Miss Cherry Pie, Seattle/Polebridge, Montana
Age and Occupation: 25, Marketing Communications Specialist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Nurse Practitioner
Engagement Date: August 26, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: April 1, 2008
Venue: A tiny town just outside of Glacier National Park
About Me: I think of life as a journey and I love the places it's taking me! I went to school to study Magazine Journalism, ended up with a second major in Japanese language, and now work at a company that makes software for libraries. I love writing, computers, photography, and the great outdoors. I spend most of my time playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band or geeking out online with Mr. Cherry Pie. I'm happiest when I'm on the road, especially traveling abroad, or just nesting quietly at home with my sweetie, who is a fabulous cook and bakes a delicious rendition of a certain cherry-filled dessert!
Flowers Gone Wild!
April 25th, 2008 @ 5:18 pm by Miss Cherry Pie
There won’t be any roses at our wedding. No manicured, meticulously-crafted centerpieces. No pink, no white, no soft and feminine arrangements. No ma’am, I want loads of crazy and colorful flowers just busting out all over the place. Montana’s wide open skies, stately mountains, and rugged fields call for flowers that evoke natural beauty and wildness in a way that almost seems fresh-picked.
I’m imagining a lot of yellow, gold, orange, red, and burgundy, with maybe a splash of blue here and there as an accent. If we want to be true to our color scheme (burgundy, chocolate brown, and sunflower yellow) we’ll skip the “surprise” accents and look for a darker baseline like dried grasses and seed pods with lighter accents like wild wheat.
As for the flowers themselves, I absolutely love gerbera daisies, dahlias, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, yellow asters, calendula and zinnia. They’re all big, bright blossoms and there are a load of beautiful fall colors in each genus. I’m not a huge botany geek, so I’m not actually sure if all of these flowers will be in season in September, but I know that the majority of them are. Yay!
I’ve been collecting photos of wedding flowers for our reception. Sometimes I’ll like a particular style of arrangement, but not the flowers in it. Sometimes I like the flowers, but not the arrangement. Here are several collections of flowers that are close to the “wildflower” look I want to create:
The color scheme in this first set is much more on the “yellow/white” end of the spectrum than in our “yellow/orange/red” palate, but I looooove the gerbera daisies, and they come in SO MANY lovely colors! I think that the clear vases, the old cans, and the burlap table runners really create a nice, rustic/elegant look and tie these tables together nicely! We’re going to be using an assortment of antique glass canisters, mason jars, old cans, and canning jars for our flower arrangements for a similar look.
I absolutely drool over this set of photos. The wildness of the arrangements and the bright, contrasting colors is just what we’re looking for. I really like the spiky, orange-ish flowers but I don’t know what they’re called. Can anyone help?
We’re also thinking of using galvanized steel pails, like in the right-hand photo, but in a plain or aged silver rather than painted. I adore the vases hanging on the left-hand trellis and, if we have something to hang mason jars from, we might do something similar to that (another example below).
I swear, I was thinking of doing this before I saw this photo! And here’s one more for the road… 
I love the colors of these flowers. I think they are dahlias and maybe zinnias. I can’t remember where I found this photo, so I don’t know. Does anyone have any guesses?
What other fall flowers might make for good additions to our mix?
10 Responses to “Flowers Gone Wild!”
The orange spiky flowers are dahlias (maybe zinnias). Dahlias come in a wide range of colors and shapes 
These are great inspiration photos. The arrangements are wild and natural, but still look intentional and put-together. I love the idea of using grasses!! So MT. Out here in Oregon, we use lavender for natural arrangements. I think you can blue lavender…?
A CherryPie after my own heart! I love your flower ideas, I also want bright colors.
I love your flowers! I’m going with purples, lavenders, pinks, reds, and creams, and I told my florist that I don’t want anything to really look like an “arrangement” or a “bouquet,” I want it to look like an English garden. Sort of unstructured and overgrown and airy. My mom about had a coronary, until the florist pulled out a set of photos and said “Like this?” Funny how seeing photos in a book suddenly gives my ideas a whole new credibility for my mom.
celosia would be awesome too! we’re using orange ones.
If you are going earlier in September, you should consider Indian Blankets(also known as Firewheels). They look like daisies with a single row of petals surrounding the center, and are generally red and yellow and sometimes orange-y.
Here is some info for you:
http://www.easywildflowers.com/quality/gai.pul.htm
We sell the seeds as favors on our website, and they are gorgeous wildflowers! 
Gorgeous! I didn’t want a bouquet looking bouquet either-I had a hand-tied collection of roses, gerbera dasies and hydrangea with ivy and some accent flowers. It looked like I’d just gathered it from the garden and I loved it!
So beautiful! the colors are so vibrant!
I’m curious to see what your florist says about using wildflowers….. coincidentally, my friend is getting married in Glacier this summer, and the florist she found insists wildflowers would not last in her bouquet for the duration of the wedding, and she couldn’t get any for the centerpieces. I find this soo perplexing! Have you come across this?
@LittleMissBride: We haven’t talked to our florist specifically about wildflowers at this point… but if the issue arises, I will let you know!
Thanks! We’re really enjoying following your planning since it’s so close to her home! :o)
[…] for components? Well, they have to follow my rules for flowers, which means no roses, lots of colorful daisies, probably dahlias and chrysanthemums, and whatever […]
