{vertical flowers}

What better way to spend a Saturday than to play with flowers (free flowers at that!)? It was the annual Flower Grower's Ball on the weekend and as such the Sydney Town Hall was decked out from top to toe in flowers, of course!

We were fortunate enough to be working under the guidance of the very talented Head Florist for the Merivale Group, Genevieve. She creates amazing displays for the Merivale group of establishments including the likes of Hemmesphere, Ivy and The Beresford. I've admired her from afar as she collects all her goodies at the markets, and was thrilled to see her in action putting it all together.

The 'Before' shot

Jen being cheeky! The 'In progress' shot

Each individual flower stem was wired, tied to a 3m length of fishing line and then attached the netting, with the end effect of them to hang from the ceiling in a very 'wonderland' kind of way.

All strewn out: a carpet of flowers!

Up she goes!

Sadly I couldn't stay right to the end to see it all come together, but we (I went with a good friend from College) were determined to see the netting display be lifted up in all its glory!With dramatic lighting it would have looked amazing and of course with a better photographer the photos may just do it justice!

So then it was onto the table decorations, which were to be "punchy" as Genevieve described them! Apparently colour blocking is in this season - even with flowers!!

I loved watching Genevieve in motion, especially when she put these amazing table centerpieces together using only the flower stems themselves as support structure - no oasis! Which I love as this stuff is completely toxic and I swear against it (but it does make a florists job much easier...). She kept telling us the importance of "building trust with your flowers", I love this!

It was a long day, tiring but hey there were flowers galore to play with so it was a bit of a dream playground for me! I hope everyone at the ball had as much fun admiring them as we did putting them together!

Photos: {hort couture}