Weddingbee Blog

I have hinted at my love for lavender briefly, but its place in our wedding will be so prominent that I think it deserves a whole post to itself.

We decided early on in the planning that we would leave the bouquet and Mr E’s buttonhole up to a florist to save stress, but that we would take care of the reception centrepieces ourselves, not only for our budget’s sake, but also because we don’t see the point in paying someone to do something that we are capable of doing ourselves. I don’t have visions of complicated arrangements in my head, my idea of centrepieces is simple bunches of whatever I can get from the supermarket or farmers’ market stuck in mason jars. But I do want these centrepieces to have something that ties them all together, and that something is lavender.

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Why lavender? It all started in February. Mr E and I were wandering through the Nelson Saturday morning market, and I stumbled across a stall run by a local farm selling all sorts of lavender products as well as bunches and bunches of dried lavender. For $5 each! The wheels in my head started turning, and I thought: why not? Why couldn’t the main floral element of our wedding be lavender? I think it is beautiful either in its dry form or fresh, and there is something romantic and nostalgic about the combination of lavender and lace (our wedding’s other central element). I already am using it in my “lavender heart sachet” decorations, and the possibilities for incorporating it in other areas are endless (lavender for tossing, lavender lemonade, in the flower girl’s hair etc). Not to mention, lavender brings purple and summer together, just the thing we need for our garden tea party-picnic fusion.

Some lavender inspiration pics to help you see what I mean:

Found here

Union Photography via here

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Combine these simple arrangements with some vintage china, lace doilies and toss in a few pink, white and mauve garden roses and I think we can call it a day.

Some more things we can do with lavender:

Spice up the programmes (source)

Peg to place cards or reserved signs (source)

Decorate the cake perhaps? (source)

I think I’m going to have fun incorporating this element. The plan is to order 20 or so bunches of dried lavender about a month before the wedding, all for under $100 NZD as we will get a bulk discount, and having them early means I can get at least some of the centrepieces done at a *leisurely* pace (ha! Like anything will be leisurely a month before the wedding…) and then finish them off the day before when I get the roses and anything else I feel like throwing in. I can also do some lavender buttonholes for the dads and groomsmen early. I figure the more I can avoid doing at the last second, the better.

Fun fact: Lavender represents devotion, love, loyalty and luck. Fairly fitting, don’t you think? Plus the scent will always remind us of our wedding day.

What do you all think? Anyone else using lavender in their wedding? What other ideas for using lavender have you come up with?