cool, exciting or calm, trendy or traditional, and more. At Garden by the Gate, color is one of the most important aspects of your floral designs. We are happy to help you refine your color scheme to communicate exactly the right ambiance for your celebration. To get started with planning your perfect wedding, tell us a little about your dream wedding day using our Wedding Inquiry Form.

For more help, head on over to the Perfect Palette, the number one resource for wedding planning. More than just color, you’ll find carefully curated content and heartfelt advice for planning any kind of wedding. Garden by the Gate Foral Design is thrilled to be featured in their post, Vibrant Pink Dream Wedding which took place at Rivercrest Farm in Dover, Ohio.

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Keeping Up with the Latest Wedding Floral Design Trends

Wedding Floral Design Specialist, Floral Design Institute

Joy Walko, Owner/Lead Designer, Garden by the Gate Floral Design, North Canton OHIO Hi, everyone! I’m super excited to share some news with all of you! I’m going back to school, flower school that is! As owner and lead designer at Garden by the Gate Floral Design, I am committed to offering the highest quality, on-trend floral design possible. To keep up with current floral design trends and hone my skills, I am currently studying with the Floral Design Institute to become a Certified Wedding Floral Specialist. As I learn, I’ll be sharing some of the newest wedding flower designs with you in future blog posts, so keep following Garden by the Gate.

I decided to invest in further education because fashions in wedding flower design are constantly changing, just like clothing, home decor, and everything else we use every day. Many of the same influences are at play in changing wedding flower trends as in other consumer goods. Factors affecting fashion trends include:

  • Color forecasts from industry leaders such as Pantone
  • Celebrities
  • The economy

and many other national and world events. In addition, leading floral designers around the world are constantly coming up with new products and techniques to make wedding flower designs better, fresher, and more exciting.

Check out some of my earlier blog posts for more on color forecasts (Wedding in Pantone’s Color of the Year), celebrity weddings (Royal Wedding Trends), and saving money on wedding flowers (How to DIY Your Wedding Flowers or Tips on Saving Money on your Wedding Flowers).

To find out how you can engage Garden by the Gate Floral Design to have chic, on-trend flowers for YOUR wedding, just click here:

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Ten Questions to Ask your Wedding Florist

As a bride looking to line up your wedding vendors, you have certainly been cruising all the big wedding websites for information and advice. Quite a few of these sites have a list of questions for you to ask your florist. One site actually has 33 questions you should ask your wedding florist! I don’t think anyone wants a four-hour consultation! But some of these questions are important and The Knot has a list of ten questions. Okay, I can handle that! And to save time in your consultation, I’ll answer them for you right now!

  1. Have you done many weddings? Yes, the Garden by the Gate has been in business for five years and we have done about 75 weddings. Weddings are almost all that we do; we also provide flowers for wedding showers, rehearsal dinners, and we have actually done flowers for a number of our previous brides’ baby showers! It’s almost like we’re part of the family.
  2. Can I see photographs or live examples of your work? Of course! We have some photo albums of our work and lots of photos on our website and Pinterest boards and on our blog. It would be kind of hard to show you an actual wedding arrangement because when we are designing a wedding, we’re way too busy to do a consultation! We like to focus on one thing at a time and give you our full attention.
  3. Have you done weddings at our ceremony or reception venue before? We may have worked at your site before, but if we haven’t, we love to take a road trip with you and check it out! We’ll look it over and together discuss what type of decoration it needs. Then we’ll talk to the venue manager and find out what is allowed, when we can begin, when things have to be removed, etc.
  4. How many weddings are you handling on the same day or weekend as mine? Will you simply be dropping off flowers, or will you be helping set up too? We only do one wedding per weekend, because that’s the way we like it. We’ll concentrate on your event alone. Wedding florists who do several weddings per weekend do a great job, too, because they have the staff to do it.
    Our prices always include delivery and set-up, unless you are more than 30 miles away from our studio, then there is a delivery charge.
  5. How do you like to work with clients? We treat our clients like friends; we sit around the table and get to know you as a person and as a couple before we start talking about your wedding flowers. Then we want to know all of your thoughts and ideas. We even want to know what you don’t like! There is never a charge or limit on consultations. Before we meet the first time, we start a Pinterest board for you and start gathering ideas. We invite you to pin on it too! But we give it a secret name so it’s just between us and anyone you want to invite. After we find out what you want, we will send you a detailed proposal that includes a slide show with inspiration pictures and photos of the flowers we might use. An itemized quote shows the prices of the individual items. This is a working document that we work with until it is to your liking.
  6. Are you willing to work within my budget? We can almost always come up with a proposal within your budget. Sometimes that means different flower choices or it might mean scaling down some aspect of the decor, such as having flowers only on every other table. The most important thing is to be open about why you want some changes in the proposal and we’ll work with you.
  7. Will you be responsible for working with my venue to find out about any restrictions they may have in terms of décor and installation? Our first idea is to just ask you what the restrictions are; your venue will have given you a contract containing those rules, such as whether flame is allowed, or how things may be attached to venue property. If it is something more complex, we’ll be glad to talk directly to the venue manager.
  8. What other services do you offer? We would LOVE for you to ask us this. We can provide many things besides flowers, such as table runners, rental of chalkboards, lanterns, candleholders, backdrops, cake stands, and more. We also can custom craft things like escort cards, table numbers, banners, or custom water bottles. Check out the rentals page.
  9. Who will handle setup and delivery? What about breakdown? How long will you need for both, and what are the fees? We do all the setup and delivery for you. Breakdown the night of the wedding is an extra charge (you’ll feel it’s well worth it when your friends and family can walk away from it all at the end of the evening). Timing depends on the individual event, but if time is short, we’ll bring on extra helpers.
  10. What happens to the flowers after the wedding? It’s really up to you, but it is something we need to talk about early on. If you want to send your centerpieces home with your guests, then we’ll need to include the cost of the containers in your price. If you are renting the containers, we’ll discuss the return timeline. We can also donate your flowers to our local assisted living home for the elderly or disabled. They love to see the beautiful flowers and it’s so much better than tossing them in the trash!

Have more questions? Check out our FAQ page, or shoot us an email at [email protected]. If you’d like to find out what we can do for you, start by filling out the wedding inquiry form.

Wedding Inquiry Form

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Bridal Show at Glenmoor Country Club Weddings

Wedding Flowers at Glenmoor Country Club by the Garden by the Gate Floral Design. Photo: Sabrina Hall Photography

The Unveiled show at Glenmoor Country Club was the best event of this type that I have ever seen. Glenmoor Weddings coordinator Abbey Sampson is a dream to work with and she nailed every detail of this event. The Garden by the Gate floral design was thrilled to present our wedding flowers in the gothic architecture of the Great Hall. Brides attending each received an awesome swag bag and there were fabulous passed hor’s de oeuvres, a magnificent cheese and fruit display, and the bar was open!

Upscale wedding flower centerpiece by the Garden by the Gate florist. Photo sabrina Hall Photography, Venue: Glenmoor County ClubIn planning our wedding flower display, we tried to come up with something that would draw the eye and showcase some of the newest trends in wedding floral design. We based our table with a champagne-sequined table runner then we ran crystal candle holders with pink tapers down the center. A large centerpiece in a gold compote dominated the center of the table. The compote vase is extremely popular for weddings right now. It has some advantages of a tall arrangement but doesn’t tower over the guests or interrupt sightlines. Flowers used were the White O’Hara garden rose, which has a touch of blush, Pink O’Hara garden roses, white Blizzard roses, white hydrangeas, pink and burgundy ranunculus, blush anemone, and silver dollar eucalyptus.

We showed two bridal bouquets, a large bouquet in blush and pink, using the flowers above and a bouquet that included all the flowers above and hot pink Topaz roses. We also brought a bridesmaid’s bouquet of white Blizzard roses and purple Berry Scoop Scabiosa.

Visitors to our booth each received a flower-shaped lollipop to remind them of us. We had a great time meeting all the brides, moms, aunts, fiances, and friends and learning all about their upcoming weddings. We also enjoyed some valuable networking with the other vendors and picking up a few tips as well. When wedding vendors work together and support each other we all benefit, and so do our clients through better service. Amazing photos of our booth were sent over from Sabrina Hall Photography, thank you so much!

WEdding flowers by the Garden by the Gate wedding florist. PHoto: Sabrina Hall Photography
Sabrina Hall Photography

the Garden by the Gate florist

Let us show you how we can transform your wedding day vision into reality with flowers and event design customized for you. Just fill out our Wedding Inquiry Form to get started or email us at [email protected]

Wedding Inquiry Form