When planning a wedding we understand it can be easy to loose track of the countless online enquiries you’ve sent out. Businesses blur into one and it all gets a little holly-cow-did-that-photographer-offer-the-all-day-coverage-or-was-it-that-one-or-maybe-it-was-that-one-oh-dear-god-I-need-a-drink!
Our Hello Vendor profiles offer creative couples and brides and grooms to-be the opportunity to meet the clever humans behind the brand. It gives you a chance to put a face to the name and allows you to gain some insight into what makes the creative souls you are hiring to shoot/design/bake/style your wedding tick. We’ve introduced you to florists, hair and makeup artists and collectors of second hand designer gowns, just to name a few, and today, here we are again, introducing you to floral and botanical stylists Megs and Anna from Good Grace and Humour. Based in Melbourne’s inner west, they specialise in unique flower arrangements for weddings and events.
Recently the girls had local photographer Martina Gemmola rise before the sun came up and follow them around for the day as they prepared for and styled two weddings! Let’s dive right in to the questions shall we.
Tell us a little about your background? We had worked together in book publishing (although in very different roles Megs as an Editor and Anna as an Executive Assistant) for two years before we started The Great Western Carpool’. As we made our way from the west to the east, sometimes clocking up two hours of sitting in traffic(!), we discovered a shared passion for working with flowers. Despite some people thinking we’d lost the plot for even contemplating giving up our secure 95, it felt right to plunge into this brave new world of flowers, hi-vis vests and freakin’ early starts.
How did you get into the flower game? We knew there was a lot to learn, but equally, we knew many of our skills were transferable. We’d spent nearly ten years working in a creative environment, critiquing and telling stories through words and design. Therefore, we don’t see flowers through a traditional florist’s eye we see flowers as a flexible and variable design element through which we can tell a story.
Talk us through a typical day in the Good Grace and Humour studio?? We don’t have a typical day. Although there are some things we can’t live without coffee (be it at 6am when the cafes finally open), a bowl of muesli, practical shoes and flower print trousers. Our working week is shaped around our events, which means we could be meeting a client on one day, pulling together a moodboard on another or going to the markets at ridiculous-o’clock the day after that. Our constants are our cafes not just for the coffee and to feel a part of the rhythm of the city but to deliver weekly blooms.
Where do you find your inspiration? This is going to sound slightly wanky, but our inspiration often comes from the story be that the client’s story, the theme of the event, the history of the space and so on. For example, we were inspired by Andy Warhol’s Poppies for a wedding held in an art gallery which displayed a lot of pop-art. This reference point influenced the choice of vibrant reds, poppies and rununculus and the other-worldly’ table display with twisting blossom, moss and fresh strawberries.
Do you have a favourite flower? ?This changes with each week at the market! We’re fans of the new kids on the block and often find ourselves synchronised in what we point at when an interesting bloom or colour or shape catches our eye. We do have a little flower aversion though? you won’t find any annoyingly cheerful gerberas in our arrangements.
What are three other ways with flowers besides the traditional bouquet? Suspending dried wattle from rafters to create a wattle night sky for the bride and groom to dance underneath, fashioning the ultimate daisy chain to decorate a chuppah and whacking bright blooms into large steins for a beer and bouquet party.
All-time favourite colour combo? We don’t have a favourite colour palette because we are constantly amazed by the colours which occur naturally in flowers. Given our backgrounds, we put a lot of consideration into the use of colour this goes to the extent of holding up blooms as you would an outfit in a changing room, Does this look good with this?’
Any random floral trivia you would like to share with our readers? Don’t rely on Mother Nature she can be feisty and temperamental, and throw a storm the day before an order is due to be collected, leaving you with 6 bunches of lavender instead of the 30! Trust your florist and be open to a plan B and C.
You can check out more of Megs and Anna’s work here on Facebook.
CREDITS Photos Martina Gemmola.