Known for their cornucopia of designs, April and Karen Yu started off as wedding planners and eventually moved on to floral styling and then events styling. As they say, “While floral styling is the cake, events styling is the icing.” And nobody wants a cake without an icing, especially not during weddings.

Color and texture are the things to watch out for in their designs. “We typically put a group of flowers together with the same texture and color palette and create a tightly packed area. We love to create blocks or groupings of texture and color for impact and balance; that’s why we constantly keep color and texture in mind when we purchase flowers.”

They are known for generous amounts of flowers in their arrangements accented with only a few leaves. They also use other elements and accessories such as lace, beads, fruits, vegetables, twigs, berries, herbs, and coconuts. They are not afraid to use under-appreciated local flowers such as the Cockscomb, Sweet Williams, Gladiola, statice, and azucena.

What to expect from Karen and April? Complement and contrast instead of a perfect match; diverse choices; boldness of color; and uniqueness of design. Although pristine all-white wedding is always refreshing, they wouldn’t mind doing colorful and vibrant weddings with bold arrangements or contemporary and monochromatic designs with a streamlined and minimalist approach.

What is important is individuality. They make sure that each wedding reflects the couple’s personality rather than adhering to traditional and popular designs. They don’t mind working around a couple’s budget. As Karen pointed out, “a simple low-budget wedding can easily be as creative as an expensive one with carefully chosen details. An inexpensive, loosely arranged bunch of flowers in a tin can would be perfect for a country wedding.”

The key is, stylists should always be constantly inspired, continuously on the lookout for the latest styles and trends, patient, sticklers for detail, values, and quality, and must always have a happy disposition. It is also good to have names to look up to. Some of their favorite gurus are David Tutera, Preston Bailey, and Colin Cowie.

As long as there are weddings, flowers and events stylists will always be there and will always brighten up brides and grooms everywhere. One of Karen’s clients managed to gush over her bouquet despite being oblivious to everything else (because of her distress at being forced to marry the man she didn’t love). As Karen quoted from one stylist, “Flowers are a glorious finishing touch, a way of lifting the day out of the ordinary and into the realms of fantasy. The fact that their natural beauty is transient, designed to last just for one day, also heightens their allure.”

With Karen and April in the wedding business, who says diamonds are a girl’s best friend?

source : www.mb.com.ph