Flowers in the Air

Ceiling Installation Floristry

By Molly Lucille

As any florist knows, flowers possess the remarkable ability to elevate ordinary spaces into extraordinary ones. The experience of entering a room adorned with an abundance of blooms is truly enchanting, captivating the senses with scent, color and gentle movement. Among the most striking ways to showcase floral artistry are ceiling installations, which not only enhance but also redefine spaces. These impressive, large-scale installations offer unique opportunities to elevate events, corporate settings and more, profoundly transforming any environment and creating memorable and immersive experiences.

“You know you’ve made magic when you can’t bring yourself to leave the environment you’ve created,” reflects Semia Dunne, founder of Flowers by Semia in Providence, R.I. Her team, comprising Christine Fiore and Sarah Dunsing, recently designed a stunning event in the middle of the Scottsdale, Ariz., desert. Along with a team of freelancers, this powerhouse team created a lavish flower-covered framework that formed the illusion of a ceiling above the outdoor dining space, taking the creative vision of planner and creative director David Tutera to another level.

To combat the intense Arizona heat, the Semia team utilized a mix of both faux and fresh blooms designed in a combination floral-foam cages and chicken-wire frameworks. The installation featured bold, vibrant colors of oranges and yellows, mirroring the colorful landscape surrounding the event. “I remember a ‘pinch me’ moment, looking at my team, all of us on top of ladders designing and seeing the mountains in the background. It truly took my breath away.” These colors became all the more magical as night fell over the desert, with the mountains framed by moonlight and the blooms glowing in flickering candlelight, as the breeze gently played with the symphony of flowers overhead.

This event is certainly not the only “pinch me” moment of this East Coast-based floral studio’s portfolio. The Flowers by Semia team prides themselves in their ability to create meticulously planned, distinctive, unique and transformative environments. When asked how her team tackles these enormous challenges, Dunne stresses the importance of communication. Before any large-scale installation, these three designers measure and create samples based on square footage, creating a recipe for the coverage for a single square foot of the install, and then use that recipe to calculate the necessary product for the entire project. This approach also ensures that they think through any issues that may arise.

There are many different approaches to creating ceiling installations, and each requires a wide range of mechanics and strategic approaches. In event floristry, we’re seeing everything from full-coverage flowered ceilings to chandelier-style flower structures. One such structure is suspended rings, such as the flower-and-butterfly-covered ring created by Brian Watson and the design team at Myrtie Blue in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. The fluttering butterflies, in tandem with layered blooms and draping Amaranthus, created a magical focal point at the tented outdoor wedding, setting the ambience for the entire reception. Utilizing a framework to create a “chandelier” such as this can be a useful way to bring in intentional focal points to establish an atmosphere without overwhelming the existing space. This design calls to mind a quote by the 18^th-century French lyric poet Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun, who said, “The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly.”

Another trend is “flower clouds,” which are puffy clouds of blooms, frequently designed with baby’s-breath or textural dried elements. This trend is masterfully brought to life by floral designer Clare Cummings, owner of The Flowergirl in Perth, Australia, often in unexpected spaces. She has been hired by businesses all around Australia to create floating clouds of preserved and dried flowers as permanent installations. “It became something that businesses wanted after spending loads of money replenishing fresh flowers to decorate their spaces,” Cummings explains. “It can get very hot in parts of Australia during the summer months [December through February], and fresh flowers are super expensive, so a dried flower install is more economical in the long run.”

Rather than planning meticulously in advance, Cummings opts for a more flexible approach, responding to the vibe and atmosphere of each client’s space to inform her design decisions in the moment. “Gathering the right botanical materials is key to giving a natural but vibrant and long-lasting result.” Typically, installations created with dried and preserved products will last around three years.

As flower installations begin to grow in popularity and visibility, new types of immersive experiences can be created, even taking to the stage. In a recent collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Dance Theatre, the husband-and-wife team of Larry Wang and Jophia Chua, owners of HellofromFlour in Singapore, was hired to craft an installation to enhance the theater’s ambience for its August 2023 production of “Where the Flowers Bloom.” The duo created a wave of botanicals above the audience to involve them in the performance, echoing the movement of the dance and the color of the costumes. The performances were a celebration of flowers through the beauty of traditional Chinese dance, with choreography celebrating the whimsy of dandelion seeds dancing in the wind, the fragrance of flowers, and the beauty of blooms when they’re arranged perfectly in a bouquet.

“We designed a floating installation above the attendees’ seats, immersing them in the performance,” Chua explains. “The process involved detailed planning and careful consideration of factors like lighting and sightlines. The result was incredibly fulfilling. The flower arrangements added a new dimension to the theater, creating an atmosphere that complemented the performances beautifully.”

From intimate gatherings to small businesses, from the stage to luxury events, the transformative power of flowers is undeniable. The art of ceiling installations provides unique opportunities for designers to practice utilizing the movement and power of flowers to create space. With these installations, there is less of a confined framework within which to work. The sky is truly the limit!