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To be honest, I wasn’t too happy with my appointment with the florist. It actually wasn’t her fault, it was mine – I was unprepared for the meeting and really didn’t know what I wanted. I thought that if I got a chance to see her work, I would be able to get an idea of what I was looking for. I warned her that I was clueless when it came to flowers, and she assured me that she would help me. Instead, by the time I left I was even more confused than when I walked in. I didn’t even know what colors I wanted for the bridesmaid bouquets and my bouquet, or what type of flowers to use.
Did I want to use roses or orchids for the men’s boutonnieres? *Mouth drops open* Did I want to get corsages for the moms or mini bouquets? *confused look on my face* Do I want to acknowledge the grandmothers with corsages of their own? Uhhhhh….
My first mistake was that I was concentrating so much on the centerpieces and assumed the bouquets were well… the easy part. Boy, was I wrong.
I’m probably the only bride who actually visited a florist without knowing exactly what she wanted, but I highly recommend printing a lot of pictures, learning your flowers, and having at least a little bit of a vision before the meeting. I learned the hard way that winging it just wasn’t going to cut it, so for the past two days I have been in a flower frenzy. I went through all my wedding magazines again for anything purple and scoured the internet for as many pictures as I could find, and I THINK I have an idea of what I want now.
These are our wedding colors:
This color wheel from brides.com is pretty cool - you can pretty much just click the button over and over again to get an infinite number of color combinations. Though, I was thinking more in the Plum/Lavender/Olive combination because I wanted the darker, earthier tones.
The bridesmaid dresses have not been bought yet, but it will be in that deep purple color. I am having two MOHs along with four BMs, so I would like to differentiate my two MOHs in some way, either with different dresses (but in the same color) and/or different color bouquets.
One bouquet option is:
Green bouquets for BMs
Green and Lavender bouquets for MOHs
Various purples for me.
Or should I go with a plain white bouquet?
The second one above is actually just like the bouquet that the florist recommended to me, and it’s starting to grow on me. It will also allow me to get a matching calla lily boutonniere for Mr. Martini - maybe something like these?
Another option is to switch it around and get the BM bouquets in lavender instead of green. The GM boutonnieres will most likely be a rose or another flower that is used in the BM’s bouquets.
As far as centerpieces go, I received so many good ideas and a ton of valuable information on price ranges for vases and flowers on my last entry. Thanks so much! I really did consider DIY’ing our own centerpieces, but I don’t have a person who can set up these tables for me. We’ll all be so busy with getting ready and taking pictures before the ceremony. Who takes care of setting up everything the way you want it? I actually tried to google this, and there was so much information on DIY centerpieces, but no information on HOW to DIY your own centerpieces. Does the venue do it for you? Do you pay the florist to set everything up? Do you bribe your BM’s husbands? Please enlighten me!
For set up, our venue will allow us to come the night before and drop it off. They said they will take care of everything…favor placement, etc. I would assume I give them a picture or drawing of the set up I want and they will just do it. Though I’m not too entirely sure 
I really like your first idea with all the color. Your dress is already white so the flowers would really pop…all the shades of purple on your inspiration bouquet photo are simply gorgeous!
I would imagine that a good Day-of coordinator would be able to help with the setting up….. good luck!!
For your own bouquet, I’d recommend choosing the purple flowers - they’ll be so pretty next to your dress! I used a purple bouquet of lilacs and sweet peas for our wedding this past May, and I loved loved loved my purple flowers. I ended up doing white bouquets for my MOH and BM, but I think a light green bouquet would also be really pretty. You might also consider Lady’s Slipper orchids for the BMs bouquets. For a spring wedding, you might also consider anemones (both white and purple) and ranunculus (some white ones have a green center) as great alternatives to roses but that aren’t too expensive. If you choose to do a purple bouquet, there are also some great purple calla lilies, which would still allow you to use a mini-calla for the boutonnieres.
In terms of set-up, you can pay your florist to set everything up for you - but keep in mind that labor is what drives cost up the most. So just having your florist drop everything off at the venue will be significantly less than asking them to set things up. Similarly, more simple centerpiece arrangements will be cheaper than a more complicated design.
For our wedding, we hired a Day-of Coordinator who helped us set up everything, literally. Our caterer set up the placecards and favor boxes, but our DOC did everything else. We really could not have pulled off our mostly-DIY wedding without her. If you can bribe a few of your friends or groomsmen into helping with set-up, that will be great, but just make sure that you have a detailed schedule for the full day so that everyone knows where to be and when and you have enough time for both set-up and for actually getting dressed and ready for the wedding.
We completely DIY’d our flowers. The night before, friends and family assembled the centerpieces, bouquets, corsages, and bouts. (We kept them in water). The morning/early afternoon of the wedding, the groom and a friend dropped them off at the location.
We were going to enlist family to help arrange the centerpieces on the tables, but realized that it really wasn’t going to take long. So our families took turns placing them on the tables during photos. It only took a couple of minutes with all those hands, and it gave people something to do (and a reason to stay close) while they weren’t in the photos.
The thing that my florist did that made so much sense and was a total duh moment was asking me about my dress and actually looked it up online. She made suggestions for the bouquets from there. Because my dress has beading she said that a purple bouqet would take away from the detail.
For your MOHs my cousin just did her wedding and her MOH’s bouqet had more white flowers than the bridesmaids. They were all red and white flowers it was just a different ratio.
Love the colors, they are mine except the green. It is a little to neon for my tastes. Also with the guys boutineers make sure you look at what it is going to look like on the type of suit or tux the guys are going to wear.
I love the idea of the green bouquets for the BMs and I think the picture above with the purple flowers for yourself is just lovely! In my opinion, I’d go with the color. 
Love, love, love the first option of flowers! I think that colored flowers always look so amazing in photographs, whereas sometimes the white/ivory photos get lost against the dress.
Also, we had some great friends who did the majority of the set-up for us and it was great! We didn’t have to pay extra and our friends loved that we asked them to be involved!
You’re not alone in your cluelessness- I also had no idea grandmothers and mothers wore flowers. I opted against that.
Hi! We got married at the end of July, and recently got our pro-pics back. Our choice of florist was a bit of a regret - should have trusted my gut…I too went in clueless and also with a bit of a low priority on flowers…but! after seeing our pro-pics, i recalled just how much i did love the bridesmaids’ bouquets. Our color scheme was a sage green (dresses were Ann Taylor meadow green) and purple. The bm bouquets were lavender roses with green hypericum berries.
We diy’ed the centerpieces. We wanted it homey-rustic looking so we used mason jars and garden roses with the stems exposed. We ordered 100 roses from theflowerexchange.com and we (mostly my mom and bms) cut them and put them in the jars the morning of. In the end, it was worth it for us. Good luck!
I think a white bride’s bouquet is classic but not terribly exciting. I’d go for color. Love your scheme by the way. I actually tried talking my sister into those colors several months ago. Can’t wait to see it come to life in your wedding!
I too had very little idea what I wanted when I first met with my florist. Luckily she was extremely patient as we met time after time and I remained extremely indecisive! But come wedding day the flowers looked 20x better than I ever pictured in my mind! It was such a great surprise.
I think as long as you hire a good florist you can’t go wrong! Good luck.
I love your colors, purple is also one of my colors! Get the purple bouquet for yourself, and the bm’s can have white with green or just green and moh’s can have green and white or just white, add the green in your bouquet for a little pop if you like, or not. There are endless options!
Go with the color!! I like the top right one.
I, too, went in totally clueless. I thought that i would talk about the feel and color I wanted and the rest would just take care of itself. I also assumed that the flower lady would have as much skill dealing with people as she does with flowers, but this was not the case. In the end, I was happy with the result, and the fact that she didn’t blindly follow what I wanted. Did you know that Lily of the Valley wilts and turns brown when out of water for only a short time? Neither did I. Make sure your florist fills you in on these details.
I heart your color scheme — we’re using the same one, except silver instead of chartreuse. Purple’s the new black! LOL.
color color color! the green, green and purple, then purple transition will be so cool in pictures. i did the same thing–green for my two bridesmaids, green with a pop or two of orange in my MOH’s, and mostly orange with a little bit of green for mine. it looked great.
Purple is totally the new black/brown. It goes with everything. I just had a girly eggplant and pink wedding last weekend. I used roses and dark purple mini callas for flowers. I have some great pictures that I found on the internet of a lime and purple arrangement that I can send you. Email me at kobrien.frank at yahoo dot com. It is very modern. I went more romantic with my florals. Also agree with pp that you should go for color!
If you are extremely organized and so is your family, you might be able to DIY as some of the above posters suggested, but I would just leave it to the pros to create and set things up for you. Your day is for you to reflect on getting married, not worry about whether or not the centerpieces are going to get done or look right. I am so happy that I found vendors who took care of everything and that all I had to do was walk into the reception in awe of how great everything looked.
first of all, i love your color scheme. so beautiful! next, i really like the first idea for your flowers - green, purple and green, all purple. i think the purple flowers against your dress would look fabulous. they’d make for some beautiful pictures. lastly, i’m sure there’s someone who you’re connected with in some way that can help you out with the centerpieces. i think you’ll really save money doing them yourself. when FSIL got married in december and she needed someone to put her centerpieces together at the venue the day of, her uncle, FI, and myself volunteered to do it. they were the same tall cylinders with water, but candles not flowers. with the three of us doing it, it took all of an hour to completely set up the tables (sans the dishes and glasses, which the venue took care of). we were glad to do it for her, and it allowed her to save a lot of money. i’m sure there is someone - a friend, family member, spouse of a friend - that will be willing to help you out on your big day!
[...] I almost stopped breathing when I saw my purple bouquet. It looked even better than the inspiration picture I gave her. [...]
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Mrs. Martini, New Jersey Age and Occupation: 30, Telecom by day, Superhero by night Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Investments & Finance by day, Hip hop dancer by night Engagement Date: May 24, 2008 Wedding Date: March, 2009 Blogging Since: August 18, 2008 Venue: The Venetian About Me: Things that make me happy: Haribo Happy Cola gummies, TV shows on DVD, buying books although I never read them, 80’s rock ballads, ramen, and of course Mr. Martini! He is the calm, logical and number crunching finance guy. I can’t even multiply double digit numbers in my head and I am so indecisive that trying to choose between light green or slightly lighter green paper stresses me out (Wedding planning is going to be soooo much fun). We both find great joy in nabbing great seats at the movie theater for a blockbuster movie on opening weekend, and we are both absolutely crazy about snowboarding. And he loves to cook, I love to eat!
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