Stop and smell the flowers

About a month ago, I was in a not-so-uppity mood and I knew that one of the surefire ways of getting out of the slump was to buy flowers.

As I was mindlessly going through the status updates on Facebook, Vatel Manila posted that he was selling English Roses for half the price. I immediately reserved ten pieces.


This was the first time I was meeting the man behind the flowers, so to speak. Dylan and I met at a mall in Quezon City for the "drop." Although we didn't have the luxury of time to talk and gush about weddings and flowers, I had to ask why he had "extra" roses on hand. Sadly, it was due to a canceled wedding that weekend. :-(



Before Dylan and I parted ways, he handed me a carefully wrapped "bouquet" of pink David Austin roses. A bit of trivia that Dylan shared with me -- when Nicole Kidman married her current husband, she used David Austin roses at her wedding.

Just like sleeping babies in a blanket, I cradled my roses home.

These were the Cymbeline variety, the size of their blooms could grow as huge as teacups.

Look how big the unopened bloom is compared to my hand!

Overnight, the blooms were so big, they became too heavy for their stems!

The lovely thing about these roses is the intricate petal formation. They almost look like peonies, just a little elongated.

Unfortunately, the roses didn't bloom to their full size, possibly due to the warm weather. But they made me happy during the few days that they were with me. :-)

On a whim, I went to the flower mecca (Dangwa, Dimasalang) and bought a few blooms. I really had no particular flower in mind and was just counting on my flower instinct to point me to what kind of flowers I should buy.

I've always avoided anthuriums because they're often used during funerals but these dainty pink ones called to me.

I opted to just arrange them simply on a low vase without any leaves.

Don't they look like little flamingos in flight?

For my taller vase, I bought red anthuriums, azucenas and big leaves. They lasted a little over a week.

About three weeks ago, I made bouquets for a bridal shower of one of my officemates. Again, I relied on instinct to lead me to the flowers, looking at the available flowers in Dimasalang that night. For some reason, I was drawn to green and white tones and chose green button mums, white alstroemerias, calla lilies and eucalyptus leaves.

The next day, I felt that my flowers were not enough so I bought additional rice flowers and white snapdragons.

And these are the three bouquets I came up with:

Stories about the bridal shower?

That event deserves a post of its own. Wait for it. :-)