The recaps continue

So far I've managed to write 2 but hopefully the arrival of professional photos (yay!) will inspire me to finish them!

I think I'm up to bouquets. We had buckets on buckets of roses, lisianthus, billy buttons, alstromeria and blue gum. We also had hydrangeas but were told that they wouldn't last out of water so used them in the table decorations.

A quick break for a fish and chip lunch, (mmmmm - it's impossible to get takeaway fish and chips here so got to make up for it in Melbourne) and we were back to the flowers. This time working on the table settings. 

We'd decided to put floral foam in the vases to hold the flowers stay in position. My sister, K, and her wonderful boyfriend had done this already which saved us some time. I'm glad we did as it meant less fussing with water when transporting them to the venue. We also took our chances with the hydrangeas as they are so bulky and take up so much space it made filling the vases easier.

At this point, Dad came out to help and got stuck into wiring roses and lisianthus for us. He did an awesome job! And before long, Mum, who swore she was having nothing to do with the flowers as she thought we were crazy for wanting to do them ourselves was out helping too. Thanks Mum!

In the end we were packing up around 8pm so it had taken about 9 hours to do the whole lot although there was a lunch break and a manicure break for K and I during that time. In the end we had 4 corsages, 6 boutonnieres, 3 bouquets and 16 centerpieces (2 per table). I think the total cost came to around $600. This included the vases and all the sundries - tape, pins, wire etc. While the bouquets and centrepieces weren't exactly as I had envisaged, we received lots of compliments on them so that was nice. 

One point to note - we did all these the day before the wedding and the centrepieces in particular actually looked a bit better the day after the wedding! They looked fine on the day but some of the flowers had opened more and they looked a bit perkier the day after. I guess my point is, if you want to do it yourself and are using the floral foam, you could put them together two days prior with no problems!

Also, if you were planning to DIY, try to see the flowers you are ordering - as I did it all over the phone I didn't see what the roses were like ( a rose is a rose, right?) and I was imagining the blooms to be larger than they were. If I'd known, I'd have ordered another couple of bunches.

So finally, about 9 we sat down to a beautiful mum-made lasagna (my favourite) and relaxed.

*Thanks to K and friend J for the photos*

9 days

So, I bit the bullet and bought the hydrangeas.

Flowers - tick, so happy. Also ordered roses, lisianthus, alstroemeria, blue gum, billy buttons and everlasting daisies.

Discovered my first not-so-good purchase. Earrings. They are beautiful and shiny and gorgeous but I have worked out why I don't wear dangly earrings. One of my ears is slightly lower than the other. Weird. The earrings make it really obvious - ok - maybe just to me. Anyway, I had earrings and a necklace that belonged to my Nana as a back up. They've just been cleaned up and have come up nicely so I'll wear them instead.

Procrastinating on the last job of the night - putting place cards into envelopes for each table. Best get on with it.

You never know, if I keep this up I might get more than 5 minutes to relax next week!

10 days!

BM gifts - tick
Seating - tick

My beautiful BM and sister found hydrangea plants with flowers at a nursery, now, even though everyone says they don't flower until December - ok so we'd have to buy a couple of whole plants... is it worth it? Then I could really have these beauties....

Green Wedding Shoes

Flower Fun

A little while back I mentioned that I was planning on buying our flowers from a local farm and putting them together ourselves.  Well, this weekend my sister was visiting so we decided to see if we had any skills whatsoever in the floristry area and this is what we came up with...

We'll have slightly different flowers for the real deal and we need a bit more practice tying the ribbons but overall are pretty confident we can create something that we'll be happy to carry down the aisle. 

Yay! 

Billy Button bouquets

Mum and dad came to visit on the weekend. I hadn't seen them since January so it was really lovely. We went out to the Comedy Festival Roadshow - so funny that I cried at one point! Other than that we relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine.

Our 'save the dates' arrived on Saturday so I gave a stack to mum and dad to distribute. Perfect timing as I wasn't expecting them until today. We ended up getting a simple design printed by Vista Print (100 free postcard offer - yippee) so we paid $28 for the postage and to upload our own design. They are nice and glossy and the colours looked like we expected so very happy with the budget option. The stamps will cost more than the postcards!

We also got to talking about flowers. I told Mum about my newfound love of Billy Buttons and while we don't think they'll be flowering in November we're going to try and find some dried ones to use. Apparently mum's nana used to love them too so it's a nice link back to her family. Whenever she went off fishing and spotted some she'd pick mum and her sisters a bunch.

We're planning to get most of the flowers from a flower farm about half an hour away from my parents and make up the bouquets ourselves. I'm liking the really relaxed, hand-tied style and am hoping that with the help of youtube tutorials and a couple of practise runs we'll be right!

Here are some inspiration pics...

Via Parsonage Events

Via Ruffled Blog

via Huckleberry Karen Designs

So bright and cheery!