On Acquiring Flowers

From the beginning, I knew that I didn’t want a ton of flowers as decorations for my wedding. My reasoning was thus:

• Flowers are expensive (especially out-of-season ones, which, as it was a February wedding, included most blooms) and we had a limited budget.
• I thought that the sparkle created with candles and mirrors was more elegant and fit a winter wedding better.
• The Now-Beloved Husband is allergic to most plant life and I wanted him to survive the day.
• I didn’t want to contend with a professional florist.

That last one may seem a little cantankerous, but I’d heard/read enough horror stories about florists bringing the flowers late, substituting different flowers without consulting the bride, or failing to produce what the bride had wanted that I decided that I’d be safer doing it myself.

My decision was vindicated by one of our local florist’s flat refusal to do business with me. Every time I’d go in, asking about ordering flowers for a wedding, I’d get confused or pained looks and mumbled responses. The one woman who knew what I was asking made it clear that she didn’t want to help me, and every time I phoned, I was told that the woman who handled such things was “out”. The lesson here: if a vendor won’t cooperate with you, go to a different one. Even if I had been able to get this shop to finally work with me, who knows what sort of stress I’d have had getting them to create what I wanted, since it felt obvious to me that they didn’t really want my business. I don’t know if it was because I’m young or if they’d had a bad experience with a previous bride, but it was the most surreal experience of the entire eleven-month period leading up to the wedding.

In preparation, I checked out several books on flower arrangement from the library, watched YouTube videos of professionals creating bouquets, and researched the meanings behind individual flowers. I also went to sites that allowed you to “create” your own bouquet using pre-existing flower graphics.

One of the first Virtual Bouquets I designed.

It turned out that The Flowers were an area where Mom and I were speaking two different languages. I would describe what I was picturing – a cluster of white and lavender roses and mini calla lilies with sword ferns framing the whole thing – and Mom would frown as she was picturing something completely different. Finally, on one of our trips to our local craft store, I gathered up the silk flowers that I wanted and made a mock-up of my bouquet. Upon seeing an actual version of what I wanted, Mom’s eyes lit up and she agreed that it was very pretty and would work well with our dresses. At this point, I’d like to reiterate: if at first you fail to verbally communicate, get a visual.

Now in agreement, Mom and I went to a local wholesale floral shop and began seeing which flowers were constantly in stock and which ones rotated in and out; this way we would know what we’d need to order ahead of time and what we could just go in and buy.

Over the course of several months, we learned several important things about dealing with florists and flowers:

• Know the names of the plants you want. Seems pretty basic, but we learned the hard way that what we’ve always called Sword Ferns are actually Leatherleaf Ferns – at least, according to the shop we were at.
• Be open to asking the florist for advice. I had wanted Sterling Silver Roses, but the flower shop didn’t carry them because they wilted too quickly. Luckily, the florist suggested a flower, Lisianthus, which looked almost identical and would last.
• Be aware of your flowers’ strengths and weaknesses. For example, Calla Lilies are gorgeous, but bruise and wilt easily, therefore they need to be handled carefully and used promptly.
• Know how to keep your flowers alive and looking pretty. If you tackle doing your own flowers, make sure you look into how to care for them or they'll wilt and droop before Wedding Day. I put mine in tubs of tepid water mixed with a pinch of Miracle Grow and kept them in the garage (the coldest place in the house in February). For non-winter brides, be sure to look into refrigeration space.
• Don’t feel pressured to take what you don’t want. The only hitch we had buying the flowers was in a surprise substitution (remember, I mentioned hearing about those?). The wholesaler’s vendor didn’t have the pale green roses that we had ordered so the wholesaler just replaced them with more white roses (of which we had ordered two dozen already). When they called to tell us, we regretfully told them we couldn’t take them, as we had no use for an additional 25 white roses. The wholesaler wasn’t happy, but the flowers were deducted from our order. Luckily, they had several (slightly wilted) bouquets of green roses the day we picked up the order, so I chose the best of those, plucked the wilted petals, and we were good to go.

In the end, my wonderful aunt, who had worked in a florist shop, came over the day before the wedding and helped us make everything. She made five corsages, nine boutonnières, the three bridesmaids’ bouquets and my bridal bouquet (with me directing) in just over six hours. Hooray for Auntie!

All in all, our flowers cost us $141, including materials like florist’s wire and tape, and we got exactly what we wanted.

How Do I Look?

When it comes to hair and make-up on wedding day, in my humble opinion, a bride should look like herself, only enhanced in a way that no one can quite put a finger on. She should look “special” but not so completely altered that the groom does a double take, not because she’s dazzling but because he didn’t recognize her at first.

I would like to assure every bride that she is already lovely. The glow of happiness shining from her is more beautiful than any amount of make-up or a special hair-do can ever make her. This isn’t to say a bride shouldn’t make herself as attractive as she possibly can. This is a very special once-in-a-lifetime day! But she shouldn’t feel under pressure to change herself into something she’s not just because it’s her wedding day. Her guests and, especially, her groom want to see her as they know and love her, not as a glammed-up caricature of herself.

There is also comfort to be considered. A wedding day is a looooong day. A bride (and her mother) would be foolish to make herself up in a way so out of the ordinary that it has the potential to make her uncomfortable. She’s already wearing a rather unusual and often very heavy dress! Other sources of discomfort could be anything from a hair-do held together by hairpins that every second threaten to fall out to those that have secured her hair so tightly to her scalp that she has a headache within half an hour. It could be false eyelashes or fingernails that she’s not used to. Even make-up can be irritating if she’s not used to wearing it.

Now, having said all that, we started planning hair and make-up well in advance. My daughter made a hair appointment long before the wedding solely for the purpose of trying out some ideas. She had been working for a lady who runs a hair salon and exchanged labor for a hair-do. Meanwhile, I arranged to have a makeover party with my daughter and the mother-of-the-groom at the home of a mutual friend of ours who sold Mary Kay cosmetics. It was loads of fun! We were able to play with a couple of different looks and find the color palette that best suited us. I learned a lot, supported a friend and, the big plus here, I had a couple of months to use the products before the wedding so that I was completely comfortable with them by the time The Day arrived.

I also purchased some inexpensive press-on fingernails from Walgreen’s to test-drive. I am a life-long nail-biter and have always hated how my hands look. For just one day, and knowing there would be lots of pictures, I wanted my hands to look nice, but I knew that having nails would be a major adjustment. I wore them over a weekend and struggled to do the simplest things! In light of this discovery, I figured that if I put the nails on as the last thing I did before walking to my seat on The Day, I could manage. No one would be asking me to type an email or dial a phone during the wedding!

My daughter has always had beautiful nails and she had been grooming them and taking special care of them in the days before the wedding but, despite all her care, either through stress or accidents, every single one of them tore off before The Day arrived! Though distressed about the loss of her nails, she was also able to find pretty nails at the drug store. Looking back, and to save stress, she says that she should have used self-adhesive nails rather than the kind that needed to be glued on. Additionally, even the plainest press-on nails could be accented using press-on gems like those she used on the bridesmaids’ gift books.

Finishing touches included selecting jewelry to wear on The Day. My daughter and I looked into my own jewelry box first to see if there were any “heirloom” pieces that she might want to wear. We also considered using jewelry as accent pieces in her hair. We tried jewelry on all the bridesmaids as well to see what, if anything, might work well. We tried out all of these jewelry ideas well before wedding day.

I’d like to leave this entry with two thoughts:

One: a bride, simply by virtue of her happiness, is beautiful. She should not feel she has to spend a fortune to transform herself into someone else. There will always be something that isn’t “perfect” about her appearance but a bride would be unwise to let that spoil her day.

Two: we didn't spend a lot on our hair, make-up, and nails. Once again, dear friends who specialized in these things helped us out. A bride does not necessarily need to have anything “professionally” done. Ask around. You may be surprised to find that your friends are fully capable of giving you the wedding day makeover you want. In the end we were all very happy with how we looked. And -- very important-- we were comfortable!

Photo Gallery -- The Reception

Our indoor basketball court turned banquet hall!

Today I'll share some pictures of those things I've described that were used at the reception hall. First, though, here is a picture of the bridesmaids in their gowns. The hunter green accented with mint green flattered everyone.

Next time, I'll keep an ironing board on hand! Otherwise, I think they came out really well.

The happy couple and their wedding cake decorated with fresh flowers. Artificial ivy is entwined around the base of the cake stand. The cake table arch glitters in the back ground.

The bridal bouquet and the bride's barely touched dinner.

The photo board and conversation corner.

We moved the altar arrangement from church to the reception hall so that we could fully enjoy it.

One of the tall candle arrangements with fresh rosemary and dried lavender...and a bridesmaid's bouquet.

And they're off into their new life together as husband and wife!

That's it for now. My daughter and I have a few more blog posts to make before wrapping up. Coming soon, our thoughts on flowers, wedding day logistics, mother-of-the-bride gowns, and more!

Photo Gallery -- Getting Ready and The Ceremony

We now pause in our blog for a visual break. I have finally gotten some of the professionally done photographs of the wedding and would like to share a few. You may click on them to see a larger picture.

Our Ring Bearer gets his boutonniere pinned on by my sister-in-law. She made all the boutonnieres, corsages, and bouquets.

Crystals were added to the groom's boutonniere to make it unique.

The Flower Girl and her mommy

The bride gets a last minute touch up. She had purchased a tiara to wear and forgot it at home. Thankfully, the veil looked fine without it.

Detail of the veil and the cap sleeves we added to the dress for that little bit of extra coverage.

She waits patiently to go in.

Sunlight was streaming into the sanctuary...

...and lit up the altar area beautifully.

The wedding party

First there were two happy families, now there are three!

Tomorrow I'll share some pictures of the reception.