To put it lightly, it took a monumental team effort to pull off the floral design and setup for this year’s First Lady’s Luncheon, which marks the 109th occurrence of the event. Lead designer Carrie Wilcox of Carrie Wilcox Floral Design in Fairfield, Connecticut, and her team knew what they were up against and came prepared for the task. The group of over 20 designers, some new to the event, had to design over 150 table arrangements, decorate a head table and runway, and create two arches that would be used for photo ops with the First Lady and Second Gentleman. To put her mark on the day, Carrie also came up with the idea of having an American Flag, complete with 50 stars and 13 stripes, made of all fresh-cut flowers.
Every single stem used in all of the pieces were from certified American Grown Farms from all across the US. The list includes greenery from Ferntrust, Continental Floral Greens, and Sutton Ferneries, roses from Eufloria, lots of novelty blooms from Sun Valley and Camflor, as well as many other beautiful items from several farms. See below for the full list of participating growers, as well as links to their Instagram pages.
Upon receipt of the product Tuesday morning, September 20th, which DVFlora was honored to provide the transportation for, the group started working right away. They worked on all the design pieces for what felt like, non-stop through Thursday evening. At 6 pm on Thursday, the event room at the Washington, DC Hilton finally opened for setup, and so the group started to carry all of the containers, arches, and runway pieces to the room. Finally, at around midnight, the room was just about ready for Friday’s activities. But not before one final round of touch-ups from 6-7 am, right before security performed a final sweep of the area.
In total, attendance for the luncheon was around 2,000 people and included The First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, Second Gentlemen, Douglas Emhoff, and many other constituents representing both parties. It was a great opportunity to showcase American Grown Flowers to so many people at one time.
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