Southwest Florida’s paradisiacal landscapes provide boundless inspiration for event design—the trick is to make it look chic, not kitschy. To exemplify Floridian flair, we tapped Naples bloom masters Kaleidoscope Floral to design arrangements that hail the Sunshine State in a distinct and sophisticated fashion.
Edible Arrangement
(Pictured above)
As an ode to Florida’s tropical bounty, Kaleidoscope Floral’s Sean Stevenson challenged himself to treat citrus, mangoes, papaya and bananas with the same reverence as flowers. He cut open grapefruits and oranges to reveal their colorful centers, then arranged the fruit in organic, overflowing abundance. Papaya leaves and banana stalks give the arrangement height.
Go With the Flow
Sean wanted to capture the motion and cerulean hues of the Gulf, so he grouped voluminous clusters of blue hydrangeas in ebbs and flows, building up to a wave-like crest on one side. “[Using] primarily one ingredient, [you have to give] it a really interesting shape and movement,” he says. Sprays of delicate tweedia and larkspur bring in the ocean’s blue tones, while sprigs of white rice flowers evoke the crashing surf.
Into the Wild
People don’t often think of the Everglades for event inspiration, but Sean recognizes the inherent beauty of our swamps. For a fittingly wild scene, he created a miniature ecosystem of grasses, cypress, palms, ferns and air plants, many of which he foraged from his parents’ Naples backyard. The arrangement is light on flowers, featuring just water lilies and a few white orchids—a nod to the local storied ghost orchid. “It is more designed as a living collection of plants, like a terrarium feel,” he says.
Shore Thing
For a beach-inspired arrangement, Sean toasts the Gulf’s white-sand beaches, with white moth orchids, white buttercups, and quicksand and Champagne roses in a giant clam shell. The florist follows a less-is-more philosophy for his designs. “Even when I make an arrangement with tons of ingredients, I like to have groupings of them together, because that’s how flowers grow naturally,” he says.
