The Sweetest Thing

When my precious niece Kristen was born 22 years ago this past April, I was so in love with her and beside myself over her being born into our family, that I had never really thought about her getting married someday. Kristen was like my first born child. We are a really "tight" family; what's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine kind of thing, and children are no exception. We love deeply in our family and she was everything I had ever imagined, and as she grew, and grew, and grew, that never changed. Kristen has never stopped being "Tetka's Princess" and one of the greatest loves of my life. That sweet and precious baby girl is all grown up now. She just graduated from Auburn University in Alabama, Suma Cum Laude I might add, and an amazing young woman. She is an amazing dancer and uses her gift to teach and inspire others.

There is so much I can say about my brother's first born, but I think by now you all see that she is amazing and loved immensely! When Kristen asked me to do the flowers for her wedding I was so honored. Her husband Jon's Aunt Michelle is an amazing local florist in Alabama as well as an incredible event planner, so to say the least I was touched. Kristen wanted simple elegance and more than anything, I wanted to give her that. We had sooooo much fun picking out the flowers together, and let me tell you, seeing the excitement in her eyes in that huge cooler at the flower wholesaler was such a treat. Kristen is such a happy person, so excited about everything, passionate and life loving, that all of this was such a joy!

Kristen wanted her bouquet to be romantic and elegant and she hand picked each flower herself, so it was easy for me to put it together for her. Excellent taste runs in the family, but seeing her face when she saw her bouquet was priceless, and something I will never forget!

The Roman Catholic Church in Montgomery that Kristen and Jon were married in is spectacular as you can see, so it did not need much in the way of decor. Just simple rose orbs and small bouquets of white flowers.

Another great part of this wedding was having our family together. This is my gorgeous mom, Jovanka, with Kristen and my other beautiful niece Michelle.

And this is my other precious niece Veronica. She is such a love; she and I were slow dancing at the reception and I whispered to her that it looked like she was having a great time, and she told me that it was the best day of her life. I cried!

I just love this picture, it makes my heart smile!

This is another of my favorites.

The smile on Kristen's face is always there. It is one of the things that I love most about her. She is a joyous person and that just spills over onto everyone around her. Her happiness is contagious! They waited 4 years for this!

This wedding was truly a family affair; Kristen's Godfather, Al made the wedding cake for Kristen and Jon as a gift. I just got to have fun doing the finishing touches.

I had to finish with this photo. This is Kristen dancing with her maternal grandfather. Their faces say it all. When people asked me to tell them about the wedding I told them all the same thing. It was THE SWEETEST wedding I have ever been to. There was so much LOVE and the two of them were SO HAPPY and GIDDY that my heart will always be full from the memory of that day. I will for always remember them being pronounced man and wife and the way that they held onto one another in the sweetest hug. I could go on for days and tell you one memory after another of sweet moments, but I will stop and just say that I wish everyone the same joy and memories that our family had on that magical day, May 21, 2110.

Thank you my sweet Kristen and Jonny for they way you love each other and for allowing us all to share it with you.

Love,

Tetka

Can You Ever Have Too Many Flowers on Your Kitchen Table?

Spring in Kentucky is absolutely stunning and I have the allergy problems to attest to it, but it is all worth it to have abundance like this in your own yard, available to you at any time for your pleasure!! I am one of those people that likes to take full advantage of what is in our yard to add to the beauty of our home inside. Whenever I buy a plant I always think about what it will be able to produce for our pleasure inside as well as outside. Abundance always helps. And to be honest, I will take as much as I please from the outside and bring it in. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE when the neighbors are all out walking and they stop to admire the yard, but it doesn't stop me from going to town with the clippers to have fresh flowers in the our bathrooms and other rooms in our home. As I was clipping the lilac tree on the side of the house yesterday I could hardly contain myself that I actually had such beauty growing right in my own back yard!!!

So when we are blessed with having such incredible beauty in our yards, I encourage you to clip some and bring it in and enjoy it! You can see I went to town on our crab apple trees, but I figure it is good pruning and I always tell myself that it is because I clip them so much for my indoor arrangements that they look so pretty each year when they blossom!

Viburnum, this puffy green ball that almost looks like a mini hydrangea is one of my most favorite plants in the whole yard, and I have decided that I am going to let mine get really BIG! You can keep them small or let them grow like a tree, so I am going to see where ours goes. I figure that the larger I let it get, the more abundance of flowers I have for the house!

Seeing our girls faces when they came home from school and into the kitchen for homework and snack was icing on the cake for me. It touches my heart so much that they love flowers as much as I do and that they can appreciate the blessings from God that we have in our own back yard.

I hope I have encouraged you to go out into your own yard and create something beautiful of your own, you never know what you may find!

Sanya~

What's Been Going On

I feel very blessed and loved that so many of you have sent me personal emails wondering where in the world I have been and letting me know that you miss my blogging and posts. It is quite humbling to me and I feel very blessed and my heart feels quite full, so thank you!!!

I have been very fortunate this year to be busy with weddings and other aspects of my floral business, so I thought I would share some photos of some of the work I have done recently. I would love to hear your feedback, so please do not hesitate to post your comments on the blog, I always LOVE hearing from you!

I hope you enjoy these!

With love,

Sanya

Roscoe-Vitali Wedding March 20, 2009

The isle flowers were in pretty white tin cones tied to the pews with hot pink ribbon.

The garden outside of the church had a heart wreath of baby's breath with baby's breath bouquets flanking the entrance.

The altar flowers below...

The bridal party flowers looked stunning in this tall pedestal etched vase.

Who wouldn't love a pink cake???

I just LOVED doing the arrangements for the urns in front of the church! I filled them with blooming cherry & peach tree branches. The wreaths on the doors were made of baby's breath, and looked so soft and beautiful!

The bridal party bouquets. Stunning, if I do say so myself!!!

The wedding centerpieces consisted of pink narine lilies, pink peonies, pink dahlia's and Esperance roses.

The corsages.

I had planned on adding more pictures of other weddings, but when I did, they went right to the top of the page & I could not move them around, so I think I will have to do a new post with other pictures.

It's Finally Done!

Well for those of you who follow my blog, you know that we had some serious damage from the ice storm a few months ago. It was not fun living through the construction, especially trying to run a home based business with clients who I normally meet here in our home, which I absolutely could not do, and the other thing I really missed was entertaining our friends and family. But now it is finally all done and I could place my pretties back, although I did move things around a bit. A new rug in the entry, with a lamp added to the table as well, I love it.In our office I moved some things around as well. I brought up a mirror from the basement to put behind my desk with some sconces I had up in the attic that have not seen daylight for the past 5 years, and we also brought up the piano. The room is a lot cozier and I love listening to Charley and the girls play the piano each night. So life once again, it back to normal, I had a great meeting with a new bride last week and was able to book her wedding, so all is well again in our happy little home.

Thank you for all of your good thoughts and kind emails while we went through this process, it meant the world to me!
Love,
Sanya

Out of Sight, Out of Mind...

I learned something very interesting about my kids a couple of weeks ago that I thought I would pass along to the rest of you. You see, I am a "fruit in the fridge" kind of gal. I love a crisp cold apple as well as a nice cold juicy orange, so that is where I have always put our fruit as soon as I came home from the market. Well a couple of weeks ago we had a ton of food for some reason which didn't leave me any room in the fridge for the fruit, so I just placed it all into bowls on the kitchen counter. I was shocked that within 3 days it was all gone. Apples, bananas, pears, the oranges, all of it! They went for the fruit in front of their faces instead of going into the pantry for a salty, perhaps, less healthy snack, and I found that all their little friends that are always over followed suite. And you know what else? We adults ate more of it too.



I guess the point to this post, is break out your pretty bowls and fill them with some delicious fruit and nuts and maybe the same thing will happen in your home.

XO~
Sanya