Want to know more about our wedding designer Sarah Kinbar? Read this interview below…

What inspires your designs?

I love natural-looking, garden-style arrangements the most, although I enjoy working in a range of styles. I was a garden editor for the past eleven years, and editor-in-chief of Garden Design magazine for two and a half of those years, so I’ve seen a lot of gardens around the world. The way a flower looks in the garden is so appealing to me.

What’s the most memorable wedding you’ve done flowers for?

It’s hard to say! I started as a floral designer when I was 19, so there have been a lot of weddings since then. The wedding for Stephen King’s son in the gardens at Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York was a amazing one. We did a huge arch out of flowers, and the bride and groom said their vows beneath it.

My friend Katie got married at a park in Florida and I brought buckets of orchids and other tropicals and made all the arrangements right there on the spot, without the resources of a shop to make it easy. I loved doing everything on the fly.

My brother’s wedding was under a glorious tree outside a church in Texas. My sister-in-law likes the wildflower look (left), so the flowers were very colorful and casual. The flowers have to fit the feeling of the whole wedding and the personalities of the bride and groom, I think.

Looking back, you could say I prefer doing outdoor weddings,  but every wedding is special. Each one is an opportunity for creativity that I find incredibly compelling.

What kind of flowers did you have in your wedding?

Jo Ann, our shop’s owner, did my wedding flowers, and we went with all roses. My bouquet was a cluster of white roses, and my maid-of-honor’s bouquet and table arrangements were made from gobs of ‘Leonidas’ roses, which are sort-of rusty cocoa in color. She tells me she put five dozen of them in each vase. I didn’t count, but I can tell you the arrangements were fabulous!

What kind of wedding work are you doing these days?

It’s all about the flowers. If I have great materials to work with, the bouquets are great, too. Fresh peonies that have begun to open, big, heady hydrangeas, blown roses…sumptuous flowers are my favorites. Also, I’m nuts about experimenting with color. I did a bridal bouquet for an exposition today that has a cool mix of green and melon colors. When an event or a bride calls for custom arrangments that are totally creative, I do my best work.