Wedding Flowers

My flowers have been the task I have most dreaded. I don't know a whole lot about arranging flowers and really have no concept of amounts I would need. Every time I tried to figure it out I ended up way too overwhelmed. Picking out the flowers I wanted wasn't too hard of a task, but it definitely took a lot more research than I expected. Sadly, I did not find a miraculous website that was basically a flower encyclopedia with photos of every flower imaginable, and organized by color and size or something. Now this may exist, but I did not come across it. The one site that I ordered some of my flowers from did have a pretty good organization of their flowers and you could search based on color. Fifty Flowers could be a good place to start if you are unsure of what flowers you want to use.

Now to the hard part of figuring out how many flowers we needed. First off I had to figure out where there would be flowers, and then break it down to how many stems of each flower I would need for that particular thing. First up was the tables. My estimate on guests attending is around 175 (though so far we only have 80 or so confirmed via RSVP yes's) so with 8 people per table and adding in a few extra I came up with an estimate of 25 tables. I added a few extra tables since I am not doing assigned seating and I don't want anyone to feel like they are "stuck" with some people because there are no other seats. Now my arrangements planned per table are 3 glass cylinders ( one small single bud size, one medium, and one large) we figured we would need around 3 hydrangeas per table and somewhere around half a dozen of other flowers.

To give you an idea of the look I am aiming for here are some pictures I got my inspiration from:

Next on the list was my hydrangea pomanders that I want to hang on the side of some of the chairs along the aisle. I guessed we would have around 15 and each could be made with around 2 hydrangeas. Not sure if I was correct in this assessment or not..and in actuality we ended up with 18 foam balls not that we have to use them all.

My cake is going to have hydrangeas as well, yes it is a very hydrangea-y wedding. I assumed 5 on this tops. I want them more cascading down the cake so the individual flowers will be removed from the stems.

Then there is the Arbor, which we did buy some fake vines with blue hydrangeas on them from Michael's but I still want to incorporate real flowers in with it. This will be done with leftovers I suppose.

There will also be some flowers on the gift table and other various places as well which will be made with the leftover flowers. I have some big tall glass cylinders. Maybe 20" tall? Which we will probably fill with limes and have flowers on top.

The boutonnieres I figured we would only need 3 hydrangeas total probably.

The Bouquets... Mine will be slightly larger than the bridesmaids. I want it to be light blue hydrangeas ( probably 4 stems) then have both the white and green roses mixed in. While the bridesmaids will have the brighter blue/ periwinkle hydrangeas ( probably 3 stems) and I am not sure if I will add green roses to theirs or not.

Now that I am writing this out I still feel unprepared even after ordering flowers! Which is probably silly, and I will have a lot of people helping out. If we need to we will go buy more flowers from the store. HA!

In actuality this is what I ordered from wedding hydrangea. I did the order of 150 stems and I broke down the colors to be this:

15 Purple & Lavender

50 Dark & Medium Blue
15 Light Blue

15 Fresh Green

50 Periwinkle


The breakdown of the flowers ordered on Fifty Flowers are:

Purple Anemones: 75 (mine will have a black center)
Jade Green Roses: 50

Purple Lisianthus: 100

Amelia creamy white roses: 50

Now anytime I order something online I google "coupon codes for ". With Fifty Flowers I lucked out and found a coupon for 5% off and it saved us $29.00! Always a bonus. All the flowers will be arriving Thursday May 20th so we have time to make arrangements before the Saturday wedding. Hopefully they all get here on time and are pretty and we have enough!

I'm getting married next month!

Last night I feel like I accomplished a TON!

After work I went to the mall with Bekah, Ashley and Jessica. I found myself some boobies as I like to call them. Really I just ended up purchasing a "NuBra Ultalite" Bra. Which is basically a thin fabric adhesive bra. I didn't want something too paded, and all of the inserts I tried were not good. I was planning on just sewing some into my wedding dress but sadly that didn't work. Why can't anything be simple?! Then we thougth to forgo them alltogether but not having any type bra/support/coverage wasn't working either. Hopefully this solution will workout perfect, but I have yet to try it. Fingers crossed because this option at $32 seems like heaven compared to he higher priced options from $56 to $68. Too much for a bra I will rarely wear if you ask me.

I also purchased some very light fake eyelashes to possibly wear at my wedding. Since it seems to be that either I am doing my own makeup, or I will let Bekah do it. (Probably the latter). I am thinking of a more natural appearance. I do not want to look over done. I don't want a super dark night look, but something between a "day" and a "night look. Maybe have a light pink, neutrals and purples color palate? Purple always seems to look good with my skin tone and greenish grey eyes. I need to have some test runs...

After our shopping Bekah and I went to my mom's where she tried on her dress and sadly it still needs another (small) alteration! Bekah's ribcage and shoulders are just so miniscule! She's near impossible to fit! ha. Fingers crossed it will be perfect after this.

My mom and I then ordered some necessities at Save on crafts:

• the barkwire I showed in my previous blog... you can look at it here



• floral wire



• floral tape







• white tulle



• floral foam spheres (to attempt to make my pomanders)







• An arbor/ Arch

This Arbor is different from the Arbor I wanted before. you can see it here. Originally we were going to get one made to look like the one I found before, but figured that may be too much work. Then we opted to either buy the exact one I saw online (which was somewhere around $500), or look for something else. While we were shopping on save on crafts I decided to see if they have Arbors (which of course they did, they have EVERYTHING). Thats when we found this one, which is real wood and involves some assembly but comes with everything you need. Not to mention it was only $150. So we saved a good chunk of money.

In addition to my great finds at save on crafts we also ordered my wedding favors (personalized M&M's). I posted about them a while ago. You can read more about it here. I did not order exactly what I had picked out then, but it is still pretty similar. ie: the words are the same. (Brittany & Zach, May 22, 2010, and Tie the knot). I decided to just stick with words, no pictures. I also opted to go with paler colors. I picked a light blue, a lavendar, and a pearlized white. Hopefully we get them relatively soon so we can start putting the little favors together. We ordered the 10lb. bulk. I am hoping that it's enough, otherwise we will be buying some plain M&M's to mix in with the personalized ones.

Then last but not least we ordered my flowers!( to be expanded upon in another post).

On a complete side note: I think I am going to start tanning today, as well as I have been trying to work on my posture and not slouch so much. It is soooo hard though and almost painful to sit up straight. Sitting at a computer all day doesn't help much either. Hopefully by the wedding my posture will look a little better and I won't be the slouchy bride.

First Dress Fitting!

FINALLY my grandma had my actual wedding dress ready for the first fitting! The top was a little too see through still so we will have to add another layer of fabric. It was definately still a work in progress. the lining wasn't attached to the outside fabric yet, we needed some more tulle, pieces still needed to be made and added, still needed a zipper, etc. But it was so exciting getting to try on a dress that actually looks like a wedding dress! It is going to be so pretty! I would post pictures but I don't want to risk Zach seeing it. The little clues above were almost more than I wanted to reveal.

Don't worry though. There will probably be a whole nice long blog entry about the dress and the process and whole transformation of my design of it, from what it started as, to what it developed into. And yes I promise to include LOADS of pictures.



Other notes Zach and I have been super busy house hunting and I really have been slacking on the wedding planning. I feel like there are things I should be doing because as the date draws ever nearer I am going to be swamped with things to do. ( ONLY 64 DAYS TO GO!) My mom was saying how I needed to make a timeline. With when things need to be done from now up until the date as well as a timeline of the weekend of the wedding ( especially the wedding day). It seems so overwhelming to do that all myself though.



The Bridal shower is set for April 24th which is also the day the RSVP's are due. Which I have only gotten about 40 back so to the other... 90 or so of you, you need to get on that!



The bachelorette party has had little to no planning so far. I guess Ashley is working on getting all the bridesmaids in to help with that. I don't know if it will be dinner then out to some bars or what. I do know we were thinking about getting a Limo so we could pAArty it up without driving!



I think I have figured out where I will order my flowers. the hydrangea's I am still set on ordering from Wedding hydrangea they also have a blog! You can view it here.

I was already thinking about using just hydrangeas in a bright blueish purple ( to coordinate with the bridesmaid sashes) for the groomsmen's boutonnieres. Low and behold their blog had the perfect example! As seen below:

For the rest of the flowers ( bright green roses, ivory/cream/ or white roses, Purple Lisianthus, and Purple Anenome's) I will get from Fifty Flowers which seems to have all the flowers I want to order and for reasonable prices.

Most of what I have read seems to say that the flowers should be ordered 2-3 weeks before the wedding. I don't know if you can order them sooner or if I should just go with that estimate. They will get delivered thursday. Not sure if we should make up all the flowers Friday? I'm thinking doing it all the day of the wedding may be too hectic. Any suggestions? Has anyone else done their own wedding flowers? I still need to read up more on making the bouquets and making the boutonnieres and everything too.

I guess that is enough updating for today!

Few little updates

Well the invites going out ended up with problems! Of course... I was concerned about the weight of them so I took them to work to weigh them and check the postage. They weighed at 44 cents. I thought all was well. However we got around 40 returned some listing they needed an additional 17 cents and others an additional 37 cents. What the heck?! I also found out that some others were delivered anyways and the postman paid for it. While some were delivered and my guests were expected to pay! What the heck! Yet still at least half were delivered with the 44 cent postage completely normal. Sounds totally retarded to me, especially since they all were the same exact thing. So apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced. Hopefully everyone got their invites and they aren't lost in the mail! We did send out all the returns with additional postage so some may still be arriving. I've already gotten a few responses back!

Also plans were adjusted on my dress and the new mock up is WAY better. I am really happy with it and can't wait to try on my real dress rather than some crazy teal tester! hahaha

Another great accomplishment is that I have gotten pretty much all the cyllinders I need! Hurray! So glad I don't have to hunt for any more on my days off.

Not much else new. I am still trying to figure out flowers. I was leaning towards just hydrangeas, white and green roses, and purple ranunculous. But the ranunculous is probing hard to find so I may have to pick another flower ( purple lisianthus or purple anenome would be my next choice... we shall see!)

Sorry my posts are lacking in excitement!

Invites are out!

The invitations have been mailed! Yesterday to be exact. There are still a handful of people we need to send some to which I am finishing them up after work today. But most local people should probably get their invitations today!

I haven't been updating much, but I guess not too much is going on. I went and picked up some single stem cylinders today at michaels, So I think that I should have enough small ones now. The big fatties are proving hard to come by. I have been to countless thrift stores with no luck. I feel the pressure of time now that there is less than three months until the big day. We may end up needing to order some. Michaels doesn't even have any like what I want.

Ashley B's bridesmaid dress is completely finished. Bekah's.. fingers crossed that it doesn't need any more alterations... has been fixed but we are waiting for her to try it on again. Ashley and Alyssa's need to be started ASAP. Especially after knowing how many adjustments we had to make to Ashley and Bekah's dresses.

My grandma has been working on a mock dress for me to work out any kinks before she starts working with the $33 a yard fabric. I am really starting to worry about how the dress is going to look and hope that my design actually looks good on my body. I kind of feel like cursing myself for not trying on a single wedding dress. What was I thinking!? Usually my ideas turn out good so I am praying this is one of those cases.

On another note, I got Zach's wedding ring!

Pretty crappy cellphone picture but oh well. It is white gold with a satin finish in the middle and polished edges. I spent quite a bit on it so he had better wear it!

I do still need to figure out the whole flower situation. (order the hydrangeas online and go into norfolk florist to order the rest...) That is definately the biggest thing looming over my head, as well as finding a wedding officiant. I still feel a bit like I don't know where to start. Maybe the courthouse? I want a very short and simple ceremony. Not religious. No silly pouring of the sands or unity candles or any of that junk.

Still not sure how the layout of the tent and everything is going to work. Hopefully we can squish everything into Don's yard!

That's pretty much all the new info I have for now.

Bouquets

Today Ashley, Bekah, My mom and I managed to assemble all of the invitations. Though we still need to print addresses on all of them.

Tomorrow my mom and I are going hunting for her dress and probably going by my Grandma's to talk about mine...

I've been searching high and low to try and decide exactly what flowers I want. Now is the time I need to start figuring out how many and what all we need to order. Still haven't seen anything like what I want but for my bouquet I am thinking the lighter blue hydrangea, white/ivory roses, chartruse roses, bachelors button and purple lisianthus.(maybe lavendar lisianthus for my bouquet).

(the big purple flower-purple lisianthus)

The Bridesmaids will have the Lisianthus, bachelors buttons, both roses and then the brighter blue, purple, and green hydrangeas.

This is what I am thinking right now. Guess it could still change...

Flower Research

I have been on a hunt for flowers here is a compiled list of flowers I liked/ thought I may be able to use...

Agapanthus (blue, lavender, white)

Ageratum (purple,blue)

Gardinia (white)

Delphinium (blue)

Bachelor's Button (Purple, Blue)

Hydrangea's (of course the main flower, I want to use Green, Blue, and Purple variations)

the picture shown is a blue mophead hydrangea

Anemone (purple)

Parrot Tulip

Gladiolus ( green and purple)

Ranunculous (purple, green) I really like this one

Phlox (purple, blue)

Snowball (green)

Statice (purple)

Lisianthus (purple)

Pincushion (purple)

Roses (miniature? cream or white)

Tweedia (blue)

These are all just ideas, I am still looking. I need to go checkout a flower encyclopedia or something from the library. But there are certainly some I like. I also need to find some more greenery... Obviously I will not be using all these flowers. It is a start though. Hydrangeas will make up the bulk of the flowers.