My Big Fat REAL Wedding - The Flowers.

Lesson #5
Trust the professionals.

So I'm going to jump right into the the Lesson that I learned on this subject. It is so important that you choose professionals that you trust for your wedding. Every vendor is going to have their strengths and weaknesses, so you must learn to work with what they do best...or better yet, chooose a vendor that does best what you want. And then if this trusted, hired vendor gives you their professional opinion...take it very much to heart.

I placed a lot of trust in my wonderful florist, A New Leaf. When I did all of my wedding research, I had one flower that I was enamored with - the white anemone. Of course the white anemone is pretty puny-looking at the end of August, so my one true flower love was completely out of the question. What's a girl to do?

Rather than pin-pointing the exact flowers that I definitely had to have, I constructed a concept for the overall look. Then I used my florist as a consultant in making the best final decisions. As long as they understood my concept, I would be fine with them making judgement calls based on what flowers looked best for our day. Our floral concept was "organic." Rather than heavily structured flower compositions, we wanted to achieve something that looked like it might have been picked from a garden.

So for the boutineers, we did different variations with mixed wildflowers, orchids, and even hops (the grooms request).



My bridesmaids carried an assortment of ranunculus, roses, wildflowers, orchids...you name it.

And since I am...err..."pigment challenged," I wanted a prodominately white/cream bouquet but with pops of black and green to set it off from the whiteness of me and my dress. We used scabiosa, ranunculus, black elderberries, and others.

(BTW...those of you brides wth champagne/ivory dresses, don't fear pure white flowers. They look lovely next to your non-white dress.)

And for the centerpieces, I lovingly purchased urns in a couple of different styles. Each was filled with different combinations of roses, several kinds of orchids, lemons, ranunculus, hosta and more. Each centerpiece had its own unique, but similar look.

I ended up with the most wonderful flowers...half of which I had never even heard of before. With trust in my florist, I was able to reap the rewards of her interpretation of my vision. --a