Rachel & Chris - The Country Life.

Hands down this is one of my very favorite weddings.  The bride was terrific to work with and we both came up with all kinds of challenging and creative ideas.  Every table's centerpiece was different from each other.  Our artist outdid herself on these.  Here are some of the highlights.

The wedding took place at the John James Audubon Center in Audubon.  It has a very natural, rustic feel to it.  Colors for the ceremony included pastels of peach, pink, white, and purple.  We used very textured flowers in Rachels's bouquet including lisianthus, scabiosa, ranunulus, freesia, seeded eucalyptus, and lavender.   I wrapped her stems in twine for a more natural look.  Chris' boutonniere was made up of lavender, too.

Bridesmaids' textured bouquets were made up of daisies, crown asters, and herbs.  Groomsmens' boutonnieres matched the bouquets and contained hers.

How I enjoyed making the ceremony arrangements!  Besides flowers I was able to use peppers, beets, eggplants inside produce baskets which stood on barrels that I rent out.  There was one on each side of the aisle.  And I used rustic white baskets filled with three shades of alstromeria on the seats in the aisle.  So pretty!

 

Cocktail hour was held in another one of the out-buildings.  Rachel collected wine bottles with pretty labels. There was a variety of these around the room with different flowers.

I used a large watering can on the appetizer buffet table filled with larger flowers.

The placecard table was placed in the same room. Rachel used an assortment of herbs to hang each namecard from the rack.  I thought it looked terrific!  I had a wooden carpenter's box painted and filled it with jelly jars of daisies, zinnias, and sunflowers.

For half of the guest tables I filled different watering cans with a variety of flowers.  Each watering can one was different. Here are three of those.

The other half of the tables were made up of something different from us.  I had our artist paint the sides of the wooden boxes with different flowers, fruits, and vegetables.  They were gorgeous!  And then I planted each box with a flowering type of plant - kalanchoe, lilies, and coleus are just a few samples.  Not run of the mill for this bride!

Rachel's mother had two jars of colorful, canned peppers.  Where else should they go but on the sweetheart table flanking a jar full of garden flowers!

And the icing on the cake for me (pun intended) was decorating the naked cake!  This was my first and it was so much fun.  I used strawberries, raspberries, and peach lilies.  Loved it!!

Loved, loved, loved this wedding.  I'll probably remember it always because it was so unique.  Thanks to Rachel and Chris for having me be a part of it!  Congratulations!

Heather and Phillip - A Blast of Color!

Heather and I had not met and worked solely by long distance.  You can't do this with all brides, but Heather is a bit of a fun lover and a risk taker and trusted me to lead her along the right path.  And I have to tell you that she was an absolute pleasure to work with.  She wanted bold bright colors for her color palette - so we decided upon bright orange, hot pink, and lime green.  Love it!!! For her bouquet, we cascaded bright orange tiger lilies and hot pink Star Fighter lilies along with hot pink filler and greens.  Not your typical bouquet.  Please pardon my photography. As you know, I'm terrible at taking pictures.

Phillip wanted his boutonniere to stand out.  So to get away from the white stephanotis - I painted them hot pink, added green pins and a bright orange spray rose.

Bridesmaids carried short bouquets made up of lime green button mums, orange tigerlilies and hot pink filler.  Groomsmen wore pocket squares.  I think adding boutonnieres to those was too much!

All my brides are given a questionnaire to fill out.  One of my questions I ask is to find out if they have any hobbies/talent and if they do, I try to put them to work on their wedding.  Nothing says personalization like a bride's DIY project.  On Heather's questionnaire, she mentioned that she knit - which led me to a fun idea - yarnbombing!  I explained to her what I wanted and she carried through on the project.  I had Heather knit hot pink and orange striped tubes to go around glass cylinders from the Dollar Store. I used either deep pink or orange alstromeria in each vase.  Heather told me that her guests absolutely loved these!  I think they were adorable!  Such a personal touch.

Phillip's favorite flower is Bird of Paradise - perfect for a large, brightly colored placecard table piece in a hot pink vase!  I also used these fun colored  "shot glass" holders to put even more color on the table. 

We used two types of centerpieces for this wedding - one with flowers in one container and the second with flowers spread out in smaller, brightly colored bud vases.  I sent Heather out to shop for the round mats to anchor the flowers.

I had these cute colored tealight holders that I thought would look perfect on the sweetheart table alternating with some more bottles of flowers.  Just the right "frame" for the table.

And of course we had to make the toss bouquet as bright as the rest of the flowers in the room.  What a fun wedding to work on and a fun couple to work with.  Congratulations!!