Weddingbee

After visiting the rental company outside Whitefish, mom, Katalin, and I headed back to Columbia Falls to meet with Glacier Wallflower and plan our wedding florals.

Our meeting with the florist had me a little nervous. I have to admit that while I like flowers, I don’t know very much about them, or necessarily how to communicate what I want.

I tend to buy the cheapest, brightest bouquets at local farmers markets and avoid florist’s shops because they’re often stuffy and filled with scary trinkets like this…

(a hooker giraffe??) when the actual flowers are, more often than not, hidden in a refrigerator somewhere.

This is the first time I’ve been to a florist and actually talked about flowers since I planned my corsage and Mr. CP’s boutonnière for senior prom. I was in over my head. For that reason, I brought with me printouts of my posts about centerpieces and bouquets as well as photos of floral inspirations.

Thankfully, one of Katalin’s other jobs (aside from wedding coordinator extraordinaire) is floral arrangement through Avant Floral Design in Bozeman, Montana. So when I was out of ideas, or didn’t know how exactly to answer the florist’s question about what I wanted, Katalin was able to help me along. She obviously had some ideas about what would work and what wouldn’t - I caught her shaking her head or nodding unconsciously at different points in the conversation.

At the end of our hour and a half meeting, we decided (roughly) on the following:

One 10-inch “fresh-picked” bridal bouquet composed of red dahlias, montbretia, brown hypericum, chocolate cosmos, and grasses.

Five smaller bridesmaids bouquets of orange, yellow, and variegated dahlias, montbretia, and grasses.

One groom’s boutonnière of grasses and hypericum berries and smaller groomsmen’s/father’s boutonnières of the same.

Small floral clutches of 2-3 dahlias and grasses for the mothers.

Twelve to fifteen table centerpieces of multi-colored dahlias, zinnia, fresia, and grasses in large mason jars.

Ten to twenty small shepherd’s hook arrangements of red dahlias and grasses to hang in the aisleway and at the “altar.”

I also originally asked the florist for some red dahlia petals that our flower girl could scatter from a small galvanized pail as she walked the aisle in front of me. I thought this would soooo adorable. I even picked up the biggest, CUTEST stuffed bison as a gift for her… But only a few days after I got back from Montana I found out that she won’t be able to come to our wedding after all. Her mommy is a matron of honor at another wedding and the bachelorette party is the same weekend as our nuptials!

I’m sad we don’t have a flower girl anymore (anyone know where we can rent one?), but relieved to have taken care of the rest of our floral arrangements. I love knowing that we’ll have so many natural, colorful decorations on our wedding day - and that someone else is taking care of creating them while I sit back and relax.

What was your favorite part of designing your wedding florals?

[Image sources: fire zinnia, crocosima/montbretia, yellow dahlia, orange dahlia, fresia, chocolate cosmos, brown/burgundy hypericum berries, red ball dahlia, , red dahlia detail, ornamental grass]

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