A Holiday (OTT) Centerpiece

Here is a bit of an over-the-top (OTT) arrangement we made for a garden merienda cena a couple of weeks ago. We only needed one arrangement for a dining table set outdoors, and the only “materials” to work with were left-over cypress or pine branches and lots of roses from the wholesale market at Dimasalang. The arrangement just swallowed up oodles of blooms, some 12+ dozen roses or so! Thank goodness flower prices this year seemed way down as demand was understandably sluggish. You could get very nice roses at the wholesale market at roughly PHP50-60 ($1.10-1.30) per dozen!

Nearly six years ago, one of our crew members had a church wedding and fancy reception afterwards, and Marketman & the rest of the crew did the decor and flowers for the reception. (We only do family and friends, so please don’t send me more emails about doing your upcoming wedding, I don’t take commercial engagements, :) — at least a dozen folks have emailed me in the past year re: wedding flowers!)… At any rate, I had several metal flower stands/bases made for that wedding at a local welding shop and we have had them in storage ever since. I have used them several times since including the Teen’s confirmation, here.

The stem of the metal stand was covered with cypress branches and secured with floral wire. Floral foam or oasis was placed at the base of the stand and on the top section of the stand. Roses were cut short and arranged tightly around the base. Three red long-stemmed candles were added to the top piece of foam, and surrounded with roses and greens. It looks a bit excessive in daylight, but once the guests had arrived, the evening had set in and the candles started to burn down, it worked out rather nicely…