Sponsored Post: Blooms By The Box Blog

Today, while we're on the subject of DIY wedding flowers, I wanted to highlight APW sponsor Blooms By The Box an their *super helpful* new flower blog. By *super helpful* I mean, I'm vaguely annoyed that they were not writing it when I was teaching myself about flowers, and I'm not kidding.Some highlights:

• Alternatives to Peonies, if you really want them, but are getting married at the wrong time of year.
• Working with the flower color wheel. If you are doing your own bouquet, you must read this post now, I SWEAR. It's 100% true, and will save you so much heartache. Helpful! Helpful!
• Thoughts about filler in bouquets. I'm here to tell you that you need filler ('spensive otherwise, and boring) but we're all so over baby's breath and ferns, right? Yeah. time to think about seeded Eucalyptus.

And you know they sell flowers too right? Done and done.

How To Do Your Own Wedding Flowers

First of all, let me be clear. As far as I'm concerned there are two ways to do your own wedding flowers. The first option is to do your own bouquets, and skip the rest. The second is to do your own bouquets and all your own arrangements. These are two totally different projects. While flower arranging is never scary, bouquets are a pretty easy project. Heck, you can pick up the flowers at Trader Joe's and be done with it. If you're taking this option, please don't listen to all the, "You can't, you can't, bouquets are HARD you'll be too STRESSED" nonsense. They are not hard and you will not be stressed.

If, like me, you are taking on the whole kit-and-caboodle, that is another thing all together. Not a scary thing, but a big thing. For our wedding we made 5 bouquets, 50ish small centerpieces, 6 bigger square centerpieces, 6 tall centerpieces, and an ENORMOUS arrangement in a bucket. So if you're counting at home, we did about 70 pieces. And it was fine. In fact, most of the time it was pretty fun. But if you are taking this on, it should be one of your *few* big wedding projects. There are some who are stronger than me who can do their own flowers and self cater at the same time without breaking a sweat, but I wouldn't recommend that to us mere mortals.
So, without further ado, here are my best flower decorating tips, for those of you going whole-hog:

• Don't be scared. They are flowers for God's sake. They are pretty, and fun.
  
• Do a dry run. Seriously: Do. A. Dry. Run. I made my bouquet in about 10 minutes sitting in the corner of the patio, while people yelled that I was late for the picnic, and one of my dearest bridesmaids held the front line, and told everyone to take a hike. The reason I was fine is I'd done a dry run, and I was really comfortable with what I was doing. If I hadn't... well... it might not have been pretty.
• Think through what supplies you'll need, and order them in advance. Your dry run will help you figure this out. I will however, give you some quick tips: floral tape, floral scissors, pins, floral foam, vases. Enough for a group of people (but we'll get to that).
• Along those lines, if you are transporting your arrangements, I really really suggest that you use floral foam. It makes them pretty snug, and if they fall over in transport, you'll be fine. If you are using floral foam, you'll want to think about opaque vases. That's why we used metal vases, though they were also pretty stylish.
• Do your flowers the day before. This is not a joke. You cannot do your flowers on your wedding day, if you would like your sanity intact.
• Stop worrying about refrigeration. You're not going to be able to refrigerate everything, and that's FINE. Put your arrangements in a cool shady place (and water them. but you're not dull, right?) and stick your bouquets in water in a fridge. Done. Also, hot tip: boutonnieres, should you choose to use them (We did not. David muttered things about it not being a f*cking prom already, and that was the end of that) can't be done the day before, because they will die. Thems the breaks.
  
• Pick a few super decisive people to go with you to the flower mart. Or if you're chill like that, send a few decisive people to the flower mart without you. I was planning to go with my Mom, but that didn't work out, so I literally TORE through the enormous San Francisco Flower Mart with stage manager Kate and David. TORE. We just pointed and grabbed. We over-bought a bit (better than under) but what we got was fantastic and more to the point was speedy.
• You need helpers. You CANNOT do this with out a team. It's DIT all the way. That said, pick your helpers carefully. We threw a flower decorating lunch and invited the female wedding party and female relations. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have called it lunch, and there would have only been worker bees. I was in production mind (when my immediate family sees this glint in my eye they skedaddle) and I was just "Go, go, go." Calm? Yes. Speedy? Yes. Focused? Yes. Friendly but firm? Also yes.. My girlfriends saw what was going up and kicked in gear, hard and fast. The more distant relations we'd invited for lunch were slightly... scared... I think. I'm not sure they expected to work that hard, and honestly, we probably were not fair to them, not giving them a heads up.
• Set up a sample or two, and let people copy that. Your helpers may not know as much about flowers as you (now) do, and they are going to obsess about getting it right. In retrospect, I probably should have given more guidance to the poor ladies on their bouquets because they were *stressed*, but we made it work.
• Set up quality control. If you have a lot of hands working, and you're attached to the output, have someone with a trusted eye covertly tweaking things.
  
• Make sure you have transport, if you can't set up at the site. Flowers take up quite a bit of space. We rented a Ryder van for the weekend, and Kate-the-stage-manager-of-magic drove it. I owe her.
• Remember cleanup. There will be lots of cleanup. Have brooms.
  
• And finally, realize that doing your own flowers isn't cheap, it's just cheaper. Once we bought all our flowers and supplies, we spent about $700, of which $500ish was for flowers (we could have spent a little less, but hindsight is 20-20) and $200ish was for supplies (mostly vases). It sounds like a lot, but in San Francisco, it often costs that much *just* for bouquets (I knnnnnooooowww). And we had flowers piled to the ceilings, which is just what we wanted, and never could have afforded otherwise. And besides, we now have the worlds most stylish vases, which I use at least once a week. You can do it for less, but keep in mind that flowers ain't free, unless you grow them.
  

So how did our flowers turn out? Well, it wasn't stress free, I'm not going to lie to you. But we loved them. I also had a much more personal relationship with our flowers than I would have otherwise. We used Dahlias, and I'll probably get a little weepy forever when I see Dahlias like the one's we used. Plus, my bouquet felt like me. And I was rough with it, and comfortable with it in a way I wouldn't have been if I'd paid good money for it.Oh. And did I mention? I spent a year dreaming of having bouquets filled with pink star jasmine, which is the smell of the bay area in the summer. But I knew you couldn't buy it, and I'd resigned myself to not having any. Well, when we showed up at the flower mart, we found a bush sized pile of jasmine, for just $10. My bouquet looked wild and smelled like heaven.

Top photos by Kate! Wedding Stage Manager! Last photo by One Love Photo, of course

Sponsored Post: DIY Wedding Flowers From Blooms By The Box

Ok. So I'm excited to unveil today my most exciting sponsored post to date (drum-roll please...) My fabulous sponsor, wholesale flower distributor Blooms By The Box mailed flowers to my house so I could arrange them and tell you about it. Lets start at the beginning.
First, even though they are called Blooms By The Box, I'm somewhat dull. I've always thought of flowers of something you went out and got and lugged home with great/mild annoyance. So when I arrived home one evening to find an enormous box of flowers on my door step, just a few feet from where I wanted them, I was sort of shocked. The sum total of my flower preparation duties were: pick up box, open box, fill container with water and flower food, put flowers in water. Um, what? Yeah, I knnnooooowww.

So, early the next morning I set about arranging flowers. Actually, having the creative partner that I do, David and I both set about arranging flowers, and decided to have a small contest about who could make a prettier arrangement (uh, not that we are ever creatively competitive at all or anything). We have the vases for our wedding, so we were testing them out to see what prettiness we could make. Here is what we learned:1) I was reminded again that flower arranging is supposed to be *fun.* It's all about playing, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't. In this picture I'm attempting to create a tall arrangement, that quite frankly was a total failure. So, I shrugged, cut it up for scrap, and made a new arrangement (which you'll see at the end of the post).2) Flowers all have different personalities. By which I mean some flowers are sturdy, some are less sturdy. Some arrive open, some arrive closed. Some will last for just a day or two, some will last for a week. The advantage of using Blooms By The Box, instead of running out and buying flowers on your own, is they pride themselves in their customer service. So, you can email them or call them up and chat about when your flowers should be delivered, and which ones will work well for your needs.

But enough with the small talk, you want to see what we *made* right? Well, my ever tasteful fiance made something sleek and modern:And I made something a bit more wildflower-y, a bit more rough and tumble. Hilariously, these more or less fit our respective personalities.We had access to the exact same flowers, but our arrangements are totally different and complementary, which I love.Finally, I want to say a word about Blooms By the Box website, which is invaluable if you are doing DIY wedding flowers. They just launched a blog which I can honestly say is so good that I'm going to use it when we do our flowers. Their post on the flower color wheel would have saved us hours of experimentation during our wedding flower trial run. Then there are the videos, and videos are how I learned to make a bridal bouquet. Seriously. And finally, the sample design gallery.

So, all you DIY flower people, all in one fell swoop, I present you the tools I wish I'd had when I started. You're welcome.

Things to Hold When You Wed (besides your partner's hand).

Today I got a really good question. It seemed good enough to pass along to you. Free association! In the comments!

Hi Meg,

So, I was talking to my friend's mother, who is sort of like a second mom, about alternatives to flowers. And I realized that the WIC doesn't have a lot of options for me--a bride who doesn't want a bouquet, but who isn't religious in a sense that she would carry a prayer book. So, I was wondering, if you were looking for an inspiring topic that hasn't been covered, if that's something worth talking about.

There's a lot of pretty images of brides with parasols, but I wonder a bit what other ideas the wedding community might have for me?
With warm greetings,
Kaitlin

I have to say, I think it's neat that Kaitlin brought up the idea of carrying a prayerbook, because it's gone out of fashion. It's obviously not right for many brides, but I like the idea of it - holding something that grounds you in your core values, instead of something that is, well, pretty.* I think there must be other non-religious ways to play on this idea - things to hold that ground you. Ideas?

PS Personally, I like feathers.
PPS I also like bricks.
*Though flowers are also fierce.

Feisty Flowers

I am healing so so slowly over here, so I decided to pass you small bits of inspiration I've been hording away for myself. First off, you've been reading 100 Layer Cake, right? It's the new wedding blog started by a group of graphic designers in Los Angeles, and it's the blog-girl-gang-lowkey-fabby version of wedding planning that's going to take Martha Stewart by storm. Anyway, they wrote a post about floral designer Dandelion Ranch that will kill you with it's inspiration and right-thinkingness. The above trough o' flowers inspired me to order a few of my own flower troughs in my big vase order this week (more on that soon).
And then there are these babies. One word for you: blackberries. One of my slightly unhealthy bridal ticks (we all have them) involves wanting to incorporate local in season foliage in our wedding. We're getting married in the Bay Area in the summer, which happens to be one of my favorite places in the world during one of my favorite seasons. Somehow the stars aligned in my life for me to be married there, then. I'm grateful. As a result, I really want the wedding to smell like the season. I want blackberries, I want jasmine, I want fresh mint. And I want them all in one little bouquet. I'm not sure how I'm doing that yet, but this picture helped remind me of what was important to me. Also, friends have pointed out I should possible go with fake blackberries, since I'm clumsy and blackberries are smooshy. Point.

Photos: First: 100 Layer Cake, Second: Anna Kuperberg via Snippet & Ink, flowers by Birch

Flowers, Food, Community

So, as our wedding starts creeping closer, I've started collecting inspiration pictures (again) for what I want our tables to look like, and how I want us to do our flowers. The closer I get to this party, the more I realize that I want things simple, simple, simple. Once upon a time I thought that I would make table runners (ha!), and get together a flea market collection of vases (double ha!), and pick just the right linens (whatever that means). But the closer we get, and the more I hang out with you guys, the more I realize that what I really want is simple, joyful, and us. And that's ok. With that in mind, here are some of the pictures I've collected lately.
What kind of linens do we want? White. How do we want the napkins folded? Simply.* What kind of tables do we want? Long, so everyone can chat more easily.
And we already know we want mixed, bold in season flowers... not simple flowers, just because we're doing them ourselves. Nope: fun, mixed, wild, complicated flowers. Just like us.
But more then anything, I've realized that I care a whole lot less about the flowers, or the linens, or the table numbers, then I care about the food and the conversation, and the sense of joy and community around the table. We've spent most of our budget on simple organic locally grown food. It's more expensive, for sure, but we were lucky enough to have the option of choosing it, and we thought that carefully prepared, local food was a more solid reflection of our values then any other single thing we could spend on. Because to us food equals love, community, and shared joy, and that is a heck of a lot more important to me then some fancy table cloths.

But just the same, all these flowers are super pretty, right?

*I swear to god, there is actually a clause in our catering contract that says "Meg does not want ruched linens. Anywhere." (True. But hilarious that our caterer actually wrote it into the contract.)

Photos: First two photos by Kate Webber with flowers by Saipua, third photo by Jose Villa, fourth photo from the amazing eating design studio Taste Matters via {frolic!}

Collective Wisdom: Wholesale Flowers

Because we are smarter together than we are apart, I wanted to pass on this reader question. It's a good one.

I'm looking into ordering my flowers wholesale and arranging them myself and wonder if you have any recommendations or tips in what to look for when researching and what to avoid? - Amy

Please chip in with wholesale flower websites that you've used (within the US or internationally - Team Practical International should not be excluded), and what tips you have to pass on.

My personal advice is simply this: if you live near a big city, go to the local flower mart. We're sourcing all the flowers for our wedding from the fabulous San Francisco Flower Mart (though oddly, we're still searching for a good source for local wild plants - namely Jasmine and blackberry bramble). Now, your turn. Go!

Affordable Centerpieces: Harvest Bowls

Normally I don't post about little details, because BOY do we have enough places telling us that details are the focus of our day, and I for one have latent anxiety issues. But, every so often I get requests for affordable centerpieces, and I'm usually clueless. I spent years working as a professional non-profit event planner, and I would have paid cash money for good cheap centerpiece ideas.* But low and behold, fabulous reader Rebbecca sent me this idea.
We did "harvest bowls" (I made that name up) for our centerpieces and scattered copper-colored leaves on the tables. I didn't think that the tables needed a runner after those additions. Putting gourds and fruit in a bowl was incredibly easy -- it was finding the bowls that was the challenge.

I'm firmly in favor of centerpieces that can be eaten (and if you pick your fruit well, they inevitably will be, after some amount of drinking). My great aunt, who has Thanksgivings for 70 in her barn* does centerpieces like this on long tables with piles and piles of fruit and nuts. She would tell you that the key is to polish your fruit to a shine with rags. Which should give your flower girl a way to feel included.

*I can tell you what does not work, from first hand experience. Do not try pairing candelabras with red and black Mardi Gras beads, silver lame, and red roses unless you are intentionally going for a you-might-actually-catch-your-hair-on-fire-1984-phantom-of-the-opera-look.

*One of the many things I hope for out of a long and married life. First I need the barn.

PS - I am totally aware that I am now posting about bowls of fruit, but for gods sakes people, its two weeks before Christmas! Help!

Simple Table Settings

In my last post I mentioned that thinking about table settings was fun for me. So, here we go. (and I hear you with the *yawn* on the table settings. It's fine, come back tomorrow).

I called this post 'Simple Table Settings,' which was just a nice way to say 'Lazy Table Settings.' I live in awe of you crazy-crafty super DIY brides. You guys say "I'm going to knit all of my napkins." And I think "Amazing!!!” and “I'm tired just thinking about that project. Oh, I better go take a nap." By which I mean to say, it's good I like simple, because I’m clearly not going to hand embroider my linens.
So, this brings us to the dilemma of table settings. I muttered to our caterer something about us using jewel tones when going through her rental linens book, and she snapped to, pulled the book away and said firmly "I would not recommend using cotton-poly to make a fashion statement." Right. That said, we’re not much for pricey upgrades. So for a while there I was pondering making table runners… which still a option, but err, pulling out the sewing machine just seems like a lot of work. Which is how I fell for this lovely table where they used the folded the napkins to provide the pop of color. THIS, I thought to myself, THIS I can do! (or, uh, ask the caterer to do.)
Then there was this sweet and simple table setting. We've been thinking we'd do long tables but this picture makes me like the good old fashioned round table.
And, I don't know if we'll have menu cards, as they seem like a lot of hassle for something people look at for two seconds. But if we did have them (our big investment in the wedding is the food, so it might be nice to highlight our quirky and local food choices) I'd want them to look much like this one, designed by the excellent Pretty Pretty Paper. Simple, simple, simple. And chic.

See, I like details too. I just take the extremely low stress approach to them. So low stress that sometimes I actually *achem* fall asleep.

First picture from Snippet & Ink, via Emily Style; Second picture from Brooklyn Bride

Amateur DIY Wedding Flower Tips

Everyone seemed excited and interested by my DIY flower dry run, so I thought I'd post wildly unprofessional tips, tricks, and thoughts on floral decorating.

• Don't be scared. I'm not sure how we got so convinced that flowers were scary, but flowers are not scary. People have been doing flowers for weddings for thousands of years.
• Forget this "I'm an amateur, I should do something really simple, and not mix flowers" idea. Where did we even get that?
• Pin up pictures of arrangements you like and let them inspire your decorating.
• Mix textures, mix flowers, mix color. Be brave.
• Use crazy flowers! And herbs! And spiky things! And leaves! And twigs! And feathers!
  
• Too much of just the colors you love will be bland, use something different to make it pop (yellow or white for dark colors work really well)
• Work in pairs. One person will be your eyes while you are the worker bee. Then switch.
• Remember scale. Just because you can afford to have flowers the size of your head doesn't mean you want to have flowers the size of your head. Or maybe you do. Just remember that flowers are heavy.
• Make your peace with the fact that your flowers will not be perfect, and that you'll need to make them the day before (hot tip: if you paid for the flowers they wouldn't be perfect either, but you would pretend that they were).
• Every time you make something, sit back and guess how much a florist would have charged you for it "$75!" you'll say, "No, maybe $150!" Then applaud your cost savings (feel free to be wildly inaccurate with these numbers).
• Throw a flower decorating party the day before your wedding. Provide lots of wine and/or tea. You are not there to be the flower slave driver, you are the guest of honor, and are there to be spoiled. Remember that.
• On your wedding day, enthusiastically throw that bouquet in the air on the way out the door. Forget having a "tossing bouquet." After all, if you want your wedding bouquet later, you can just make a new one!

DIY Flowers - The Dry Run

One of the cool things about our year and a half engagement is that we have lots of time to test things out. This week brought one of the wedding chores I have most been looking forward to - the DIY flower test. We went to the San Francisco Flower Mart to see what was in season in August, and then tried to figure out what the heck we were doing making bouquets.

First DIY lesson - when you are having friends and family helping out, it's key to be flexible. Our friend Beck, mistress of the flowers, couldn't make it. So at the last minute, my mom and I tried to figure out what the heck we were doing on our own. This video helped. Other then that we relied on trusting our eye and some carefully selected inspiration pictures. I'm pretty pleased with the results. (And don't worry, I won't bore you with long tales of gocco next. Generally I'm too lazy for intricate DIY projects, and I ask people to help.)
Piles of flowers in our kitchen. We didn't really know what we were looking for, so we got a lot.
Our first project was my bouquet. Bright! was the idea.
We did attendants bouquets next, and I was really happy with them. The experience we got on the first bouquet really paid off.
And here is everything. Two small table arrangements, one larger bar arrangement, two bouquets, and in front a teeny tiny corsage. Note the inspiration pictures on the windowsill.

The verdict? Affordable and fun. The best part? When you made them yourself, you don't feel like you need to treat the bouquets with great care.

If you have questions, ask them in the comments. I'm not boring you with the details of floral tape here.

DIY Floral Supplies

On Sunday, (which was our minus-one anniversary of the start of our honeymoon!) we went to see a Giants game. By some cool act of fate, we ended up sitting next to Emily and Rob of Emily Style, for half of the game. Before I moved to San Francisco, I imagined that it was a magical world full of good weather, delicious food, and bloggers who all knew each other. As far as I can tell, all of my preconceptions are true.

Emily and I spent part of the game chatting about doing our wedding flowers from scratch, and she gave me tips about the San Francisco Flower Mart, which we'll be using for our dry run next week. Even more valuable, she told me about Jamali Garden Supplies, which she described as being "as cheap as those online import shops, but with taste." And indeed it is! If your looking for affordable vases, ribbons, sea shells or willow, go check it out. Being your own florist is a huge money saver, and pretty fun at that.

Non Floral Wedding Bouquets

Phew. Well, I think this hotness proves once and for all that you don't have to carry flowers.
And then there is this adorable pregnant bride rocking the feather bouquet (with feathers on her shoes!)

Happy Weekend!

Photos via Red Heart Photo and Stephanie James Couture.

Lovely DIY Friendly Flowers

Me! With the flighty little snippets of style! What is happening to my thinkythinkyness? Preparing for vacation is what is happening. My usual writing will resume next week. Till then, fun!

These two floral arrangements are beautiful, but are also somewhat manageable from a DIY standpoint.

Small arrangements are so much easier to make beautiful then big lush ones, I think. Plus they are great for long tables. I love the mixture of textures here.

Floating flowers in water? Check. Reusing the vases again at home? Check, check.

Top photo, lovely flowers by Housemartin via Black*Eiffel. Bottom photo by Anna Kuperberg.

Moroccan Wedding Inspiration

So I know I haven't mentioned it here, but we are serving Middle Eastern food at our reception. It's the first wedding decision that we made, in that we made it about two years before we got engaged. It's our favoriet kind of food, its great for vegetarians (David is one, I am not), it's not super expensive to make, and its great to serve en mass. Add to that the fact that we are having a Jewish wedding (already influenced by the Middle East), I worked at a Turkish Coffee house for years, and I used to bellydance... and well, this is a perfect food choice for us.
It only recently occurred to me that since I have a love of jewel tones and Middle Eastern decor, we could use that as a jumping off point for our color palette. These Images from My Marrakesh are inspiring me so much my toes are tickling. This is what I want! Not some paint by numbers wedding...
I saved the best for last... this bowl of flowers is fantastic DIY centerpeice inspiration. Bowls of low of roses like this would be beautiful interspersed between taller simple floral arrangements on a long table.
All images via My Marrakesh.

Modern Flowers Volume II

I don't know what I love more here, the cheery flowers or the teal dresses.

Picture via Brides Cafe.

Boutonniere's: Or A Flower In The Buttonhole

I've gotten tons of feedback on my post about David not wanting a Boutonnière. Who knew? Apparently all of us are looking for those little ways where the wedding industry is asking us to spend more More MORE and we really don't need to spend anything at all.

With all the buzz, I've done a little bit more research. Miss Manners, the source of all practical and sane advice, recommends a single flower at the button hole rather then "a bouquet." Wikipedia offered up this touching fact: "It is a British practice to place, after a wedding, the flowers from a buttonhole (together perhaps with other wedding flowers), on the grave of a recently deceased member of one of the families concerned."

Thanks to my readers, I learned that the original tradition was that the bride broke off a piece of her bouquet and tucked it into the grooms buttonhole, so the groom was wearing the brides colors (thanks Shannon and Beck). I think this is great! It's simple and it feels far more traditional and less contrived then the boutonnière. We are planning on doing this now. It's going to be easy for us, since in a Jewish wedding you sign the Ketubah before the ceremony, so we can do it then. If you are choosing to not see your groom before the ceremony, you could always send along a bridesmaid with a tiny sprig of your bouquet, or more adorably, a flower girl as your tiny emissary. Or heck, you could skip all that, and he could just put a jaunty flower in his buttonhole.

I really think these are far more meaningful traditions, and the fact that they cost less money is just icing on the cake (Pun intended.)

It's pretty... and over my pink limit, I'm afraid.

I don't have much to say about this picture, except, um, I like it, this is the mood I'm going for. And David won't let me get away with this much pink. It's not ever going to happen.

Basically, I just like to post something pretty every day. Now you know my motivations.

Photo via {frolic}

Simple Florals Volume II

It's lucky that I like simple flower arrangements, since we are doing our own. I love the silver vases used above. We will have to scour around and see if we can find vases like these (mismatched?) I've also found very passable plastic versions of these vases before, for around a dollar each. I like this arrangement as well, though we'll probably end up staying away from arrangements focused on roses.
I like this picture of a long table with florals and candles down the center, though I would want something with more color.

Photos via The Knot.

Modern Flowers Volume I

The joke is that I like old fashioned flowers and David likes modern flowers. (Neither of us are fond of post-modern flowers, which would, I suppose, be an empty vase). However, we both like dahlias. I think they look a little too much like Dr. Seuss flowers to have in my bouquet, but they make lovely arrangements. They grow in San Francisco in the summer, so we might find a way to work in their luscious bright colors.

Photo by Jessamyn Harris, via Brooklyn Bride.