We love events!
A special floral display is sometimes required for events.
Recently, Green Door Florist was invited to be a Premium Sponsor of the fifth annual Hungarian Culture Days celebration (http://www.hungarianculturedays.com) in Dublin City Council's Wood Quay function room and Filmbase in Temple Bar. Designed to celebrate the integration of the two cultures of Hungary and Ireland, this most special of events this year lasted for four days.
The organising committee timed the event to happen during the time of Pentecost which is a culturally important time in Hungary and other Eastern European countries. During the four day festival, the event showcased dancing, ancient stories covering Hungarian Tales and Celtic Legends, food and wine and of course flowers... The cultures and traditions of both Hungary and Ireland were celebrated.
The presence of the Hungarian community in Ireland as a growing community within the state was acknowledged by the representative of Dublin's Lord Mayor Mr. Ruairí McGinley.
The best of Hungarian food and wine was on offer and was truly excellent and enjoyed by all. From langos to "chimney" cake, homemade sausage (akin to the better known chorizo) and the often overlooked Hungarian wine it was truly a feast fit for a king!
Taste and colour was the order of the day, so the floral displays supplied for the celebration had to be special. I decided to focus on both the national colours and national symbols.
All of the arrangements had a natural feel to try to give the effect of being just picked from nature. This reminded me of my childhood walking in the fields at this time of year!
So, in this bouquet, designed for the formal opening night, peony roses (known in Hungary as the Pentecost rose as it blooms at that time of year) were used alongside red tulips symbolising the most ancient Hungarian folk motif and femininity. Poppies are very common in Hungary but as they don't last long in arrangements, I replaced them with anemones. There were two other arrangement styles for which the inspiration was the colours of the Hungarian flag: red, white and green where the natural feel I hope comes across with our moss bases.
It is this kind of opportunity that really lets me express myself. In this case, it was a delight to be able to be that little bit different and to evoke my childhood memories through the wonderful texture, colours and smells.
Acknowledgements:
Organising committee: Beatrix Fekete, Andrea Nagy, Norbert Soltesz. Photographer: We would like to acknowledge photographer Gary Garamvolgyi.
Photo Shoot: - Lights, Camera, Action!
We are having such fun with flowers for a photo shoot! Green Door flirts with fashion for the first time this month with Geza Oravecz Photography and Marta Krawczyk.
Geza Oravecz, is known not only as the hunky personal trainer in X-Body E gym, but also as a fashion photographer. He has photographed such stars as Rosanna Davison (Miss World 2003), Holly Carpenter (Miss Ireland 2011), Alan Hughes (TV3 presenter). He has also worked for different magazines like www.suburbiaweddings.ie and panto.ie. He also specialises in portraits from fashion to family. You can find more on Geza on Instagram, Facebook, or www.gezaoravecz.com
Geza and stunning plus size model Marta Krawczyk got together to do a photo shoot for Marta's portfolio and also with some other models. We were asked us to do the flowers. We spoke to all of them and discussed what was needed. Head pieces and corsages was the answer. We were delighted! Usually these delicate arrangements are only put together for weddings and debs balls, but this fashion photo shoot meant that we could really express ourselves and go for it!
We spoke to Marta, one of the models. Marta is a 30 year old Polish girl. She started out on an adventure with modelling about five years ago, noticing the new need for plus sized, curvy models. She sent a few of her pictures to agencies and landed a contract. Marta's life has changed since then. She became more confident, more open to meeting new people and would you believe, a lot more happy! She took part in lots of photo shoots in the commercial for the Polish magazines "Super Linia" and "Instil". She also took part in catwalk fashion shows in both Poland and Ireland. She presented fashion pieces on TV3 and on Ireland AM. What a superstar! She tells us that modelling is an adventure that gives her a lot of joy and happiness.
(You can find out more about Marta)
So, look what we did!
Photo Shoot Model Marta Krawczyk
Here is Marta looking simply spectacular in a crown of purple delicate soft feminine colours. We combined September flowers, lisianthus, veronica and other soft meadow flowers for this crown, to give the illusion of dewy petals just picked and placed on her head. Ingrid (a designer with the Green Door team) made sure that the crown is complimented with the delicate wrist corsage, which in the last picture is set to accentuate the décolletage.
Here are two other creations put together by us, ranging from the spectacular large floral crown to the simple but dramatically beautiful single Peony rose head piece displayed in this picture.
We hope that you enjoyed our voyage into the fashion world and that it will inspire some ideas for you for weddings, debs balls or any dinner parties and special floral occasions!
We have had a blast putting together this unusual blog post and we hope you have had fun reading it.
Foraging Flowers at Ballymaloe, Co Cork
Foraging can be great fun , we had the opportunity to attend a foraging course with Darina Allen in Ballymaloe in Cork. What a fabulous attitude and what a wonderful place. We were reminded of the beauty of nature and the simple goodness and beauty that is all around us.
Many people already know all about foraging from knowledge and traditions handed down through the generations. Simple things, but easily forgotten if not handed on.
As part of the course, we found ourselves eating primroses, wild garlic flowers, daisy petals, beech leaves, gorse flowers , nettles and dandelion leaves. All good to eat, surprisingly tasty and of course free! These wild grown plants can also be used in beers, wine, soups and cooking.
This all serves to remind us that it is a fabulous idea to eat fresh, in season and local.
Benefits of foraging
We must not lose sight of the importance of organic growing in all things. In the floristry industry, organic flowers are still rare. We are however looking into sourcing organic flowers as part of our offering and hope to have news soon on this.
When out and about now, we find that our eyes have been opened to the beauty and wonder of nature all around us and to the wide range of cultivated and wild flowers and plants on our doorstep.
Well, we don't sell edible flowers yet, but we still recommend that you look at and smell our flowers but don't eat them!
