We Meet Agian, Florist

Mike had three centerpieces to show the florist. Obviously, only the painted one is finished and the other two are still works in progress.

The unfinished two will/do have glowing mushrooms inside them as well as lit ones on them. Mike discovered glow-in-the dark hot glue on our last craft store trip. Am I the only one who wonders what besides this project people would use that for? The mushrooms inside the log are hot glue, tissue paper and high lighter. He painted the inside of the log black and added a tiny led black light. Neat, huh? I think the third kind he made is my favorite though. All gnarly and old looking. He'll put glow mushrooms underneath that one.

My best (but not very good) shot of the glow mushrooms. So fun!

We discussed filling the centerpieces with dried willow and vine clippings. Putting down a piece of fabric under each centerpiece with moss on it. Maybe burlap with a mixture of green and gray sheet moss and deer moss glued around the edge to make a border. We talked about our plans for disguising the pillar, Mike of course has taken that to the next level. As well as the potential room decor.

It's been determined that we need one more trip to the venue soon. This way we can solidify room decor and lay eyes on the ceremony site. We haven't looked at the ceremony site for years. Plus I want to discuss table set-up with their event person.

Here are the burlap sacks we got for our favors. We'll have oak and purple orchid seedlings for each household to choose from and take home. My original plan for leaving the favors around the centerpieces is not going to work. They are too amazing to be cluttered up with stuff. So, we talked favor presentation a bit too.

Thinking it over.

With the vine. So pretty!

Another shot of all three

Changing Vs Losing Your Mind

neu·ro·sis/n(y)o͝oˈrōsis/Noun: 1.A relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety) but not a radical loss of touch with reality. Compare with psychosis
2.(in nontechnical use) Excessive and irrational anxiety or obsession.

When planning a wedding ALL of them surface. Example, I have an extreme distaste for odd years. Pretty weird. I am an open book and I've had lots of acting training so I'm usually pretty in touch with myself, but the wedding has forced me into situations I've never been in before.

As it turns out, I really don't like changing my mind. I enjoy being a decisive person. I like making a plan and sticking to it. It makes me dependable and responsible. I'm not immovable by any means, but when other people (vendors, family, wedding party) are involved I have serious guilt.

First it was the dress. I was so torn about abandoning the sample dress I found a thrift store 4 years ago that I shed tears over it. Not because I was so in love with the dress, but because I had let myself down. I failed to comply with the plan. Never mind that the dress was impractical for someone with mobility issues (and an outdoor venue) it was bought and paid for why couldn't I suck it up?

Why? Because there was something better out there waiting for me. My real dress. I survived, the budget survived and no one shook their finger at me and told me what a disappointment I am. I LOVE my dress. I love that it's being custom made to my size and specifications. I love the idea of wearing it again...

Then I found a picture of blue sea holly in a magazine. We'd been planning for a long time to get all the groomsman and dads matching lapel pins. It was a cute idea, but reality was the one we liked wasn't available anymore. Beyond that this thistle screamed Mike's Boutonniere to me. He loved it too. No big emotion issues there. I started to think my pain over the dress was a one time thing.

Now I've started doubting my bouquet choice. At first I loved my bouquet and that I was the only one with one. It made it more special. Than I started considering a brooch bouquet.
Something like this, but with fairies instead of flowers. It would be pretty. Imagine it with pieces like this: The last one is my absolute favorite. I may buy myself that pin whether I do the brooch bouquet or not. I could just pin it to the ribbon around the stem of my flower bouquet. Making a brooch bouquet could be a fun last DIY project before the wedding. I could ask everyone attending my bridal shower to bring a fairy pin. I did something similar for a Christmas party one year and it turned out amazing. My tree was so interesting and I have sentimental attachment to all of those ornaments because of who they came from.

I'm just not sure. It bothers me that it was already decided. I also feel like brooch bouquets are so trendy now, thanks Miranda Lambert. It would be heavy so there would be no tossing it. Not that we couldn't get around that. Hmmm...

On the plus side I could take it apart afterward and keep all the fun jewelry. It would save a little on flowers (that Mike would eat up with his decor design without blinking). Do I really want one? I'm not sure...I hate being not sure.

I investigated compromise:

Here's what splitting the difference looks like. Yeah. Huh. To each her own, but I despise it. I really don't like it at all. So that's out. I'll either have all flowers or all pins. Help me out guys what do you think?

Flower Power Meeting

Sorry for the delay, but last Tuesday I did indeed venture to the florist. I was accompanied by my lovely bridesmaid and often blog photographer, Lara. I am usually very decisive by nature, but there are two outside forces at play here 1)Mike and 2)It's been 2yrs since we made some of these decisions initially.

Mike wanted lizard lapel pins for all the groomsmen and dads. They were silver with green stones. I liked them a lot, but after telling the florist we didn't need any boutonnieres we found the lizards were unavailable. We were pondering what to do instead when I came upon a groom in a magazine with sea holly or blue thistle as his lapel adornment. It seemed so "Mike" and went with our colors. I asked Janine to scare some up.

Apparently it's often used for alien plant life in Sci Fi shows. Too cool, right? It's blue and she was worried we'd have to tint it with a little red, but luckily for us it's a purpley blue so no tint required.

We talked a ton about decor, which is kind of Mike's area. Let me clarify, I am contributing and dealing with vendors, but he is the design team. It was decided we needed a group field trip to count outlets, measure pillars and generally work out some logistics. It all looks so simple on the design shows, doesn't it? The room for the reception is a pretty blank canvas which is great (and slightly overwhelming). It has two quirks: wood frames around light fixtures (?!?) and one oddly shaped pillar. Luckily, Mike and Janine are brilliant and the pillar is a non issue, no spoilers! However, hiding the weird frames without breaking any rules or running several feet of cords along the walls may be a lot harder than we thought.

One of the thing I love about Janine is she always shows me things in real life or draws me pictures. It's so much easier to fill up that blank room in my mind with visual aids. The last item on the agenda for this meeting was favors. I wanted seeding trees placed around our centerpieces (one per household) for people to plant and think of us. I also LOVE Janine's "I can make that happen" attitude. Seedlings? Sure. She pulled some up from her own yard and is experimenting with the best way to care for them and also monitoring their size so we can finalize the container decisions. Janine even came up with cute wording for the tag. I'm not a huge fan of the clay pot because you wouldn't find one in the woods. I think we're gonna do burlap sacks instead. The moss will be different too. I'm getting excited though. I hope these trees take root in friend's yards and someday I'll say "whatcha doin'?" and someone will reply "reading under the wedding tree." Sorry chocoholics, but I wanted something a little more lasting (I hope) for favors.

In general, I feel well taken care of. I have a list of questions for the venue and we'll being popping by soon with pencils and measuring tapes shortly. They'll be a lot of brow furrowing and uh-huh-ing I'm sure. That makes me giggle. Hopefully the prettiness I've agreed to so far will be entirely possible.

The Floral Element

This is the inspiration for my bouquet, it just happens to have been taken by my photographer. Mine will not have lilies. It will have black and white anemones and lavender roses and darker greenery. I want my flowers to pop against the green stuff. The steams will be wrapped in sheer ivory ribbon. It'll have the same loops of lily grass I really love those. I told her I wanted it to be neat and compact, but with a little bit of chaos. I'm really excited.

My bridesmaids will not have bouquets. Instead they'll have a wrist corsage something like this:
They'll each have two anemones and an emerald bow the color of their dresses. They will carry a white distressed wooden lantern with an led candle inside it. The led candles the florist has are wax on the outside and they look really authentic. She's going to attach an anemone and some greenery to each lantern as well. I picture all the flickering lights like fairies in the woods. Also, they'll have their hair up something like this:
with, you guessed it, an anemone in their hair.

I also picked flowers for the moms' corsages. They'll have ivory spray roses and lavender wax flowers. I think they'll be pretty. I kept them pretty neutral with a little pop of color so they'd go with their dresses. I also gave her the picture of the flower girl halo I want and we're going to make it with lavender and heather.
In the picture they used a kind of fern she'd never heard of so we'll be using some plumosa instead and have more green and sparser flowers. Surprisingly the flower girls' halos ended up being one of the more expensive items on the list. Overall though our estimate was on budget (Hurray!). All the stuff I've described so far was what's referred to as "personals." I had my say there with complete confidence, but the other set of items falls under decor which is Mike's territory.

We have a great "blank canvas" in our reception space. Since we're not allowed to put anything on the walls and there are about a dozen wooden frames around scones we have a challenge. We needed some combination of willow branches, fabric and lights to pretty things up. I was afraid of a "prom look" with potted plants and Christmas light, but between Mike and my brilliant florist that would never happen. She also came up with a beautiful solution to the lonely pillar in the center of the room. Now as soon as Mike finishes my beautiful lighted centerpiece prototype we will figure out how many willow branches each needs and be in great shape. I promise to go into decor in another post, but trust me it will be beautiful!

I'm elated that everything is coming together! Last time I met with her (years ago) every flower I wanted was either out of season or wouldn't survive if it was cut for a bouquet (or both). It was deflating, but today was empowering. She's so resourceful and creative I can tell working with her will be a blast.