Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

I never saw myself as a florist.  I never knew what it would be like to create bouquets, flower arrangements, centerpieces, or any of that.  I figured it couldn't be that hard, and what I discovered after 2 weddings is that it really isn't.  I did all of the flowers for my wedding and my sister's wedding.  The one thing that I will say honestly, and I am sure many have heard this before, is that it is very time consuming and a bit stressful to do your own flowers.  Many wedding "experts" tell you to not even try it.  I would agree that trying to do ALL of your flowers is a lot, and it was kind of crazy to do them all myself (with some help, but let's be honest, I am a control freak and took on most of it myself).  However, if you want to save a LOT of money and have everything look exactly the way you want it, do it yourself. 

If anything, do the bouquets yourself.  I promise that it is actually really simple, if you have any craft ability whatsoever.  I watched a lot of tutorials online (some of which I will post) and spent some time practicing.  And I spent a LOT of time surfing the web and researching to find exactly what I wanted my flowers to look like and which flowers would be best to use.  We ordered flowers from wholesalers and then I worked my magic.  Below are some photos of the bouquets and flower arrangements from my wedding.  In future posts I will explain in more detail how I did this all!

My bouquet which included white roses, purple roses, white alstroemeria (my new favorite flower), purple lisianthus, purple limonium, and lemon leaf.  It was hand-tied and wrapped in a white fabric stem cover with some jewels.

Another view of my beautiful bouquet!

All of our lovely bouquets- each bridesmaid's bouquet was unique and each girl got to pick her favorite as her own!

Close-up of a bridesmaid's bouquet- each included purple & white roses, purple & white alstroemeria, purple limonium, dark purple lisanthus, and lemon leaf.

I made 2 of these for the ceremony at the church.  We found the urns at Michael's and used floral foam to create the sprays.  Each included gladiolas, roses, alstroemeria, and limonium.

This arrangement I made for the altar, and it was the beginning of the aisle runner.  I used a long block of floral foam and the same flowers as in the other arrangements, as well as a lot of greenery (some from my parent's backyard!)