Same-Sex Flower Tips?

Now that we are celebrating same-sex marriage in New York, here are a few bits of folklore surrounding a some flowers that may or may not pertain to gay marriage! Very interesting...

#1: Violets
- Flower symbolized and used to celebrate same-sex love (though primarily exchanged between lesbians in the 1920s-1940s) Origins of the violet can be traced back to Sappho and her poem about wearing garlands of violets with her lovers.

- In the 16th century, men and women planning to marry would wear violets

#2: Ladslove
- 19th and 20th century English poets used ladslove to symbolize homosexuality and exchange of same-sex love in their works

#3: Calamus
- Egyptians believed the plant was a powerful aphrodisiac

- Walt Whitman used this plant as the centerpiece to his forty-five poems dedicated to homoerotic love

#4: Poppies
- The flower was exchanged between soldiers as a sign of love and romance prior to WWI

- Flower later became known as the flower of the eternal sleep (and used often for those who have died during times of war as a soldier)

- The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz is the only other character who falls asleep in the Poppy Field with Dorothy (representing possibly both the Queer and the ‘eternal sleep’)

(Source)

And remember - we are offering 10% off to the first 10 couples who use our services for their LGBT wedding! There are a few spots left!

Spotted!

Lady Gaga was spotted in NYC last night carrying sunflowers. Very interesting... here are some fun sunflower facts! In addition to being good at absorbing radiation and brightening up a person's day or home:

• The sunflower is the state flower of the US state of Kansas, and one of the city flowers of Kitakyūshū, Japan.
• The sunflower is often used as a symbol of green ideology, much as the red rose is a symbol of socialism or social democracy. The sunflower is also the symbol of the Vegan Society.
• During the late 19th century, the flower was used as the symbol of the Aesthetic Movement.
• Subject of Van Gogh's most famous still life, Sunflowers
• The sunflower is the national flower of Peru, Russia, and Ukraine.
• The sunflower was chosen as the symbol of the Spiritualist Church for many reasons, but mostly because it turns toward the sun as "Spiritualism turns toward the light of truth". Modern Spiritualists always have art or jewelry with sunflower designs.

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Press Release

Last week, the mayor's office tweeted that there had to be a lottery to choose who got to be married first on Sunday: "To serve people fairly, we're holding a lottery for the chance to get married on Sunday, 1st day of marriage equality." Over 650 couples were married! While some may not have been in the first round, we suspect that many will be following suit.

We at Alaric Flower Design are thrilled for our gay and lesbian friends in New York. So thrilled, that we are offering a 10% discount for the first 10 couples to use our services for their wedding. While we have been doing gay weddings for quite some time, we are anticipating a boom come Sunday and couldn't be more excited.

Located in Midtown Manhattan, Alaric Flower Design is a full-service flower design studio that caters to a plethora of businesses and people. The convenient studio location provides added inspiration for creating unique floral designs and a pleasant space for one-on-one consultations for weddings, corporate, or social event planning. Alaric's combination of knowledge, creativity, professionalism, and a deep passion for flowers and floral arrangements makes for a growing list of prestigious and satisfied clientele.

For more information, call Alaric Flower Design at 212.308.3974 or visit www.alaricflowers.com.

Shark Week!

Who is into Shark Week? Anyone? We don't quite get the hype or why it's "a thing" but we do love that The Discovery Channel used Lady Gaga's "Show Me Your Teeth" in the commercial. Hilarious and right on point!

In honor of shark week, if you order anything predominantly red this week, you'll get a free upgrade!

SYTYCD Update!

Now, we usually blog about flowers and things pertaining to florists here, but it's time to spread our wings, or in this case: stretch our legs. This season of So You Think You Can dance is incredible and below is our favorite dance of the season so far. It features Sasha and Melanie (by far, the most talented girls) dancing a routine choreographed by Sonya Tayeh. It's about strength, and these two pull it off better than anyone!

The dubstep song choice made it even stronger. We were pleased, and America was too... as they voted them to the top.

Uses of Roses

"A rose by any other name wouldn't be as sweet."

How about a rose by any other use? Besides being beautiful and smelling sweet, roses actually have quite a few other uses!

1. Skin care. This blog has the recipe for rose water, which is the base for toner and a delicious sounding mud mask!

2. Cooking. You can add some types of rose petals to foods to increase flavor or as a garnish for desserts. The damascena and apothecary roses are most used for culinary endeavors. You can also make jam (or buy it...) our of rose hips.

3. Secret meetings. Yes, secret meetings! In ancient Greece, they decorated the ceiling of a room to indicate a secret meeting was taking place. Not sure how secret that was since everyone knew, but ok!

4. Medicine. Roses actually contain many essential vitamins! They have Vitamin C, pectic, malic and citric acids. Rose hip or rose petal tea removes toxins from the body, can cure colds, is a great remedy for stomach problems, and even irregular periods or infertility, according to this website.

There you have it. The many uses of the wonderful rose. Anybody have any other interesting uses or remedies? Share them in the comments!

Rainbow Roses for June

The month of June is very busy when it comes to events in NYC. Not only is the month's birth flower the rose, which is very popular among our clients, it's Pride month!

What better a way to celebrate June than to combine the two?

Don't know what we're talking about? Well how about a visual:




That's right! Rainbow roses! "HOW DO THEY DO IT?" you may be wondering... well, it's complicated and takes time to perfect, but is very doable. You start with a white rose. You clip the end of the stem into several sections. And you dip the ends into different dyes! The dye makes its way up through the stem into the petals and viola! We have the rainbow rose.

For more information, check out the Wikipedia!