How to create a Sonoma-inspired floral arrangement for your next dinner party

After last month’s beautiful wine pairing dinner with Kendall-Jackson in Chicago, we wanted to help readers recreate their own Sonoma-inspired tablescape with this simple, affordable floral arranging tutorial!

STEP 1: gather materials

The professional florist created beautiful green and white centerpieces for the wine pairing dinner, so to put together a similar look, we went to our local grocery store and grabbed flowers and filler in the same two tones. When choosing flowers for your arrangement, we have two tips: keep the color palette simple and choose flowers of different sizes; the variance will add texture and depth to the arrangement. We went with white stock, white hydrangea as our base flower (a more affordable alternative to the peonies), white tulips, and two types of eucalyptus for our green filler.

STEP 2: choose a vessel

You can use any type of vessel you want, just make sure the opening is wide enough for all your flowers. We kept it simple, using a clear glass square vase, to stay in line with the natural look of the entire tablescape. Because the vase is so short however, we knew we were going to have to do a bit of trimming so the flowers didn’t spill out!

STEP 3: create a base with large statement flowers

To begin, you need to choose your largest flowers as the base, and cut them down to the appropriate height for the vase, leaving them 3-5 inches taller than the top of the vase. Don’t cut too short to start! You can easily keep cutting down, but you can’t add length if you trim too short. Space them out so they appear on all sides of the arrangement, with the stems criss-crossing to support one another.

STEP 4: add height with taller flowers

Next you’ll want to add in smaller and taller flowers for texture and height. Place them throughout the arrangement; be sure not to group them all together.

STEP 5: fill it in with greenery

Last, fill in the arrangement with greenery. Remove any leaves from the bottom part of the stem that will be below water level. The greenery can be both short and long, coming out from under the large flowers and in the middle of the arrangement. Keep adding until you’ve reached desired fullness.

TADA! AND YOU’RE DONE!

You’ve got a beautiful arrangement for your next dinner party! Serve with wine and enjoy!