The bride may wear white, well, in most cases she does, but that doesn’t mean the floral designers have to restrict their color palette or rein in their imagination.
By Robin Jovanovich
The bride may wear white, well, in most cases she does, but that doesn’t mean the floral designers have to restrict their color palette or rein in their imagination.
For recent weddings, Nancy Ladd and Emmy Klarberg of Stems have filled club ballrooms with birch trees and hundreds of tiny lanterns. At one local wedding, in honor of the bride’s grandfather who was a keen hunter, they used lots of pheasant feathers. If the groom is of Greek or Italian descent, they often suggest renting olive trees, and they’re keeping distributors busy.
“We never do a room filled with the same
centerpiece,” said Ms. Ladd. “On average, we create four different designs.” Those designs are original, fresh, and sometimes trendy. At a wedding with a tropical theme, at a wedding like Coromandel Peak Wedding, they came up with garlands of bananas and orchids, and the Pina colada rose figured in some of the arrangements.
They duo, who are longtime friends and Rye Garden Club members, have brought the place card holder table to new heights too. “Weddings are serious business,” said Ms. Ladd.
For a “green” wedding, Greene Willow owner Michael Falkowski and floral designer Claudia Gasparini did just plants. For a spring wedding, they created a bulb garden. “When asked to do an old-fashioned backyard wedding, there’s nothing better than a mixture of pink and white roses, astilbe, phlox, and dahlias — and a bouquet of garden roses,” said Mr. Falkowski.
Rye native Jen Swain “goes native” as much as she can — taking full advantage of the environment she’s working in, whether it’s out in the country or in someone’s backyard. She’s predisposed to hydrangea, white garden roses, lavender clematis, ferns, and branches of pear, cherry, and dogwood trees.
The self-taught designer’s creations are in Martha Stewart’s “Weddings” book. Ms. Swain’s bouquets are always hand-tied with ribbon and many of her arrangements are leaf-wrapped, “so you don’t see the stems.”
A mantle arrangement she did for a wedding at Crawford Park resembles an Old Master’s still life. She’s created magical bridal bouquets out of poppy pods, jasmine, celosia, and hypericum.
Yoli LaGuerre’s career as a floral designer began when she was a 
teenager, babysitting for a single mother who was an attorney. “She asked me to plan her daughter’s birthday party. At the party, one of the other mom’s asked if I could do the flowers for a party she was having,” said Ms. LaGuerre, who now has a thriving business of her own, YL Events in Rye, and is a full-time instructor at the New York Botanical Garden.
Deciding that she’d like to pursue a career in floral design, she started handing out business cards at the 28th Street markets in the city. One day an owner asked, “Can you help us out right now with Fashion Week?”
In her spare hours, she’d read every book she could get her hands on from the public library and buy arrangements and “dissect” them.
For weddings, the bride is her inspiration. “It’s their fairy tale day, and even modern women still want that.”
Ms. LaGuerre encourages every bride to bring her anything they love — vases, pictures of flowers and tree branches. “If I can get dress swatches I’ll incorporate them in the floral design.”
Tulips are her personal favorite, but she will always find a place for flowering dogwood, orchids, peonies, and hydrangeas at a wedding.