Events Expert – Hybrid Flowers

Christmas styling … why you don’t need to throw loads of flowers at it!

In case you’ve not noticed, soon it will be Christmas; that most wonderful time of the year! A time to relax, be merry, deck the halls! With social media awash with images of the perfect Christmas, from opulent flower walls to entire buildings covered in decoration, you may be forgiven for thinking that to create a Wow, you must GO BIG!

Of course, insta-images of 12 foot high Christmas trees swamped in bows, candles and glitz create a real impact, but, as a rule, at Hybrid we abide by the “less is more” adage; we believe that the essence of Christmas can still be captured using a few, well chosen, beautifully styled flowers rather than a tonne of sparkly birch trees.

For our designs at this year’s London Christmas Party Show we were asked to create a design within an alcove at the largest Livery Hall in London, Plaisterers’ Hall, which backs on to the remains of the original Roman London Wall. In this unique venue, we wanted to create a lush Christmas atmosphere without going too over the top; we wanted the warmth, the magic and the feel of Christmas but didn’t want to chuck glitter at everything.

The essence of Christmas style:

To achieve this, we decided to go back to basics and asked ourselves what is the essence of Christmas? What are the most Christmassy colours, scents, textures around, and which little touches can we add to our design to make people feel the magic of Christmas?

We challenged ourselves to create a timeless design that would be in-keeping with a Christmas scene from when the original Plaisterers’ Hall, was built back in 1556, as well as combining the essence and spirit of a contemporary 2018 Christmas. Our solution: a colour scheme of red, amber, gold and emerald green mixed with velvety textures and lots of shiny things.

And so we set about creating a bit of an optical illusion within our curved alcove. Appearing as if a rounded table was set into the wall (when really it was half a table making the most of the deep curved alcove behind) we filled the space with lots of Christmassy details. We used two different textured velvet cloths sourced from our friends at Borovick Fabrics in Soho and a beautiful lace edged chargers. We used brushed gold cutlery, tumblers and goblets and added beautiful, rich, warm coloured fruits like pomegranates, oranges and grapes.

And of course, no Christmas table would be complete without a scattering of cinnamon sticks and candlelight. Our key flowers were scarlet coloured roses, opened to perfection, combined with traditional poinsettia flowers and glossy green foliages.

Bearing in mind our “less is more” philosophy, the next question we asked ourselves was quantity: we knew these lovely festive details would speak for themselves but what if – What If – we went BIG, just this once? We ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’ for all of 5 minutes before deciding that whilst a smattering of Christmas details would hit the festive spot perfectly well, should we not throw caution to the wind and really indulge in the joy of Christmas?

And with that, we were off! We ordered ourselves not one, but two types of velvet red rose, ‘Red Naomi’ and ‘Freedom’ which we set amidst the shiniest, deepest green aralia leaves we could find, contrasted with touches of Cupressus foliage and combined with the most beautiful faux silk poinsettias. There was no holding back as we sprayed pomegranates gold and studded the oranges with different patterns of cloves, finished off with a red ribbon. And what Christmas table isn’t complete without a full-on floral arch full of red flowers and winter foliage completely surrounding the festive setting?!

Looking back, we feel a little giddy! Those glass-urns, the goblets, That Arch! All adorned, stuffed, embellished with hundreds of breathtakingly beautiful roses. Was our flirtation with opulence worth it? Well! We think it might have been, especially as we won the award for Best Stand was as voted by the visitors (a delightful surprise).

Our top tips for creating the look:

But truly and honestly, we feel that the same effect can been created with a lot less, our ideas for decorating your own Christmas party without breaking the bank are below:

Use red, sparingly, in the same way as a movie star may use a dash of scarlet lipstick, to create a hint of glamour and colour without drenching the senses. To do this, you must find the most vivid red flowers you can afford, but here, less is definitely more, don’t get too many: roses or poinsettia plants are perfect (you can cut poinsettia flowers and place in vases of water for a more delicate look).

Green

Combine with green shiny and textured foliage. Deep green glossy leaves, such as evergreen camellia, laurel or aralia leaves from a garden are perfect, and combine these with common or garden stems of conifer (yes, we said conifer!) or, if you are bit posh, stems of rosemary.

Gold

Add a touch of Gold: buy yourself a can of gold spray paint and spray pots, tumblers, little vases or candleholders deep, rich opulent gold (pears also look gorgeous touched, but not completely covered, with gold).

Orange(s)

And last but never least, our most favourite Christmas decoration of all time will always be clove studded oranges. They. Are. A. Must. Easy to create and heavenly to smell.

Image courtesy of the great guys at Splento

The top 5 Ultra Violet flowers inspired by Pantone’s Colour of the Year 2018

As a florist with a degree in Communications, there is nothing I enjoy more than interpreting a client’s brief using flowers to convey their message, and I believe that the right combination of flowers in a design can send a powerful and long-lasting message to all those who view it. Put another way: flora themed design can be used to strengthen a brand, create an atmosphere, and enhance an identity.

When used in a stunning display, flowers have the power the unleash forgotten memories and create associations and may cause the onlooker to actually feel different. For example, vibrant orange and pink can make you feel a bit wild, happy and adventurous, whilst that same orange with whites and fresh greens will create a more chilled out vibe, reminiscent of summer days.

We often ask clients to give us three key words to describe the ‘message’ they want to convey. We have received all manner of adjectives from ‘sharp’, ‘professional’ and ‘dynamic’ to ‘glamorous’, ‘sexy’ and ‘shocking’. To our design team these three words are the key to unlocking inspiration, permitting us to unleash our creative edge to ensure the flowers we chose are the most effective at conveying this message.

Every year, Pantone, a company based in New Jersey most commonly known for providing a system for matching colours, releases their colour of the year. For 2018, this colour is Ultra Violet. At Hybrid, we eagerly await news of each year’s colour and spend a lot of time discussing which flowers will best match whichever colour it is.

No surprise then that we have always preferred the more florally inspired years:

2014’s Radiant Orchid was blooming ‘with confidence and magical warmth that intrigues the eye and sparks the imagination’ and gave us scope to develop designs with warm deep pink tones.

2017’s Greenery was a ‘refreshing and revitalising shade… symbolic of new beginnings’ and was perfect for so many foliage inspired designs.

However, this year’s Ultra Violet is without doubt, our all-time favourite! Violet has the power to anchor and give depth to so many other colours and flower combinations. Whenever a brief dictates ‘vibrant, bold and strong’, we think: violet. Right now, spring and summer give us perfect blooms in ultra violet tones. Violet is a bold and brazen colour and can be used to create the most amazing statement designs, it can also make colours placed next to it come alive.

Ultra Violet is so important that we feel it warrants further praise and reverence, we asked our friend and colour mentor, Applied Colour Psychology practitioner Karen Haller for her view on this colour:

The ultra-violet ray is the last colour before the invisible and reflects stepping into the unknown. It’s the ideal hue to reflect taking a leap of faith and connecting to our inner self, our intuition and taking our self-awareness beyond our current thinking.

The colour’s vibrant namesake, the violet flower, also brings great joy as it is one of the first flowers to appear each year. This little woodland bloom heralds the start of spring with its deep intense colour, its surely one of the most audacious in the natural world with it’s sensual tone hinting at drama and intrigue.

Aside from the valiant yet petite Violet, here are our top five Ultra Violet flowers:

Anemone

Anemone is a spring bloom of an intense deep purple with a black face. Although its sold to us as being “blue”, we are buying it for its glorious violet colour.

Tip: their soft, long, delicate stems work beautifully in vases of fresh water on their own or as part of a collection, but don’t try and use them in floral foam if you are making over 15 table designs as your team will never forgive you!

Best mixed with: orange roses and cherry coloured ranunculus.

Flag Iris

These shapely tall flowers stand head and shoulders above their smaller cousin, the ‘common or garden’ Iris. The violet coloured varieties are particularly dramatic and their striking silhouette is simply stunning.

Tip: don’t cut these stems too short as they are born to be tall, dramatic and glamorous. Arrange them simply in a beautiful vase with their spear like leaves as the only foliage.

Best mixed with: nothing! Simply place them in front of a plain backdrop to really promote and show-off their shape.

Hydrangeas

As summer arrives, we seek out the violet version of this amazing bloom, each individual vivid floret creates the most striking domed shape.

Tip: these large rounded domes of violet add weight and depth to most floral designs. Use them as a base shape to enhance other stunning summer flowers.

Best mixed with: a blown open cerise coloured peony, or alternatively use bundles of violet hydrangeas in modern vases set amongst matching vases of bold shapely flowers to create impressive colour blocks of flowers.

Vanda Orchid

The assortment of violet tones available from vanda orchid growers is breathtaking. These striking blooms look amazing under a spotlight at events and their reliable long lasting vase life means they are perfect for weekly vase designs in both offices, restaurants and hotels.

Tip: stems of Vanda orchids can be arranged beautifully at the mouth of tall vases and their individual heads can be removed from the stems and submerged in water, placed into individual tubes of water and strung into tall branches.

Delphinium

Each floret of the vibrant purple delphinium has the most amazing violet tones. Packed together, their impact can be phenomenal! This delphinium is probably one of the most striking flowers available to florists and is one of the tallest flowers around in British gardens at summer time.

Tip: use these beautiful stems to make massive fan shapes of colour in large containers atop striking plinth pedestals. They look equally stunning in modern glassware in high end modern architectural spaces as they do in traditional stone urns placed in within landscaped gardens at summer soirees.

We hope that you will be inspired by the flowers we have showcased here and that if you are looking for a display that is eye-catching, sensuous and bold you remember these Ultra-Violet heroes, especially if the message you’re looking to convey is one that is punchy, deep and mesmorising!

BTW the most uninspiring Pantone colours of the year were for us Turquoise, Emerald and Marsala. A turquoise coloured flower? Anyone?

Three things all Zero to Hero events entrepreneurs have in common

When Clare McAndrew, Marketing Director of Story, invited us to speak on an expert panel at the London Summer Event Show, we thought to ourselves:

Well, we always love a chat, especially with other event industry creatives… but are we really that fascinating?…. and would our collective experiences be enough to inspire and advise a new generation of startups?

Clare reassured us:

Our audience would LOVE to hear your stories, especially as all of you brilliant suppliers started from nothing and went on to create something great… ! I guarantee that people would find what you have to say inspiring….. Oh and by the way the seminar is already fully booked!

It turns out, Clare was right! Alongside our Alan (Simpson Co-Owner of Hybrid) was Peter Gibbons, the dynamic owner of Lux Technical; Susannah Mountfort, the innovative Founder & Director of Gingerline & Flavourology and Taran O’Doherty the super cool Founder & Sales Director of Yahire. Despite each of these companies contributing to the events industry in very different ways we all had so much to say and all shared remarkably similar backgrounds and experiences.

And here are just three of them:

Having that Eureka moment!

Take Alan. Alan kind of fell into floristry, and I mean that quite literally! As a teenager, rehearsing for the local am-dram production in the Church Hall, he somehow managed to topple over one of two identical floral arrangements put there for a funeral due to take place that afternoon. Embarrassed and shocked, he did his best to reassemble the arrangement and amazingly, and somewhat to his surprise, he succeeded! No one could notice the difference between the original and the one he’d recreated! That was his calling! He enrolled himself on to a YTS and started his floristry training and the rest as they say, is ‘Zero to Hero’ history.

It would appear that we weren’t alone in local theatre acting as a catalyst for success. Peter Gibbons started his journey as a teenager volunteering for a local theatre where he developed his passion for lighting and sound. This led eventually to him buying the assets of a company whose owner was about to retire and Lux Technical was born. He now employs 10 full time staff and creates events for the most amazing clients including Google and War Child.

Susannah Mountfort’s unique idea was to fuse together art, performance, food, drink and design. On The Gingerline, guests are sent to a secret location for an evening of extraordinary performance, narrative, set design and amazing food. She has since created Flavourology and Chambers of Flavour, both offering multi-dimensional dining experiences. She even wrote her own piece of software which monitors dining guests moving through the interactive events space, this was later adapted for Starbucks.

After working for an event furniture hire company for a bit, Taran O’Doherty decided to set up his own business with his best friend from school. One night they both got drunk, pulled out a notepad did some rubbish drawings (his words not ours) and hey presto! Yahire was born. With no business plan or experience, very little money and no way of knowing how to would gain customers Taran and Ben bought 300 folding chairs and 30 trestle tables which they stored in Ben’s mum’s home. Yahire now employs 80 people and is the stand-out name in the industry.

Not giving a monkey’s

So! Sounds simple? Have an idea and hey presto, you’re an entrepreneur. But stop press… all is not as it seems! When asked about challenges along the way we all agreed on these:

#1: Getting people to take you seriously

Youth can be on your side, but if you’re starting up your own business, sometimes it can prevent people from believing in you. Peter came to London in his early 20s and agrees that ‘coming to London when not one of us were over the age of 25, was a challenge. You need people to know that you and your company were utterly capable and able to deliver no matter what.’

Susannah took it as a challenge when working with other non-event industries as some did not take her seriously. She wanted people to recognise an ambitious plan and believe in her idea. Fortunately, ‘the desire to prove anyone who said we couldn’t do it wrong was hugely motivating’.

#2: Being motivated

Having self-control and keeping focussed can be extremely challenging. As Taran explains: ‘As a leader, remembering your goals, and not get distracted is very challenging. After a couple of years, your new company becomes a job, and it can be tough to keep focussed and move in the right direction’.

#3: Loneliness

Setting up your own business can be lonely, even when there are two of you setting out to conquer the world.

Peter advises to ‘Build yourself a support structure: my family, friends and business mentors have been key as it is a very lonely place at the top, and it feels as if you are the only person feeling it’.

At Hybrid we’ve found that as our business has grown, our clients, suppliers and staff all become as precious as our own families, so before you know it you’ve created your clan of like-minded people!

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Yoda, Jedi Master

When Clare asked the panel what it is you need to set up your own business within the events industry: for Alan the answer was simple:

‘Passion. So many people come to us and say:

Oh I would have loved to have done that!

I say either go and do it, or stop talking about it!’

Taran agreed: ‘So many people deliberate or say they are going to do something and find excuses not to, but you have to believe you are capable of doing anything.’

Peter adds ‘Surround yourself with people who challenge you, if you are always hands on, you are never going to be able to scale it up, so bring people in who are better than you. The key to our success has been people, there is no two ways about it.’

So if you have an idea that you think rocks, go for it! What’s the worst that can happen?

With great thanks to Splento for all images

The two flowers that make a florist’s life worth living over the winter months: Part Two

As florists buying from London’s biggest flower market, at Hybrid, we know for certain when winter is on its way when we spot the Dutch flower trollies neatly stacked with slim, yet surprisingly heavy, rectangular boxes full of an indispensable floral hero.

Like children opening long-awaited-for presents, we feel a genuine sense of anticipation and awe as we lift the cardboard lid to one of these boxes. Similar to a box of toy soldiers from another era, we are met with rows of individual stems: fresh green, chunky, and topped with full-to-bursting buds of giant flowers resting on pillows of foam. And we rejoice! Our beloved amaryllis has returned!

Without a shadow of doubt, the amaryllis is up there as one of the top two “Florist’s Life-Saving Winter Flowers” (and yes, that is a Thing). We looked at its partner, the cymbidium, in an earlier post, but for this piece, my aim is to create within you the same sense of wonder, respect and admiration that we feel towards the amaryllis. I shudder to think where we would be at winter time without these beautiful, powerful blooms.

To create something spectacular, you need the best, most versatile materials you can find and the amaryllis come up trumps here, giving us the option to use their amazing height and presence to create real impact. We have positioned them in giant fan-shaped vases for high-end hotel lobbies and bound together in ‘wands’ to look like a giant lollipop, which is perfect for corporate reception areas.

Their magnificently bold open blooms look fabulous used completely on their own or when placed alongside other winter and spring flowers set into all manner of simple or striking vases and vessels.

With colours ranging from the purest of whites to the most shocking of candy pinks, with oranges, peaches, reds and almost-blacks, in between, the amaryllis ticks all the boxes.

As with the cymbidium, in our view, the best amaryllis are cultivated over the water in Holland. Our Dutch friends, Lisa and Arno van Marrewijk have run a family business growing amaryllis since 1994. Despite being growers of the most beautiful varieties of amaryllis, they like to keep the company small so Arno can remain in his beloved greenhouses and not be confined to the office. Lisa also works with amaryllisinfo.eu to promote amaryllis growers in the Netherlands. Together with their three daughters they maintain an inspiring Instagram account: @marrewijk_amaryllis
I asked them a few questions:

Why do we think of amaryllis as a winter flower?

Years ago, most amaryllis were produced in November and December because the flowers were only used at Christmas time.

An amaryllis bulb will stay in our glasshouses for the whole year and, a bit like tulips in the garden, bulbs will only flower when they have been kept for two months at a temperature below 15 degrees. One bulb can grow two or three stems within a year, so we have 6 sections in the greenhouse, each with a different cooling temperature. This enables us to produce amaryllis from September until March.

Just how popular are amaryllis in Holland?

They are popular, but there are still people who don’t know what an amaryllis is! I tell them about the bulb with big flowers at Christmas time in their grandmother’s house. But I really think that their unique selling point is that when you buy them they are completely in bud, and then they change every day and almost quite magically, become vibrant and beautiful.

Perhaps the boldest of all the amaryllis is the red variety but the wealth of colour variation for this flower is truly spectacular. Lisa van Marrewijk loves all varieties of amaryllis, but whenever a new variety is produced it goes to the top of ratings.

In my house I always cut the stems short and arrange them with some foliage from the garden, but in churches and hotels they should be tall to create impact! Amaryllis will open sooner in a warm environment and so to keep them lasting longer, place them in fresh, clean water. Every time you change the water, re -cut the stems.

At Hybrid, it has to be said that the amaryllis can inspire some quite eccentric behaviour in our florists, who may otherwise, on the whole, be quite normal (although who wants to be normal!). Our Creative Director, Alan, adores the satisfying echoey-crunchy sound made when an amaryllis’s hollow stem is cut. I find that painstakingly picking each individual fresh anther from the opening flower bud is just too irresistible (I like to get them just before their pollen turns yellow and dusty!).

However, the effect the flower has on us at Hybrid is nothing in comparison to the Greek myth which tells the story of the amaryllis’s creation! Our resident Greek florist, the gorgeous Sofia, loves to tell the tale of how the amaryllis came to be:

In Greece, the amaryllis symbolizes pride, determination and glamorous beauty.

The story goes that a beautiful maiden, Amaryllis, fell in love with a shepherd called Alteo. Alteo was as beautiful as Apollo, and mighty as Hercules and he had a passion for flowers. He insisted he would only fall in love with a girl who could bring to him a new type of a flower, one that he had never set his eyes on before. Amaryllis was determined to bag Alteo for herself (and wouldn’t you be with those attributes?) and so she turned to the great Oracle of Delphi for advice.

The Oracle told Amaryllis that in order to win Alteo‘s heart, she must wear a white dress and sacrifice her own blood for him. Amaryllis stood in front of Alteo’s house for thirty nights piercing her own heart with a golden arrow (they did things differently in those days – no I guess we’d just right-swipe?). The drops from Amaryllis’s heart fell into the soil and on the thirtieth day, a crimson flower grew where the blood had fallen. In return for this horrific, and no doubt painful, sacrifice, Alteo fell in love with Amaryllis. And maybe they all lived happily ever after!

At Hybrid, we want you too to rejoice in the beauty of the amaryllis and appreciate all the possibilities it has to offer. You won’t need to sacrifice your blood either, amaryllis bulbs can be bought from most reputable florists and garden centres now.

Hybrid Top Tip

As corporate and event florists, often, we want amaryllis to open up as quickly as possible. Key to achieving this is room temperature and we abide by a tip from one of our, now retired, flower market trader friends, who started his career in the original Covent Garden flower market as a barrow boy back in the seventies:

Turn the flower upside down and cut the end of the stems
Fill the hollow stems with warm water
Seal the stem with cotton wool
Quickly turn the flower back upright and place in more warm water
Leave to open in a warm room

Trust us: it works!

With thanks to our friends, the wonderful Marrewijk Amaryllis, amaryllisinfo.eu and Funny How Flowers Do That.

The journey, the detail, and the interaction: how Sarah Kay creates “other worlds”

There is something to be said about being the last to arrive at the party. Alright, alright we don’t mean the actual party (we get up far too early for that), we are talking about the wonderful world of event planning.

We florists, the providers of the finishing touches, often find ourselves presented with unique themes and impressive event briefs around which to create bespoke floral designs. It really does mean that no two events are ever the same. In the last few months alone we have created floral arrangements to accompany all manner of amazing themes including Vintage Circuses, Luxury Summers, Tiki Bars, Secret Gardens and Maritime Wonders but to name a few!

Now of course it goes without saying that choosing the right floral design can be absolutely key to creating impressive event. But in order to make these occasions truly immersive it calls for a crack team of events professionals from catering, entertainment and lighting to scent and virtual reality providers . All of these industry experts have one mission in mind; to come together and create an experience for the guests that will resonate far beyond the event itself.

Ask the expert

Sarah Kay is one of the most inspired, energetic and knowledgeable experts on the UK events scene. Through her company, The Edit, Sarah organizes and consults on a broad spectrum of amazing events which transport her clients’ guests to exciting new worlds. Ever eager to gain some exclusive insights from an industry expert, we decided to ask Sarah to some key questions on how to create an amazing corporate event. Enjoy!

What do you love most about your job?

What I love about events is that it’s creating another world for the day or evening. Guests step into a space and they’re transported – worries are forgotten and it’s all about having a good time, socialising and enjoying the moment.

Does an event always have to have a theme?

Themes certainly help to create ‘worlds’. Nowadays everything feels so fast paced and serious that a really fun theme that creates something so removed from your day to day life is hugely appealing and has maximum impact. But a ‘theme’ doesn’t mean ‘themed’. For example, we recently provided conference styling for a bank where the brief was black and white with the conversations of the day adding the colour. We added ideas that encouraged audience participation and created fun moments such as black and white balloons that were popped to reveal colourful confetti. It was about adding a fun touch without detracting from the concept of the day.

How do you create an engaging corporate event?

When you think about the journey, the detail and how guests will interact with the space. Just having huge props isn’t enough for people to feel that they’re in another place or world. It’s all about thinking how your guests will respond, what will make them smile, what would they Instagram and how will they walk away feeling. It’s more than a look, it’s a concept and should run through every element of the event from the invite through to the food, the entertainment and the atmosphere. We’ve even introduced event scents before as they evoke such powerful memories – that really helps to immerse people.

What are the three key aspects that you cannot neglect when working to a theme?

Detail, food and the journey. We design an event so that people walk in and think ‘wow’ but then as the event continues they notice the detail again and again. People remember the atmosphere and the detail. The food is something most events have and it’s missing a trick to not incorporate this into the theme. It’s such a small cost to do so therefore we think it’s essential to consider.

What has been your favourite corporate event?

My favourite event is definitely the festival theme we did at Sushi Samba with Story. It was such a fun brief and we totally transformed the space. Guests arrived and were given a lanyard with a stage schedule, wristbands and a phone charger. The journey saw them taking in four different bars, all styled to a theme, the main space which has been covered in grass, and if they were lucky enough to discover it, a secret garden (with Hybrid’s designs!) complete with liquid nitrogen cocktails and ice creams. The theme was so much fun and we really ran with it, creating a totally unexpected space at the top of a skyscraper.

Any predictions for future events themes?

I think immersive events will continue to be popular, so any theme or world but just totally all consuming, very theatrical and full on. People are exposed to so many stimulants that event themes have had to keep up and the immersive concept overtakes to create impact.

I also think natural. As the world becomes more digital people crave nostalgia, nature and relaxed atmospheres so I think we’ll see lots more of this.

Having said that technology is huge especially virtual reality which is definitely one of the event buzz words of the moment.

Any pearls of wisdom for the corporate events planner?

Always consider what you are trying to achieve. What are your goals? How do you want your guests to feel before the event, during and after? Thinking about the guest journey and experience as this really helps you plan. Also find the best suppliers as they help you create the best events – I couldn’t do it without them!

With thanks to Story for the Festival Event at SushiSamba images and The Edit for all other images.