Flowers + Food + Friendship

Friendship happens in the small moments of a shared experience. The Barcelona Edit’s recent Art of Floral Arranging and Show Dinner signature experience at the trendy Yurbban Passage Hotel‘s Kitchen Lab proved the perfect environment for creating such moments.

A small group of women, mostly strangers to each other, gathered to learn from Sonia Subiros of Passage Flowers about the meditative and creative process of flower arrangement. Sonia herself is a recovering lawyer who started Passage Flowers after realizing she wanted to make what had been an after-work creative outlet into a full-time business. Over the course of the hour and a half long class, as greenery was clipped and flower petals unfolded, the room filled with the type of conversation that can only be had between women who finally found an escape from everyday routines and obligations. By the end, ten women following the same detailed instructions from Sonia had created ten floral arrangements as distinctive as each one of them, from wild and natural to neat and ordered.

Conversation continued during the dinner, prepared at the communal gathering style bar by the exceptional Yurbban kitchen staff. Over small plates and wine, the discussion shifted to what constituted “the perfect Saturday” for each woman. A question intended to elicit fun responses grew into a contemplative conversation about battling cancer, dealing with new motherhood, and finding the solitude and personal space necessary for creative work and professional progress. It was an experience of introspection, sharing life stories, laughing, and crying that brought the group together for an all-too-brief moment of solidarity.

Some tips for creating your holiday bouquet:

1. Put a wire frame inside the vase to hold flowers in different positions.
2. Before creating the arrangement, consider the space where you plan to place the vase. If it is on a mantel, then the back of the arrangement should be flat (i.e. no flowers) on one side so that it can sit against the wall. If you plan to use it as a centerpiece, then flowers may be placed all around.
3. Strip all greens below the water line so that you won’t have decomposing leaves in the water, which both look unsightly and smell bad.
4. Cut all stems at an angle or bias to promote more water intake.
5. Consider placing flowers of complementary colors together.