Friday, February 21, 2014

Our Wedding: Floral Design

Last week I had the joyful experience of meeting with the floral designer for our wedding!

As I mentioned, our wedding will be a small, intimate affair with only a couple dozen guests.  So we're excited to splurge a bit on flowers.

The floral designer and I talked first about my favorite flowers and preferred colours, and then discussed what's available in June.  Luckily my two favorite flowers, English roses and peonies, are available (but sadly dahlias are not).

We worked through my bouquet first, and then flowers for the ladies and the men.  Next time we'll discuss the tablescapes and other small arrangements.

For my bouquet, this is the inspiration and the only photo that really seems to capture the general look I want.  Since I'm wearing a vintage-look ivory gown (I found one!), I think it's important to have ivory as the foundation of the bouquet. 

We will likely do ivory spray roses and English roses in pinks and peaches.  I also want little berries like this for texture and a pop of bright colour...

I like lots of diverse greenery in the bouquet, to give a slightly wild, gardeny look.  And I'm drawn to loose, slightly imperfect arrangements like this (but perhaps with a bit more colour):

I adore pinks, but with mine and David's blue eyes, we've concluded that peaches will look better (orange is the complement of blue, you know...so we think the peaches will be most flattering in photos).  This little arrangement would be perfect for a matron-of-honor, and the charming hypericum berries add some texture:
I also want a bit of pure white in the bouquet, as the foundation of the wedding will be white (white linens, white paper goods, white flower bowls on tables), and David's shirt will of course be white.

I love pink and so we'll add a bit of pink, perhaps pink-centred white peonies or pink garden or regular roses, or perhaps some tiny flowers with pink buds: 


As much as I love pale and soft bouquets, I am drawn to a little pop of colour, which adds contrast and depth.  So I think we need to use a few brightly coloured blooms (and perhaps smaller flower for variety with the larger English roses and peonies).  

I love the bright small, tight flowers below (are these ranunculus?), in deeper orange and yellow.  Or we might use a deep pink.  We're in love with yellow (the flower at the bottom), since I'll wear gold jewellery.  We think a dash of old yellow would be a lovely reference to the golds, which will also appear in our paper goods and our place settings:

What an exciting thing to plan!

I can't wait to hear back from my designer about what blooms and what colours are available so we can finalise the palette.  And then we can move on to the tablescapes.  I'm starting to source vessels now.

I hope you are well! And apologies for not visiting much.  I miss you all and will be back before too long!

xo's Terri

23 comments:

  1. As a former florist, I've been looking forward to seeing what you would choose for flowers. Your bouquets are going to be amazing! I like the idea of a pop of colour with all the soft colours you've chosen. Yes, the bright, small, tight flowers are ranunculus.

    I can hardly wait to see what you've chosen for the tables.

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    1. Oh, you were a florist!! Amazing. :)
      Thanks so much and I think soft and pretty and romantic is timeless...would love suggestions if you have any others.

      xo T.

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    2. Pretty and romantic is perfect. I can't think of a single thing I'd do differently. Your choices are exactly the ones I'd make if I were getting married! It's a shame it's too early in the year for dahlias, though.

      Seeing your beautiful inspiration photos makes me wish I was back in the flower business!

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  2. Beautiful! Looking forward to following along as the rest of your wedding plans unfold.

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  3. Flowers are such a wonderful part of a wedding! I was so clueless back in 1992 when I got married - and, I didn't have pinterest or the internet to give me ideas. I can't even imagine how wonderful and also impossible it must be to plan a wedding in this day

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  4. Oops, posted too soon! What I was writing that it would be hard to plan a wedding with all of the millions of visual inspirations out there unless you know your taste and can make decisions - which you clearly do (know your taste) and can (make decisions)!

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    1. Holly, you are right. I've found it sooo hard to keep with a tightly edited style. It is a battle to stay off Pinterest, and I want to change direction every day, but now that I'm committed to several big clothing/decor decisions, there is no going back!!

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  5. Such lovely inspiration photos. I really love the pale creamy flowers with greenery and the little berries to give some grounding. Looking forward to seeing the table setting ideas, too.

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  6. Such beautiful and romantic flower bouquets! I adore all your ideas, Terri. For me, I love bouquet's with simple, sweet and fresh scents. How about lily of the valley?
    Cheers,
    Loi

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    1. Oh I love those. They grew on my grandmother's property. What a great idea. I will have to ask my floral designer if we can include some. How lovely...but they are very tiny. We might have to use on the tables....!!

      Great idea.
      xo Terri

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  7. These are all so beautiful, I can almost smell them. It would be such a hard choice. I think I like the third to the last one, the pinkish one that has hydrangea and eucalyptus buds. But the one after it with the silver leaves--artemesia, I think--if it added a few dark buds for contrast. It would be tough to choose but it doesn't seem you can go wrong.

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    1. You're right Steve, hard to go wrong with just about any flower in this post, but you have no idea how hard it is to stay on track. Well, I guess you do since you've renovated...!!!

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  8. I love the berries. It must be so hard to narrow down choices. I would probably order in reverse saying something like , "No carnation, baby's breath or purple. Now make me something."

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  9. Hooray, Terri! So exciting! All of these examples are gorgeous. Looking forward to hearing about your final choice for flowers.

    xo,
    Deborah

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  10. love your ideas -especially the pop of color!

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  11. Oooo, they're all so pretty, Terri. My favorite is the fourth photo from the top, or the third from the bottom if you count from that direction (same as Steve's choice). Such fun to plan these kinds of details. Enjoy every minute of it.
    Claudia

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  12. Anonymous2:40 am

    What a beautiful post to read Terri and how nice to be looking at and musing over so many lovely flowers and arrangements. The joy of flowers becomes the most joyful expression for a wedding! So happy you are enjoying this planning for your special and thanks for sharing it with us all, beautiful, beautiful selections! Xo

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  13. Anonymous12:15 am

    Ooh, they're all so pretty, They are gorgeous!
    Wedding Flowers

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  14. Looking good! Happy to see you are having so much fun with this!

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  15. Very informative, keep posting such good articles, it really helps to know about things.

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  16. Hey keep posting such good and meaningful articles.

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  18. I am extremely impressed along with your writing abilities, Thanks for this great share.

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