I was in St. Petersburg, Florida for business, sort of — suffice it to say, I was there for reasons completely unrelated to flowers or weddings. But when you see something, you gotta act on it, and if I didn’t take pictures of this here party for you, would you have all these great pictures to get ideas from? Not at all. By the way, the above arrangement is plenty beautiful and very simple — all it is is a floating candle in a cubed vase, with colored glass pebbles at the bottom, surrounded by rose petals. But by no means is this all I saw.

It turned out this event was Sojourn 2008 for WEDU, West Central Florida’s PBS station. And please do not think that I designed any of the decorations pictured — I did not. The spectacular decorations were all done by a company called conceptBAIT. However, they are my pictures. If you want more…

This little arrangement was one of the more simple ones of the evening. Its a good one for a cocktail table, I think — roses, those cool twigs, with a foot of moss.

This arrangement was actually the one that had caught my eye. I was on my way to the Starbucks on the lobby floor of the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront when I saw this display. Can we say…super cool? And, if you’re not sure what this display is depicting, that would be the Eiffel Tower, France’s most recognizable landmark. This party’s theme, after all, was a sojourn to France.

Ah, more spectacular arrangements. Those would be sprigs of orchids — forgive me, but I’m not sure what kind — in glass vases, with more pink colored glass along the bottom.

What was most unusual about this party — at least to me — was the fabric used for the seat covers and tablecloths. They appear to be spandex, actually. I’ve never seen such a thing. I think, for a party like this one, its appropriate — the spandex makes everything look more modern and almost spacey. For a wedding? I’m not sure. But that’s just me.

Even more spectacular were the arrangements used for what I assume were the bigwigs’ tables — you know, the VIPs, the big donors, the station’s management, etc. Because, yes, those would be a French mannequin torsos (French, it seems since they seemed to be quite hourglass shaped) used as the vase, decorated with pink fabric, feathery fringe, blue peacock feathers (I think) and orchids. Major props to the designer who thought of this, seriously. Although, I don’t know if I love the narrow stand for this mannequin. Parties tend to include alcohol, and I can just imagine what one drunken bump would do to this arrangement…

Finally, the outer tables are decorated with the same type, although shorter, vase arrangements as the one I previously described, plus smaller, cubed arrangements of pink roses, red roses (which you can barely see behind the pink roses) and another flower I can’t quite identify. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would have been happy with any one of these arrangements, much less all four of them. But I’m a simple gal.

Seeing as how this was a fundraising event for a PBS station, I daresay this party was decorated as a donation. That’s one heck of a donation, but its worth it to get the type of exposure that comes with a party attended by rich donors and various other media types. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I daresay a party like this would cost in the ballpark of $35,000 or more. (In none of these pictures, did I describe the walls, which were also covered in black and white fabric) That doesn’t even include the bridal party flowers (which are labor intensive) that are included with wedding events.

If you want to check out more pictures of this event, including the actor and actress dressed up as Marie Antoinette and King Louis (I think) who were a scream, click here.