A few months ago I received an e-mail from a bride in Kentucky who was planning a destination wedding in Alaska. She had found me in Alaska Bride & Groom Magazine and thought my style would be appropriate for her and her fiancé, Cam’s, wedding in Cooper Landing.

Sarah and Cam wanted a rustic, wild wedding to reflect their Kentucky roots. They gave me free reign to select wild flowers and greens to incorporate with garden roses and lavender button mums.

I harvested spruce, alder, alder cones, yarrow, clover, grass, and even a four-leaf clover for their special arrangements. Gathering wildflowers is one of my favorite activities. I headed out to my secret wild garden south of Anchorage to find everything I needed, including a special ingredient, which I’ll mention later. This is my happy place and it brought me so much joy to return there for the first time this summer.

This week I was graced with a new challenge: corner arrangements for an archway. I’ve made garlands before but not structured corner pieces. I decided to structure them with alder branches, Italian ruscus and seeded eucalyptus then layered in white wax flower, button mums, salal, white hypericum and finally, gorgeous, aromatic garden roses the color of butter.

I decided at the last minute to throw in a centerpiece arrangement for the archway. I just couldn’t let four garden roses go to waste.

The bridal bouquet was an unkempt arrangement with garden roses, lysmachia, wax flower, eucalyptus, wild clover flowers, yarrow, hypericum and a lucky four-leaf clover. It was all tied together with a piece of burlap and jute twine corset wrapped around it.

The boutonnieres are some of my favorites ever: spray rose, button mum, eucalyptus, wax flower and foraged spruce, alder cones and wild strawberries. Yes, strawberries! They were just starting to grow in my magical wild garden and I took it as an opportunity to improvise. I am so pleased with how they turned out.

The centerpieces were a collection of wild and commercial blooms.

This has been one of my favorite weddings to date. What a pleasure. I wish Sarah and Cam all the best on their new adventure!