How do I find the right floral designer for our wedding day?

Congratulations! You are about to get married and now is the time to start to find the right vendors for your special day.

It’s a jungle out there, so much information and ideas on the Internet, it will get overwhelming. Take a deep breath.

Find professional vendors who can guide you through the process.

I have some vendors that I am happy to connect you to, you find their links on my

“ PRESS PAGE”. You can also listen to this podcast that I was part of, and that will give you more knowledge about how and where to start.

https://atmosphere-productions.com/weddings/podcast/be-engaged-and-inspired-ep108-wedding-flowers-with-tina/

 It is important to get to know each other. To have a connection. To trust each other. I always love to meet with my couples and listen to their plans, to hear about how they met, what is important for them, how we can make their wedding personal. I have years of experience to share with my couples, and I will help you plan to get as close to your dreams as we can. Lilly -who is pictured above, we had that special connection right away. I feel so honord to be part of someones wedding day, to feel like these are my friends who I want to have the best day ever, with memories for years to come.

Are you ready to connect? I can’t wait to hear from you! Let’s walk this walk together.

How to bring the Bridgerton family style into your own home

Have you seen Bridgerton? The Netflix saga has taken the world by storm.

If we had water coolers to hang out next to at the office, this would be the show everyone would be talking about… giggling, swooning & blushing at the same time. Men & women. Young and old. Maybe not together, that might get really awkward!

Compared to the more realistic “ The Crown”, this show is In Your Face, over the top.

I love all the colors, the furniture, the table settings, the décor of this show. The grandeur. The golds and the pearls. The delicate details in the fabric of the ladies’ dresses, the heavy velvet draperies. The music, sounding quite familiar somehow, but played by century old instruments by men & women in wigs. Oh- the wigs. The sensationally stunning British queen.

Let’s make this a dinner theme, an intimate dinner for two, or let it fill a table of 12 one day.

Bring together the colors, the textures of fabric and the flowers of spring to set the table for a grandiose dinner with only the best the kitchen can whip up. Afterwards, relax in the warmth of a crackling fire with a crystal glass filled with your favorite wine.

These pictures are from a photoshoot we did with EngagedCT in Storrs, Connecticut. 

How we can help save our bumble bees with container gardens

Now let’s take care of our bees and butterflies!

Most of us are aware that we are losing honey bees and other beneficial bugs due to our changing environment. We must all do our part to help Mother Nature, and we can by choosing plants that attract our flying insects and hummingbirds such as Hibiscus, Monarda, Crocosmia, Lilies, Heliotrop and Borage. Choose the colors that they are looking for. Make sure they have water when the heat sets in, and you can do this by adding assorted water features to your garden in a peaceful setting. We all need to do our part.

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My niece Addie, senior in high school, decided to start a beehive in her garden! Can’t wait to follow her bees this spring and see if any honey will come out of it this summer. Long live the queen!

 What a great project for our younger generation, to in a very small way, make a big change to our neighborhood environment.

Click here pre-order your container gardens for this late spring.

A funny tale of Greenhouses & Chrysanthemums

Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved greenhouses. Growing up in a suburb west of Stockholm I was lucky to have access to many of them because the area was full of greenhouses and greenhouse nurseries. Some had theirs out of their small villa garden, and some had rows and rows of long greenhouses made of glass. I loved to walk through them, feeling the humidity, smelling the moist soil, and touching the seedlings, tender and green, soon filling the greenhouses with geraniums, roses or chrysanthemums. It was like a vibrant secret garden that I stepped into. For a long time I thought, “this is where I will work, make my future.”

When I went to Säbyholm Horticulture School at the age of 16, the one of a kind school led me further into the growing of plants in greenhouses, learning the technology and care that was all a part of this profession. At a mandatory internship, I chose to be placed in one of the nursery companies close to my home, thinking this would be a great path going forward. Today I still remember the rows of budding chrysanthemums. There were thousands of them. “Today Tina, your job will be to pinch the mums so that they will grow wider and bigger.” So I started at one end of the greenhouse and went down the aisle of low wooden benches.

That week in the greenhouse with the thousands of chrysanthemums taught me one thing… This was NOT what I wanted to do in my future! And to this day, I do not really like chrysanthemums!

In the late 1990s my husband agreed to adding a small greenhouse to our backyard. In late February I can step inside, breathe in that scent of moist soil again while sowing the spring’s first seeds in small pots, write the names of flowers on those wooden markers, and fill up my water buckets from the hose. This is where I let my two children grow up, in the greenhouse and in the vegetable garden outside. This gave them a chance to get dirty and wet and to learn how to grow plants from seeds. Is there a better way to grow up?

Antiquing in Sweden

Are we there yet?

Back in the mid 70s to early 80s my family spent our vacations traveling through Sweden down south to a rental house on the west or east coast, or in Skåne, the most southern county of Sweden. We drove for hours (at that time with no seat belts in the backseat and no AC) through the country passing fields of rapeseed, dense green forests and clear lakes.

We stopped for gas, ice cream and lunch that always ended up being grilled hotdogs and French fries, the best treat you could ever get!

And we stopped at Antique stores. Millions of them.

My mom had taken up the innocent interest in glass. What started with a collection of old pressed salt cellars, ended up as a lifelong passion for antiques, and landed her a job at Stockholms Auktionsverk as a glass expert.

We HATED the stops along the way to our vacation house. It was the time when many roads still were local winding roads out in nowhere, before the faster modern highways got you from point A to point B faster. We rolled our eyes every time we had to stop AGAIN. My sister and I stayed in the hot car reading comics, or followed her inside to browse to get the time to go faster and to stretch our legs. How could you be interested in all that old stuff? 

Fast forwarding to today.

Both my sister Annika and I have somehow gotten this bug that makes us both wanting to stop along the road to check out antique stores. Now our families are rolling their eyes in the car every time we scream “No, turn around, let’s check out that antique store we just drove by!”

I have a thing for old stuff. My home is filled with old & new, antique, vintage and Mid Century Modern. I love antiquing, browsing for containers, vases, paintings and furniture. Old tools. Cast iron fences or urns. Steampunk. Part of my work here at Floral Surroundings will be to offer unique one of a kind containers to my clients homes or events. Colored depression glass or beautiful handmade pottery from the 30s to the 50s. Well known artists/ factories or just unique because of their shape and beauty. Check out my page HOME & PATIO.