Weddingbee Blog

On the Thursday before the wedding, we woke up to the welcome sound of pouring rain. Why was it welcome? Because that Thursday storm wasn’t supposed to happen until Saturday, and I had been panicking all week because it looked like our plans for a garden picnic wedding were going to get washed out. But, thanks to a strong southerly wind, the storm came early, and I could breathe a bit easier.

The rain also brought another benefit: perfectly cool weather for DIYing our reception flowers!

Now, I would like to preface the following with a disclaimer:

I know hardly anything about flowers except that they like water and that a warm environment can make them wilt. Armed with that extravagant amount of knowledge, Mr E and I picked up our 100 roses, and two giant bunches each of baby’s breath and some stuff that looks like purple baby’s breath from a local branch of the Flower Grower’s Association and went to work in my parents’ garage.

Our method was this: strip each rose stem of most of its leaves, chop the stems under running water, then arrange them haphazardly in various china jugs, mason jars, and other containers until we achieved something that looked satisfactory.

Mr E cut some lavender from the garden as well to include in the arrangements.

Thankfully, it is pretty hard for flowers to look bad in my opinion, so we were pleased with the results. All in all, the job took us about 2-3 hours, saved us a bucket load of cash, and turned out to be a very worthwhile DIY project.

Once the flowers were all done it was time to move absolutely all the wedding decorations and reception paraphernalia to our venue. Before we began the task looked a little daunting:

But in the end, we managed to fit it all into two cars, and very slowly drove over the hills between my parents’ house and Gardens of the World. We didn’t crack one teacup! Or spill one drop of water from our flower containers.

What I haven’t mentioned before is that for the few nights left before the wedding all of my family and I had the privilege of staying at Aldourie Haven, a huge old farmhouse mansion built in 1862 out in the country. Next door, in a tiny wee cottage, was where Mr E and his family were staying for their time in New Zealand.

Massive farmhouse with courtyard

Mr E and his grandfather relaxing on their cottage porch

Getting the chance to stay at Aldourie was an incredible bonus. My parents’ rental wasn’t really adequate for getting ready in, and it was also very crowded. Aldourie was offered to us out of the blue by a couple from my grandparents’ church. They run the place as a retreat centre now, and it was just the tranquil spot we needed (complete with sheep and cows!).

Moo!

That Thursday night, we had an impromptu casual girls’ night in the farmhouse, while the boys played poker next door. We girls were all so tired that we were content with painting our toenails and watching Bride & Prejudice (what can I say, I love anything with a little Bollywood flair). Oh, and there was food, of course.

All my favourites….

A few out of town friends who had just arrived managed to find us at Aldourie and we put up our feet and stuffed our faces. Friend F and Mr E’s mother were the only ones with any energy—the former spent the time finishing the bridesmaids’ knitted shrugs, while my future mother-in-law worked on a very special project that I will share with you in another post!

Friend F knits away diligently….

…While FMIL stitches. What could she be making? You will have to wait to find out!

So, that was Thursday. By the end of that day I was feeling like things were under control and we were getting there. Little did I know that Friday would throw all those feelings out the window…

Anyone else out there consider DIYing your flowers? In retrospect, are you glad you did/didn’t?

*All photos taken by friends/ family

——–

So far in our midsummer dream…

• On Wednesday we welcomed our guests with pizza