 |
 |
Much of this began last August, when Capital City Florist was asked to provide flowers for the wedding of Gov. and Mrs. Otter, so when it came time to plan for the Inauguration, Mrs. Otter once again came to us to do the decorations. This included not only the Inaugural Ball, but also the decorations for all four floors of the Capitol Building, the Governor’s office, corsages and boutonnieres, and flowers for the Mass of Thanksgiving, held at St. John’s Cathedral.
On Tuesday morning January 2nd, a team of designers from across the state converged on our shop to begin work on the events. While the store’s staff maintained the shop’s regular orders and daily business, the designers from across southern Idaho began working in the freight room at the back of the store. All of the flowers had been received, unpacked and hydrated on New Years Day. As we all worked, the completed arrangements had to be transported to the local wholesaler for cooler storage until the time of each event. The team of designer’s for the event included: Deb Lyon, Staker Floral, Idaho Falls; Loy Mettler, Nancy’s Rupert Floral, Rupert; Brady Prescott, A & J Floral, Pocatello; Jack Woods, retired from Jack’s Flowers, Boise, and Ric Martindale of Capital City Florist.
Governor and Mrs. Otter selected a color scheme of red with accents of lime green for all of the events. Linens in chocolate and wheat were used for the Inaugural Ball. Everything was to look “woodsy” and “outdoorish”. Governor and Mrs. Otter live on a ranch in Star, Idaho, and love the outdoors, their horses, and almost anything with a western flavor, so their utmost concern was that all of the arrangements have the ambiance of outdoor Idaho.
In planning the events, we all had to be cognizant of our budget restrictions. The Idaho National Guard sponsors the Inaugural Ball at the Statehouse and everything associated with this event was paid for through their ticket sales. More than 2500 people attended the evening Ball at the Statehouse and the reception that followed at the BSU Jordan Ballroom. All of the flowers for the Governor’s office reception on Friday afternoon and the Reception Saturday night at BSU were paid for by the Republican Party Committee. No tax or state monies were used to put on any of the events, except for the cost of security and maintenance workers.
Because of our budgeted amounts for each event, in coordination with Mrs. Otter and the committee, we chose to use flowers that would give the most “bang for the buck” The following is sampling of the flowers chosen and used: More than 2000 red carnations; 500 red gerbera daisies; 600 red roses; 120 bunches of lime kermit poms; 70 bunches of red hypericum; 40 bunches of sweet deciduous huckleberry; salal, red huckleberry, oregonia, princess pine, cedar and pine cones too numerous to count.
All of the arrangements for the Capitol rotunda were made in Gripper casket saddles and then tied to the marble rails with cord. All of the pine garland from the Christmas decorations in the Statehouse was left hanging around the rotunda to give an outdoorsy feel. It took about 4 hours with 9 workers, 6 van loads of flowers and a hyster driver to complete and secure all of the arrangements on 4 stories of the Statehouse on Friday night. All of the flowers for the Governor’s Office reception had been placed late on Thursday. The decorations at St. John’s Cathedral had been put up in the days before Christmas by our staff with the plan of using them for the Inaugural Mass the week after Christmas. More than 100 – ten inch and twelve inch red and white poisettias graced the Cathedral along with more than a dozen 7 to 12 foot evergreen trees and hundreds of feet of pine garland.
The arrangements for the Inaugural reception at BSU included all of the above mentioned flowers. Each table was covered in the center with artificial snow, the centerpiece set in place, and then dusted over with more artificial snow. Votive candle, assorted pine cones, branches, and water-tubed flowers were then tucked into the snow at the base of each arrangement. The entire center of the 72” tables looked like we had just had a snowstorm in the ballroom. The platform behind the band had been decorated with fresh evergreen trees and bare branch white birch trees with miniature clear lights.
This inauguration was truly an event to remember, and I would like to especially thank Governor and Lori Otter for entrusting Capital City Florist with all of their floral needs. I’d also like to thank my superb staff at Capital City Florist, and my special friends that made up our design team for the event. Thanks, Deb, Loy, Brady and Jack!!! You all did a great job!!!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
February 2007
Capital City Florist, Boise, Selected to Design for the Inauguration of Idaho Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter