The Sage & Cream Bouquet Study

Ten years of New England weddings have taught me that blush is the default nobody chose. Ask a couple what they want and “soft pink” arrives by reflex — so I spend an unhealthy amount of time gently asking what about green? This study was my argument, built in the studio on a rainy September morning with Foxglove & Fern.

The brief: a bouquet that reads romantic without a single pink petal. Cream garden roses with their outer petals left slightly bruised, white ranunculus, olive branches for the movement, and a collar of herbs — rosemary, and one stem of sage from my own garden, because the color needed a namesake. Hand-tied low and loose, stem ends left long and cut at an angle the way the Dutch painters did it.

The brass mirror was Concord Vintage Rentals; we shot the bouquet’s reflection because a bouquet is never seen straight-on by the person carrying it. She sees it from above, at an angle, slightly to one side — that’s the view worth designing for.

Since this study ran, four of my couples have gone green-forward, and two of them told their florists it was “the sage bouquet from the notebook.” I’ll take the credit.

— Simone