Weddingbee Blog

I realize that I haven’t blogged about our floral plans. Way back when I still had months and months until the wedding, I had mentioned making fabric flowers. As those months dwindled and turned to weeks, that simply wasn’t going to happen. I had neither the time nor the energy to make fabric flowers. We decided that the best course of action would be to head down to Los Angeles’ Flower District to purchase fresh flowers and arrange them ourselves the Thursday before the wedding.

Step Mom Doxie and I woke up bright and early on the Saturday after my bridal shower. The wedding was in two weeks, and we knew we had to finalize our floral plans so we set out to drive down early, choose and place orders for our flowers, make a quick IKEA run and then head home. With a vague theme of easy, casual, gardeny, throw-them-in-a-vase-and-call-it-a-day, a list of flowers that I loved, and an idea of our budget, we figured we’d have no trouble at all.

This was my first trip to the Flower District, and I have to admit, it was a little bit overwhelming. Though, the fact that it was the day before mother’s day definitely added to the chaos.

Flowers and people EVERYWHERE! Buildings that spanned entire blocks! Definitely not a place for anyone with allergies.

On our shopping list for the day was:

Red Ranunculus

Red dahlias

Red garden roses

Red button mums

And whatever else we may have found that would coordinate.

Well, we arrived, searched, searched, and searched. Nothing. NOTHING. Hundreds of thousands of flowers, and the only red ones were carnations, roses, and gerbera daisies. Apparently, because it was right in between seasons, variety was low.

We wandered around for about an hour, talked to a handful of vendors, and still no luck. One vendor had red ranunculus, but they were pretty sad looking. I was so disappointed. Imagine: two weeks before the wedding, and our one plan for flowers completely fell through. We left, dejected, and made our way to IKEA.

All was not lost, though! IKEA came through majorly. Two weeks until the wedding, and our centerpieces had been completely re-imagined thanks to impeccable Swedish design!

Did you have to reinvent any of your ideas close to the wedding? How did they turn out?