When my cousin Victoria asked last Christmas if I would be able to help her family celebrate her step-mother’s 75th Birthday McLoons Pier House Long Branch, I was so excited. There’s something beautiful and extra-fun when it’s helping family and friends celebrate a loved one’s special occasion. And when she showed me the centerpieces she wanted me to create I was thrilled. What a challenge and they were super-tall with a beachy-not-over-the-top-beachy vibe.

Victoria and I went back and forth over Pinterest a few times and settled on a gorgeous design that included white and blue hydrangea, pink roses, blue delphinium, white stock, and Bells of Ireland (in honor of her Irish-to-the-bone step-mother).

Birthday McLoons Pier House Long Branch

I was able to source all her gorgeous flowers locally and had them delivered to my house three days before the party. This gave me a day to process the flowers. This is what they looked like before processing.

Hydrangea, especially, need some tender loving care upon their arrival. They come individually wrapped with a small bag of water attached to the bottom of each stem so that they can drink while traveling. You need to remove each stem’s plastic wrapping from the bloom, cut off the bottom of the stem to remove the water bag, and then cut the stem into a cross. This allows them to drink as much water as possible. Before placing them in water with flower food, each stem also gets a dip into alum, which helps the bloom stay fresh even longer! The roses needed to have all the green leaves stripped off and the thorns removed. The other flowers needed their stems trimmed and were placed in water with flower food.

They spent the next day and a half drinking it up. When I got home Friday night from the styled shoot I blogged about on Monday (if you wanna read about it, check it out here). I began preparing the vases and packing them to be safely transported for the Birthday McLoons Pier House Long Branch. Thank goodness Richie helped with this part, because after the long day I had on Friday. I was already pretty beat. I stayed up and made five of the ten centerpieces. Saturday morning, I woke up, made the last five. Then the cars got packed and we drove. Me and a ton of flowers in one car. Richie and Caryn and another ton of flowers in the other.

Delivery

Once we arrived at McLoon’s we were surprised, but tickled, to find out that the Easter Egg Hunt was that morning, and parking was a little bit tricky. But the Long Branch Police Department helped us out by allowing us to park and unload right in front of the restaurant.

I unpacked vases. Caryn filled them with water. Richie unloaded the car. I finished the final stage of centerpiece assembly. Then added the white stock and placing each mound of flowers atop the super-tall glass vases.

Life is Sweet | The Candy Bar

I was happy that we managed to set up everything in forth minutes. This allowed me to help my cousin Victoria when she arrived unload her car. Then we set up the sweetest (pun intended) candy bar with the theme “Life is Sweet.”

I hope you enjoyed reading about what went on “Behind the Scenes” of this 75th Birthday McLoons Pier House Long Branch. You will love the “Behind the Scenes” of the at The Art Factory Studio in Paterson. Read about it here.

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