It’s summer and I’m reflecting with gratitude on all the beautiful summer weddings I’ve designed flowers for in the past 18 years! Typically, my summers are booked solid with weekend weddings, sometimes multiple weddings each weekend. This year’s wedding season is different for all of us during the covid-19 pandemic. Between the small intimate weddings and elopements I’m designing flowers for this summer, I’m taking time to enjoy summer with my family and taking advantage of fun summertime activities I usually miss like berry picking and camping!
In reminiscing of previous summer weddings, I’m remembering a classic summer wedding I designed last year on Cooper Spur Mountain Resort on Mount Hood, an hour and a half outside of Portland, Oregon. This beautiful summer wedding featured sunflowers, one of the most iconic of summertime flowers. Sunflowers symbolize adoration, loyalty, longevity, unconditional love, and remind us of bright, warm sunshine, what a perfect theme for summer and fall weddings! Their bright and cheerful nature will bring joy, happiness, and warmth to your love-filled wedding day!
Cooper Spur Mountain Resort in the Mount Hood National Forest is a charming mountain resort with a rustic lodge, log cabins and condos nestled in the woods, where you and your wedding guests will be surrounded by pine trees, beautiful meadows and epic views of the top of Mount Hood. Its perfect for a mountain getaway anytime of year, and a wonderful outdoor wedding venue for nature loving couples to tie the knot! This sunflower wedding at Cooper Spur was photographed by Crystal Genes Photography, a wonderful wedding photographer I’ve had to honor and pleasure to work beside on weddings as well as multiple styled shoot projects for the NW Wedding Underground. We were recently featured in the Oregonian together for our Wedding on Wheels elopement packages with Oregon Teardrop Rentals!
The bride and bridesmaids of this sunflower mountain resort wedding carried classic, cluster bouquets of sunflowers, babies breath, Solidaster solidago, and Italian ruscus greenery. Boutonnieres were made with small sunflowers, and Flowers by Alana also designed pale yellow and cream colored silk floral hair pieces and floral crowns for the bride, bridesmaids, and flower girls.
The ceremony was on a grassy lawn outside the lodge, surrounded by forest, and flanked by a beautiful view of the majestic Mount Hood. Three floral installations with white hydrangea, large sunflowers, yellow roses, Italian ruscus and various types of eucalyptus were designed and installed on a simple wooden arbor structure owned by Cooper Spur Mountain Resort. Beside the flower girl crowns, the flower girls also carried baskets decorated with sunflowers and yellow solidaster flowers and filled with yellow rose petals.
After the ceremony, the reception took place within a large white reception tent. Each guest table was decorated beautifully and simply with classic white chairs, white linens, dark brown napkins, and sunflower centerpieces. Fishbowl vases containing decorative rock and water floated three large sunflower heads for a clean, simple sunflower centerpiece.
To see more photographs of this sunflower mountain resort wedding, check out Crysal Gene Photography’s blog post.
VENDORS~
Venue: Cooper Spur Mountain Resort
Photographer: Crystal Genes Photography
Hair + Makeup: Olivia Cooke
Cake: Lori Daily
Flowers: Flowers by Alana
Are you having a small intimate gathering or eloping in 2020 and in need of a wedding florist? Or newly engaged and planning a 2021 or 2022 wedding? Flowers by Alana has availability and would love to do your wedding flowers! Contact us to book a virtual consultation or phone call this week!
