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First of all I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful and helpful responses on my florist dilemma post. You were all so encouraging and gave me a lot of things to think about!
And now, I’m happy to report that the Coyotes have finally decided on a florist. Yippee!!
To recap, Momma Coyote and I met with two florists. One was very straightforward and gave me exactly what I showed him in photos while the other was more creative and kind of ran with my inspiration to create something new. Both were great options, but after a few conversations with the more creative florist I realized that we just had two very different visions. I found that I had trouble explaining to her the kind of feel I wanted for our wedding—something that I did not run into with the other florist.
We are meeting with our florist in a few weeks to nail down the specifics and in the meantime I’m gathering some more inspiration so I’m better prepared for our next chat.
I still luuuurve calla lilies (though I don’t love the dolla signs that come with them) so I know without a doubt that at least some burgundy callas will make an appearance and maaaaybe some hot pink ones too:
Burgundy calla lilies image via Aruntx
Remember how much I love-love-looooved the glamelia style bouquet a while back? Not much has changed, I still love them. But I must admit that ultimately, I will not be sporting one on our wedding day. In the end, I decided against using fake petals or flowers of any kind, and that a real version was just out of the budget.
The important part about those glamelias, though, is that they are what sparked my interest in wedding flowers in general. Before I discovered their beauty, I really didn’t care about it either way. Flowers seemed like an extra expense, something we didn’t need, something that could be easily replaced by candles or bamboo or something of the sort. Which I still think they can be…but all of a sudden, I didn’t want flower replacements at our wedding; I wanted actual, fresh, living flowers. Scratch that. Needed them. Thus began my wedding flower pinning spree.
Do you remember the boutonnieres I made for our ring bearers, which I shared a few weeks ago? I stacked rosettes made out of ribbon and added a little puppy figurine to make them a little less stuffy than the traditional boutonnieres that the groomsmen will be wearing. Junior Mink, my golden retriever, is our constant companion (so constant that people seem surprised if they see us downtown without him!), and I thought it’d be fun to have a few references to him at our wedding.
Photo by Miss Mink
In addition to our four ring bearers, Mr. Mink’s niece is going to serve as our flower girl. I have a feeling Mini Mink is going to love her role. I wanted to give her something along the lines of the boutonnieres that would fit in with her position. I decided to make her a fabric-flower corsage.
Initially we seriously considered doing the flowers ourselves. My cousin and her mother were florists in another life (my auntie did my parents’ flowers for their wedding). I am also pretty handy with flowers and I like them.
There are a few major snags: we don’t live in Kansas City, we likely won’t have access to massive fridge or cooler space, my cousin will also be traveling for the wedding and we want her to enjoy the adventure, AND I don’t want to be frazzled. I know myself enough to know that I would probably be frazzled if we DIY’ed the flowers. Just The Facts of Life.
So we started hunting for pretty florists that hopefully used local, in-season flowers. Boy oh boy we did. Ashley with Good Earth Floral Design Studio (and Mr. & Mrs.) will be our flower mistress. Check her work out:
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All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
Guys, I am like the worst bride ever.
Image via Funny Picture Script / That’s my guilty face.
I met with with two florists a few months ago. And now, there are only five months left till the wedding and I still haven’t chosen one yet. And do you want to know why? It’s not because I didn’t like them. (Actually, they were both pretty awesome.) It’s because I really just don’t care about flowers.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Once upon a time, in my early days as a Bee, I wrote this post about my plans to create a brooch bouquet. I even gave you a little sneak peek at its progress here, but that is where I stopped! Other projects became more of a priority and I never got around to sharing the final product with you before the wedding. It’s your lucky day because I’m sharing now!
This project was indeed a labor of love and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I’m still so in love with it and I now get to enjoy it every day.
So how about I just show it to you and then tell you how it came to be?
Photo by Stephen Martin Photography
I won’t reinvent the wheel when other bees before me have posted fantastic tutorials on how to make your own, including Mrs. Sloth’s and Mrs. Stripes’, whose post was recently featured on the Helpful Series. I followed Stripes’ method with just a few modifications.
Read more…
Very Highly Recommended
These vendors went above and beyond anything we would have expected.
Fine Invitations (Paper goods)- Including invitation package, programs and our place cards. We were so happy with all of our paper goods and they were incredibly flexible. We may have procrastinated a little with our program and in the end they stayed back and Mr. Teaspoon collected them the evening before the wedding.
It’s been a little while since I talked about flowers. Last I mentioned them, I was just gathering inspiration and taking note of all the fantastic florists in the Charlottesville area.
This is when I actually started to collaborate with another bride who was also getting married at Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards. She found me through blogging and we chatted now and then by email about the planning process. We even met up at the vineyard for lunch one afternoon. Does that make us venue twins?
We’re both busy with time intensive jobs and were able to “divide and conquer” a little bit when it come to vendor research. For example, she had already spoken to one florist on my list and knew that she only took jobs where the flower budget was over a certain amount. That amount was a little over my budget, so I crossed her off my list. There were a few cases where we had both met with the same vendor (floral and otherwise) and it was helpful to compare notes after those meetings.
From Pat’s Floral Designs’ Facebook page / Flowers by Pat’s Floral Designs / Photo by Jen Fariello Photography
Did I mention that we are going to have FOUR of our little nephews in our wedding? We don’t want them to be overly scripted or get too rigid with their roles, so I envision just sending them all down the aisle as a group to do what little boys do: make noise and make people smile.
I wanted to give the boys boutonnieres, but didn’t find the idea of having anything too formal pinned to their outfits. I started to look for a cute alternative. First, I found ribbon badges all over the internet. My favorite came from the Weddingbee boards.
The button in the middle of the ribbon badge from those images was cute, but not cute enough. I wanted something that little boys would like. I also hoped that it would be in some way related to the wedding. That’s when I started looking for little golden retrievers. I was thinking of boutonnieres like these from Fritts Rosenow:
From Love and Lavender / Boutonnières by Fritts Rosenow
Mr. Mink, who I call eagle eye when we shopping, helped me comb the scrapbook and jewelry sections of the craft store one Sunday completely expecting to find some little golden retrievers.
Read more…
I know that flowers tend to just die after the wedding (which totally stinks) and that a lot of people consider them a waste of money…but flowers are one of my favorite things about weddings, and they are something I’m willing to put a little bit of money into. I mean, when else are you going to have an excuse to carry around a gorgeous bouquet all day!?
The florist I’m meeting with was highly recommended to me by a friend, and I can’t wait to see what kind of work he’ll be able to do for me on our very limited budget. Luckily, my favorite centerpieces include lots of greenery and filler, so that should help us stay within budget and still have gorgeous flowers!
Because the venue has very dark stained wood paneling and nice, neutral beige walls, we have decided to stick with a very natural color palate for the flowers and the wedding.
Here is some of the inspiration I showed the florist…
I love the shape of this arrangement.
Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Gia Canali
I’m hoping our centerpieces will have the fullness and texture of this centerpiece…minus the pink! I promised Mr. Opossum we would not have a super girly wedding.
I recently shared how lack of enthusiasm from one vendor made choosing our florist an easy decision. Then I realized I failed to share our actual floral selections! (I’m sure y’all were on pins and needles! 
)
When it came time to pick out flowers for my bouquets, I was lost. Besides my unhealthy obsession with yellow roses, I didn’t know the difference between ranunculus and lisianthus. (Flower names seemed like a foreign language!) I tried looking up a floral dictionary website, but without any background information, I was completely overwhelmed. I turned to sites like Pinterest and the Knot, searching for inspiration. I saved anything that peaked my interest (and made sure to list the flower names when saving the pictures). I quickly discovered that big bloom flowers were my favorite:
Garden Roses
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| Image via Flowers by Shirley |
The more I looked at blogs like Style Me Pretty and Ruffled…the more I was set on having a vintage-themed wedding and vintage-themed tablescapes. I literally think I spent a good 15 hours Googling various combinations of “vintage wedding table” and poring through images. As I showed you all previously, we had narrowed down our “extra centerpiece items” to two choices: vintage books or vintage teapots/china. Which did we choose? Drumroll, please!
Image via Business Insider
We went with the vintage teapots/china.
OK. I admit it. I am in love with Martha Stewart. I’m pretty sure “tablescape” is a made-up word, and that designing one can make brides and housewives around the world jump with excitement. And I’m pretty sure that designing a beautiful tablescape would make Martha proud.
But, what does it mean? Well, I couldn’t find the official Webster’s definition of tablescape, but I did find the Urban Dictionary defintion here:
Designing a dining table (for a dinner party) with useless, cheap and tacky knicknacks, usually with some kind of lame-assed theme. And usually they are nowhere as inexpensive as she likes to claim. Allegedly created by Food Network hack Sandra “Semi-Homemade” Lee.
Well, our tablescapes hopefully won’t include useless or tacky knicknacks, but hopefully they will include some cheap ones! As I told you all in a previous post, we booked the amazing Lougheed House, and one of the reasons we loved it so much…is because there won’t be a huge need for decorations. We won’t need to have amazing tablescapes because the ornate design of the house won’t need it. I mean, did you see the ceilings?! I want those ceilings in my apartment.
But…we do want a “lame-assed theme.” That is precisely why we booked Lougheed (the fact that Chiavari chairs are included may have persuaded me…just a little)! We wanted the ever-so-popular vintage-themed wedding. More specifically, I was picturing our “theme” to look like this:
Image via Ruffled Blog / Photography by She Wanders / Design by Jennifer Nesovic
I may have mentioned a time or two my love of yellow roses and how they influenced my color selections. With a more concrete vision of where I saw the wedding going, I contacted two florists to chat about my ideas and receive quotes. Both florists came highly recommended and had plenty of experience working at Wren.
I met with the first florist after seeing some of her handiwork on display at the open house Mr. Hawk and I attended. I loved being able to see table arrangements and bouquets in person. She was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and clearly knew the setup of both Wren and Legacy Hall. Less than a week after our meeting, she sent me a detailed outline of all of the main flowers, colors, and arrangements. She even wrote out in paragraph form the setup and details. (She was a type-A girl’s dream.)
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