"Participating in the 'Holland Trip' last November was a serendipitous experience for me. Our trip included visits to various Dutch growers, Marcel Wolterincks' design studio, the Aalsmeer flower auction and HortiFair. At nearly every stop, I found floral products or inspiration for future projects I was planning back home. I've been an admirer of Marcel Wolterinck's work for years, so it was not only a great pleasure to meet him, but the timing was also perfect. I had remembered a photograph I'd seen in one of Marcel's books of a massive structure he'd created using gloriosa lilies, and since I was planning to build a similarly huge structure for a lavish Hindustani wedding in Chicago, this proved to be a great opportunity to quiz Marcel a bit about the mechanics of how he'd built his."    

Hindustani wedding
"When the Hindustani wedding finally rolled around last May, Dutch flowers were center stage. The wedding took place under a 'mandap', which is an elaborate, traditional Indian ceremonial structure that we built and adorned with thousands of green Hydrangeas, and for the backdrop of floral arches, we used thousands of green Dutch Cymbidium blossoms. Part of this backdrop also included a sculpted version of the bride's 'ohm' (a Hindi good luck symbol), created from a variety of magnate chrysanthemum blossoms that I'd also discovered at HortiFair during the Holland Trip! These are white blossoms with green centers, and we placed a pearl in the center of each blossom. The wedding party was absolutely thrilled with the flowers and designs."   

Handpicked
"While in Holland, I was also finalizing plans for a lavish wedding in Chicago later that year. The bride wanted a particular variety of Hydrangea – a purple, almost burgundy, color. I visited several different Dutch Hydrangea growers, found the exact flower she wanted and basically bought part of the grower's greenhouse! The bride was deeply impressed to hear that I'd personally visited the Dutch grower and handpicked her wedding flowers! Nobody produces Hydrangea like the Dutch: the size, variety, colors and textures are exceptional. I also use a lot of Dutch specialty products: for an upcoming wedding I've ordered ornamental kale from Holland, as the varieties I want simply aren't available in the US." 

Personalized service
"For designers and event planners, a good deal of our success really boils down to how well we get to know our clients. Ours is such a personalized service that during the initial design stages it's crucial that we discover what really excites our clients: are they flower lovers, which are their favorite flowers, what style of clothes and interiors do they like, how elaborate is their sense of décor? For the Hindustani wedding, if we hadn't met with the bride on numerous occasions - also at her home - we wouldn't have known many of the small but important details about her, like her 'ohm', which ultimately became a very striking design feature of the wedding ceremony."