Sunday, February 21, 2010

Flower frame of mind

I was looking through our wedding photos this morning and feeling a pang of nostalgia for wedding planning (and no, I never thought those words would come out of my mouth). One of the things I was most nervous for, because it had to be left to the day before the wedding, was the centerpieces.

I ordered a LOT of roses from Costco, in addition to one bunch of baby's breath and one bunch of red freesia, just because I was on the phone and couldn't think of what else they would stock. The woman I dealt with didn't speak great English and it was at times hard to get hold of her. Driving to Costco with my mom and grandmother the day before the wedding, my heart was in my throat. But everything was there! And we wound up exchanging 24 golden roses for 24 peach ones, which I think was a great decision to break up all the yellow.

Meanwhile, my Nanny, an avid gardener, drove up a car packed to the gills with flowers from her garden. It makes me so happy that all the wildflowers you see, most prominently the splenderous zinnias, came from her garden, as did the filler greenery.

Not everything was left till the last minute. In the year leading up to the wedding I collected vintage floral tins from eBay, as well as vintage milk glass and assorted glass- and crystalware. My sister and I made the table numbers using the font from the invitations, and Shelby created the wire table number holders by hand. We tied them on with the same ribbon we used for the favors (Virginia peanuts in cellophane baggies).

Candles and votive holders were from Michael's and Ikea. I also bought up a bunch of cheapo picture clip frames from Ikea because our trial run with the tins indicated they would leak and leave rust stains on the rental cloths. Wedding magazines never show that stuff, but I'm so relieved that I found glass panes for an insanely cheap price.

La la la. Someone else needs to get married now so I can "help."

3 comments:

liz said...

I have this nagging sensation all the time to become certified in event planning... maybe Liberty would allow us to use their textiles in some beautiful garden events... and I could photograph the events and be published in fabulous design and wedding magazines. Wow, that sounds delicious to me.

theotherlion said...

Your centerpieces were my favorite I think I've ever seen. And I watch Platinum Weddings. =) It was so fun (nerve-wracking at first, but fun) to help put it together.

Karen said...

last thing we had to add to the centerpieces were lots and lots of glass "stones" to weight the vases - the wind was strong that morning and kept blowing them over. Glad I had a huge supply on hand from my long-ago craft project to make a glass rug (which doesn't work, btw, to walk on with wet feet).