Floral Tips: Wedding Slangs & Common Terms

This was a post from earlier this year but I think that it's still relevant as there are quite a few wedding terms and slangs that new brides might need to know. Of course, if you have a few of your own, I'd love to hear from you.

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The other day my 14 year old niece texted a message to me. Half the time I couldn’t figure out what all those symbols referred to. Who knew that a : and a [ meant that they were mad! Obviously the way we communicate these days is quite different and I for one need a new dictionary on modern symbols, terms, and slang.

Well, I’m sure that for many brides and grooms alike they feel the same way when it comes to wedding planning and flowers. I’m here to help with these industry terms.

Strike – Professionals in the industry often use this word to refer to the time when an event ends. To “strike” means to breakdown the event. When you see on a proposal that states a strike time at 10pm that literally means that vendors are allowed to breakdown an event at that time!

MOB/FOB – Short for Mother of the Bride, Father of the Bride. Of course, there’s MOG, FOG…which is Mother of the Groom, Father of the Groom. When you see someone use the abbreviation SMOB that stands for Stepmother of the Bride. The list goes on and on. AnnieX took this photo of the parents of our bride, Amy. They look relieved and happy!



Personal Flowers – I’m not sure how many florists or floral designers use this term but I refer to “Personal Flowers” as arranged flowers or floral creations given to individuals that they will carry or wear. A Mother’s corsage is a good example of a personal flower. Of course a bridal bouquet is definitely a personal flower. This image by Gene Higa features a groom's boutonnieres with a trio of orange spray roses.



Chiavari Chair – One of the questions I get most often from clients are “what’s a Chiavari chair?” These are the beautiful chairs that come in wood or resin known for their bamboo-like backing. Open framed in back, they have four legs and flat sitting surface and are typically 16 inches across. They come in many colors these days but most rentals companies carry black, natural, gold, silver, white, dark mahogany. Many venues are now replacing their banquet chairs with these bamboo style chairs. Angie Silvy took this image of Chiavari chairs decorated with gold cones and flowers.


50, 60, 70 cm – This is a unit of measuring length most commonly used in pricing long stemmed roses. Roses come in all lengths but 50, 60, 70 cm are the most commonly found. Price can differ between these lengths.

Russian cut – Another term mostly associated with roses. It is a special terminology used for a type of roses that are very long and between 5ft. to 6 ft. in length. The heads of these roses are often quite large. Sometimes floral vendors throw this term out when a flower is allowed to grow longer so that the head is extremely large. This week, a floral vendor of mine called the large Rananculus in the Torchio stall a “Russian cut” Rananculus. What she meant was that the Rananculus was extra large and that the grower left it on the stem a little longer for it to grow. That’s all!

Charger - No, I am not referring to the San Diego Chargers! A charger is an over sized plate usually decorative used for table top décor. Usually dinner china is placed on the “charger” for wedding receptions. The one shown below is photography by Lisa Leigh. It is a crystal, clear charger. The napkin is placed on top of the charger with a white gardenia.

Pave – If a floral designer uses the word “pave” in a proposal it is describing a particular design style noted for flowers placed close in proximity to one another as if it were placed side by side. A “pave” of flowers means very tightly packed flowers usually done in a flat surface.

Top two images by Annie X
Third photo by Angie Silvy
Bottom photo by Lisa Leigh

A Library of Books

Often wedding enthusiasts ask what books are available. And though there are many sometimes when I walk into a book store, I can never find enough.

I thought I would re run this post from a year ago on a few of the many books available for wedding obsessed fans as well as flower lovers.

There are always new books coming so stay tuned. As soon as I see one I like, you'll hear from me!

Top Row - from left to right - Books by Karen Bussen, Jo Gartin, The Knot

Medium Row - Books by Paula Pryke and Michelle Rago

Bottom Row from left to right - Books by Preston Bailey, Michael George, David Stark

Real Brides: DIY Part One

As I am currently dealing with some family crisis, I am pleased to give you our first guest blogger, real bride, Jean Ng. Jean wanted to share her wedding floral story with us. Please give your attention to the lovely and sweet, Jean Ng who hopes to one day be a wedding event designer and planner.

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Hi, my name is Jean Ng and I got married last September 12^th 2008 and just like any bride that was on a budget, I too had ideas of doing my own floral arrangements versus hiring a floral designer. Like many brides, I thought “Why should I spend an arm and a leg to hire a florist when I can use the roses growing in my garden or buy flowers at Costco or Whole Foods at a fraction of the cost and do them myself?”

I found out through a couple of blogs and websites that a floral company was offering a one day DIY workshop on wedding floral arrangements for brides on a budget. Because I did not have experience in floral arranging, I figured that I might as well attend so that I could understand the concept and start planning (I already had in mind that I was doing my own flowers). I even divulged a plan to use the orchids from my father’s vast collection for all my arrangements.

With the one day workshop, I realized that making boutonnieres, bouquets, and corsages was not as easy as I had thought it would be. I also learned that there is a lot of prep work from cleaning (stem stripping), wiring, and advance care for the flowers to make sure they are open and ripe for the day of the wedding. Though there was a lesson on this, I wasn’t discouraged because I knew that my bridesmaids would help out. The workshop didn’t cover centerpieces, but I still planned to create 35 of them. I figured, “how hard could it be?” “I could just take a look at a magazine and follow the design.” I knew that the workshop was not enough but I had confidence in myself that I could tackle the task. Boy was I WRONG!

About 1.5 months until the wedding date, the stress from work and wedding planning finally hit me hard. I started getting emotional and feeling rushed. That’s when I sat down alone to stop and analyze everything from the place cards to the flowers. I really wanted to do my own flowers but realized that there was no way I could do them considering the time and stress I was going through. I checked my father’s orchid collection and noticed that the ones in bloom weren’t the ones I was planning to use. It then hit me that I would be very much limited in flowers. I even thought about the fact that as an amateur, the time it will take to put everything together plus the total cost of buying all the materials and all the flowers would probably end up costing me almost the same as hiring a designer, but the end result would be nothing but mediocre. I had already spent a lot of money buying a couple of vases, ribbon, and tools. I finally gave in and decided to search for a floral designer that could help me. It was the best decision I made as I was able to focus on other things related to the wedding.

After taking a look at my wedding photos, I could imagine how my own floral arrangements would have been if I did them. It would have been a disaster! I took a look at a picture of my wedding bouquet and compared it to a picture of a bouquet I made at the DIY workshop. There was a HUGE difference! First off, my DIY bouquet looked like it could have been done by anyone but a florist. Secondly, the quality of the flowers was appalling compared to what I had on my wedding day (and to think I was actually proud of my DIY bouquet after I made it).

I had an awesome venue, amazing photographer, an out-of-this world videographer, and a great floral designer. Without the floral designer, I think my wedding wouldn’t be as beautiful as it was as flowers were the major décor for the venue. In reality, there would have been no way my own floral arrangements would stack up. It would have been average.

I am a creative person, but even if I love flowers, I’m not as talented and gifted when it comes to arranging them and I learned the hard way. I would need a LOT more practice and time to hone the craft like successful floral designers. So all in all, paying to have my flowers done was worth every penny as it takes a lot of work to get them the way they are. Add that to the cost of materials and transportation as well. Given that flowers are perishable items also justifies the cost of hiring a floral designer.

For brides that were able to do their own flowers and are satisfied with their work, I commend you! For those that hired floral designers, kudos to you as well! I believe floral designers not only take care of your flowers, they are the ones that take your stories and use it to help transform your venue into something magical and out of this world.

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As Jean mentioned, DIY just wasn't for her. Did you DIY your flowers? If so, I would love to hear your story. Please send a full story with 4 images to Nancy Liu Chin at weddings@nancyliuchin.com. I can't wait to feature a DIY bride. Also, if you did partial DIY, I'd love to hear that.

Photographs by Ed Pingol Photography

Floral: Freshbloom

Venue: Casa Real at Ruby Hill Winery

About Nancy: Hope Afloats

Dear Fans of the Brown Bag -

It's such a joy to write for all of you. In the coming two weeks, you will still have great posts but due to family crisis and an important project(which will take me away from my office), I will be re-featuring some old posts that many of you might have missed and will have a few guest bloggers.

For the month of November and December, I will not be doing my Flower of the Month series. My apologies for this but no fear, I will bring this back in January of 2010.

November is a month to be thankful and I want to thank all of you for your wonderful comments over the past month of posts. Keep them coming.

In the meantime, any prayers are well appreciated and I'll be back soon.

Real Weddings: Wedding of the Year #6

There are brides. And then there are brides!

I'm so happy to share with you this Enchanted Garden wedding that took place in September. My lovely couple Nicole and Michael left me speechless and teary eyed. Their love story is beautiful and memorable!

During the entire process I got a chance to get to know Nicole's family. I met her younger sisters and her mom. All of them made me feel as if I was part of their family. You don't just love the craft and the business - you learn to love the people! It's hard not to when they just make you smile.

I am so excited that Style Unveiled choose to run this "enchanting" wedding this week. I thank the entire staff at Style Unveiled who wrote this lovely article.

I love this image of Nicole and Michael "kissing". It looks unreal as if it were an ad for a magazine. Little did most people know that our dear groom, Michael, was quite ill the week up to the wedding. Couldn't tell from these images!

For the place card table, I found these amazing vintage farmer's boxes at Coast Wholesale(a Fav). We placed "styrofoam in the wooden boxes" and then moss. Little "clear" sticks were inserted into the bed of moss to keep the cards from "blowing" over.

To the left was one of the bridemaid's bouquet made with dusty miller, yellow garden roses and lisianthus. Just about as lovely and soft as you can get!

One of my favorite memories was watching as the artist created this image. How he did it, I'm still not sure. It's very unique and truly ONE of a kind.

We double used the aisle decor so that it would also serve as the centerpiece. Who could tell?

Read more about this lovely wedding at Style Unveiled. Special Thanks to the Ritz Carlton SF and Jay Kelly the photographer!