Your wedding stationery should establish the tone of your wedding so it’s important to make the right impression! Your guests will often receive it months in advance, so it needs to be worthy of display and set the tone for your very special day.
About Sophia
Sophia Kaplan is a Sydney-based creative who loves to get her hands dirty creating some floral magic. When she’s not at her shop, Sophia Kaplan’s Plants & Flowers, she can be found bright and early at the flower market or styling a fabulous event.
Sophia isn’t just a floral stylist for weddings; she also does commercial projects, editorials and other events. Co-author of a coffee table book about house plants, Leaf Supply, she also blogs about flowers and enjoys taking photos. Sophia is not limited to her city or even Australia, working with clients and collaborators in Paris and globally.
Sophia has a profound interest in natural beauty found all around and loves to collect flowers and plants to create her own wonderful creations. We asked Sophia to tell us more about her work, future trends in flower styling and our collaboration process:
- What’s the best thing about being a
flower stylist?
- Being surrounded by nature on a regular basis. I also love the flower market (even at 5am). It’s so exciting to see what the growers have brought and it’s a nice opportunity to catch up with them and my flower friends.
- What inspired you to become a flower and
plant stylist?
- I’ve always been obsessed with gardening and find the process of getting dirty and watching things grow incredibly therapeutic. I had an amateur gardening blog and through this discovered some amazing florists who were more like artists than anything else. This, along with working for Jardine Hansen and seeing there was a different way of pursuing flowers than owning a shop, encouraged me to begin my own business.
- What’s been the most memorable event
that you have worked on?
- There are so many! I’ve had the pleasure of doing lots of friends weddings which are always heartwarming experiences. I’ve also assisted on weddings in the French and Italian countryside which were pretty special. And then it’s the simple things like foraging from the garden to decorate a table for lunch with friends and family which I love.
- What made you choose this specific
flower combination for our collaboration?
- I wanted something that wasn’t overly feminine. I love the exotic beauty of the slipper orchid.
- Do you see any flower styling patterns
in recent events you’ve been to? Can you predict any trends for 2019?
- Personally I’ve been using a lot less foliage lately. Beautiful dancing branches and delicate leaves definitely still have their place but I have been doing less mixing of them with flowers of late. I’ve been enjoying the feature flower, a less is more, quality over quantity approach. I think a lot of florists and clients alike are becoming more aware of the positive environmental impact of using local over imported flowers and also more conscious of their use of floral foam. It’s not the glamorous side of floristry, but the less waste you can create the better!
- How do you start your creative process
when styling for a wedding?
- It’s easy to be inspired by the ever changing seasons of flowers. I am strongly guided by what looks best on the day at market, always trying to include something unusual, and only buying things that I love.
- What is your favourite type of event to
style?
- They all have their place in my heart. Weddings are such a special day for the bride, groom and their family and friends, it’s a nice feeling to play a small role in that. I also have some production/ event companies that I work for who provide me with unusual and creative briefs that I love working on. Photoshoots are fun and an opportunity to be a bit more experimental. I like the variety that my job provides me with!
- When it comes to wedding planning, how
important do you think the stationery is?
- Stationery is the first taste guests get of the wedding they’re invited to. Beautiful cards should reflect the couple’s style and help to set the tone of their wedding and build excitement for the day. As a florist I am often given a copy of the invitation to help inspire and guide the mood for their flowers. It’s also something that guests often keep so becomes a lovely memento after the wedding itself.
- And one last question, what’s been your
favourite part of this collaboration?
- It’s been a pleasure working with Shab and her team. They’ve listened intently to my creative wishes and created the most stunning cards that I am so happy with! Choosing the right flower was fun and then seeing the design options come out of it was very cool. I hope they are loved by brides as much as I love them!
About the process
Choosing your wedding stationery for the big day is just as exciting as choosing your flowers, which is why we decided to work with Sophia to curate a complete set of wedding invitations and on the day stationery. At
For this stationery design
The Sophia Kaplan set is one of the most unique invitation suites added to the Paperlust platform and there was a lot of planning prior to starting the design. Shab Mogadam, creative director of Paperlust, wanted this set to be very special and well suited to Sophia’s style. We asked Sophia to send us photos that she has taken during her work and after seeing many beautiful images we could potentially use, we decided to go with the slipper orchid – the image was fresh, green and had a playfulness about it.
Cypripedioideae orchids originate from parts of Europe, Asia and North America, so they’re a versatile type of flower which would suit any theme you choose to style your day – giving us even more reasons to use it for this design.
Each card tells a story in this set. From fine orchid illustrations in white ink printed on delicate vellum paper for the save the date to give the guests a hint of what’s to come, to the main invite digitally printed with the fun slipper orchid combined with subtle beige colours, to a more bold information card. Each piece in this design set is the greater part of a whole and looks amazingly styled as a whole.
About the design and print
To make this design fully customisable our clients can choose to rearrange the flowers on each card. With our wide range of print and paper types, this set can easily be printed in digital print, letterpress or foil pressed for a more luxe look.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophia_kaplan/?hl=en
Website: http://sophia-kaplan.com/about-1/