Celebrate the joys of your life with Joie de Vivre.

Joie de Vivre brings freelance floral design to your Northshore, New Orleans and Baton Rouge events. We meet, discuss your vision and collaborate to make your floral idea a reality.

No storefront means no overhead for me and better prices for you. It also means that flowers are purchased for you and only you, allowing you to benefit from the freshest possible product. Attention and creativity is poured into making your event a memorable one, not just some pretty flowers in a vase.


While Joie de Vivre is my business and design is my passion, it all starts with the flower. Hope you enjoy my many ramblings.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Fairy Berries


If you are a bride that’s researched wedding décor options, Fairy Berries may have caught your eye.  As a floral professional, I’m always interested in trying different products.  This one has been around for a while and a client provided them for use in her ceremony pieces.

Fairy Berries provide ambiance.  They are tiny spheres, about the size of a marble, that gently flicker.  They come in a variety of colors, so depending on your theme, the desired effect is up to you.  For this application, I suspended them from branches with clear thread and in the dim light, they provided an amber glow.
Okay, so that’s basically what you read on the box.  What you may not read is this: In order to turn them on, you must unscrew the two pieces of the sphere and pull the tab covering the battery (there is no on/off switch).  Fortunately, the battery life is good, so one can go through this hassle before the journey to the venue.  I never have the time to unscrew dozens of these pearls at the venue when there are so many other things to setup.  What makes it more difficult is that once you unscrew these tiny “berries,” some of them do not reassemble easily.  They are so poorly constructed, I actually had to use clear tape to hold many of them together.
So the moral of the story is this: Fairy Berries provide nice ambiance but are not user friendly.  There are many options for lighting and I encourage you to explore your options and read product reviews (if available).  If you opt to DIY, always plan on things being more time consuming than planned.  If you hire a professional, listen to their feedback—remember, you hire them for their expertise.