Floral designer Loretta Stagen creates lush arrangements that are both stylish and timeless. Her designs are an expression of joy that fill a room with drama and make occasions memorable.

Loretta Stagen bonded with nature and the world of plants at a young age. She was born in the Santa Clara Valley in California, and both of Loretta’s parents were gardeners. Her father had an orchard with pomegranates and quince among many other fruit trees. Her mother raised orchids. She kept a hot house and a lath house. Everything started from seed in the hot house. She taught Loretta how to make a corsage when she was 9 years old.

During high school, Loretta participated in a Foreign Exchange Program in Belgium for the summer with the American Field Service (AFS), an international youth exchange organization. After high school, she attended Stanford University when there were few female students at the time. To qualify for the university, you had to have high grades, and Loretta did more than keep up—she became Valedictorian of her class. Her major was Polical Science, her minor was French. During her junior year, Loretta attended the University of Geneva in Switzerland and studied French.

After graduating college, Loretta was determined to move East and took a job at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC as an administrative assistant for a year. Following that first job, she ended up in the PR department at Grey Advertising handling public relations including TV appearances, newspaper, radio, and print for the agency’s clients. After two years there, she met her future husband in New York City and together they moved back to California where they married. They had two children and moved back East to Bedford, New York for her husband’s new job.

During all of the years she spent in college, working at new jobs, and raising a family, Loretta never lost touch with her first love—gardening. She attended many symposiums on floral design and plants. She also learned from her mother who taught her about balance and color combinations. She exposed herself to the design world and was influenced by design and fashion trends. She spent much time on 28th Street in New York and found it inspirational.”You pick up ideas by exposing yourself to all that’s happening,” she says.

After a divorce, Loretta moved to Greenwich, CT and raised her children on her own. She created silk flower arrangements for restaurants, hotel lobbies, and upscale firms like Scully & Scully and Town & Country in New York. She added fresh flowers to her offerings later on and put her kids through college. Family responsibilities interrupted her career as she became a caregiver for her aging parents, moving back to California for a few years. When her parents passed, she took a much needed vacation— a trip around the world for 4 months. Inspired from her travels, she opened her first studio upon her return. She designed floral arrangements for special events, weddings, parties, and even stage decor. She also taught floral design in her studio and lectured at Garden Clubs.

In 2004, Loretta was invited to Japan to co-author a booklet on American Wedding Floral Designs. For years she had been a member of the Association of Bridal Consultants (an international organization) and at an ABC event held in NYC, she met the head of ABC/Japan. After talking and corresponding, Yoshi invited her to Japan for a two day workshop and photo shoot for the booklet. Before leaving for Japan, she sent detailed instructions on how to make centerpieces, bridal bouquets, bridesmaids bouquets, flower girl headpieces and love balls, and large arrangements. “The event was held in Hiroshima at a hotel where they have actually built a little church similar to the New England congregational church…. I instructed 14 Japanese people with an interpreter, since none of them spoke English. We did well. As I completed my designs, they were taken into a separate room to be photographed and my designs matched the instructions that I had already sent to Yoshi. A few months later, the booklet was published in Japanese. Oh yes, I arrived in Japan with a styrofoam three-layer wedding cake and royal frosting to teach them cake decor.”

In 2008, after losing the lease of her beloved floral design studio in the Stamford-Greenwich area, she decided to turn it into a positive change in her life. She knew and loved the Northwest Corner because she had done a lot of biking in the area. She found that the country feeling up here helped her to unwind. She sold her house in three days and Loretta moved to Washington, where she immediately met many great people and finds herself still very happy to be here. “It’s a little piece of heaven!” Her love of the outdoors is evident in her daily activities. She swims in Lake Waramaug most days in the summer, she bikes around the lake, she loves hiking at all of Steep Rock’s trails. “I especially enjoy wild flower hunting in May. I had been looking for Lady Slipper Orchids and I finally found a cluster at the Hidden Valley Preservation this last May. Fourteen treasures in a cluster,” she says excitedly.

Some of Loretta’s favorite flowers are David Austen Roses, Hawaiian Dendrobium Orchids, Lady’s Mantel, and Dutch Hydrangeas. Her passion for flowers and plants led her to become interested in organic gardening. She became a member of NOFA (the Northeast Organic Farming Association) and she keeps up with her certification as a NOFA-Certified Organic Landcare Professional by going to conferences and events. She is committed to good soil biology and only uses organic composts and natural pesticides in her gardening. She buys local when she can, but there aren’t enough floral vendors in the area, so most of the flowers she uses are imported.

She has continued her work here in Litchfield County, designing floral arrangements for weddings and events, as well as teaching and lecturing. Her services include perrenial garden design, window boxes, and container planting. Her work is not limited to the Northwest Corner and Loretta has taken on projects in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Block Island, South Hampton, East Hampton, Greenwich, Fairfield County, and New York City.

A typical work day for Loretta begins with driving into Manhattan at 7 am to pick up plants from the city’s flower district (she pre-orders from her favorite vendors). Sometimes roses missed their plane, or flowers had bugs, or plants were turned back at customs. From the market in the city, she heads to her studio in Ridgefield with all of the materials in her van and meets with her small crew. With Loretta’s direction, they spend hours creating beautiful arrangements in containers, load them up in a van and deliver them to the client’s event location. After unloading, they set up the arrangements and do final tweaks and refresh the flowers.

Known for mixing fruits and vegetables with flowers in her designs, Loretta’s pieces have a contemporary and bold style. From formal to rustic, she likes working with interesting textures and unique color combinations. One centerpiece she created was a combination of flowers, fruits, and vegetables in autumnal colors. She used terra-cotta colored orchids, roses and hypernium berries, green hydrangeas and trachallium, and burnt-orange oriental lilies mixed with purple artichokes, eggplants and green pears. Her bridal bouquets can look like an English garden. The key to her success is abundance, which has become her signature look. “My abundance style is like a Victorian nosegay—all flowers at the same height, all crushed in together,” she says. “It’s like painting a canvas. I begin with a ‘petticoat’ and then I tuck in the flowers one at a time, filling the container.” She works in many different styles from simple clusters in bud vases to abundant low arrangements or very dramatic tall arrangements that sit atop 24-inch glass containers. Each project has different needs, some require lower levels, others require higher levels. For events where people are seated, her arrangements never exceed 12 inches in height. She carefully considers the experience of the guests. Designs that are situated in higher settings are suitable for her ‘garden style’ which has a variety of heights, some elongated flowers peeking out of the core arrangement. Just as each job is different, Loretta works within a broad range of budgets for weddings of 5 people to up to 400 guests. She is willing to work with a client’s budget and the results remain the same—stunning designs that set the tone for the event.

Recently, our photographers captured Loretta as she and her crew created 85 containers for The American Gold Cup, one of the most prestigious and iconic equestrian sporting events in the world of International Show Jumping. The event was held at Old Salem Farm, a state-of-the-art equestrian facility located in North Salem, New York and was broadcast on NBC Sports. Loretta provided the flowers for the tables under the tent and the beautiful blossoms remained breathtaking for the five days of the competition.

Besides flowers, Loretta other passions are sacred geometry, music, and mother earth. She is, at heart, a free spirit and an artist who expresses herself through the natural world of flowers. A true professional of her trade, her optimistic energy and perfectionism is in everything she does. How serendipitous that Loretta Stagen creates elements of beauty for life’s happy celebrations such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and entertainment.