What are pomanders? Well, when Mr. Dolphin and I jumped on this crazy ride called our wedding, we had no idea. I simply dubbed them daisy balls ’til I could properly pronounce their official name (thanks to some help from Seminole Bridesmaid, aka, the wedding guru).

image from Weddingbee Classifieds

After seeing these daisy pomanders in the Weddingbee Classifieds section for $75 for 10 of them (not including shipping or shepherds hooks to hang them on), I figured I could tackle these myself (and since the listing quickly sold, I had no choice but to make them myself). So, on I went to Walmart to purchase 6 green floral foam balls (only 6, not 10, because we are on quite the budget), yellow ribbon, and several bunches of daisies.

These beautiful daisy pomanders are super easy (and really quite fun to put together).

Step-by-Step Instructions: (I apologize I don’t have photos, I made these last May)

1. Cut the faux daisy off the bunch at about 1.5″ from the flower
2. Take the flower stem and stick it into the floral foam ball (I originally bought a hot glue gun to glue the daisies into the ball, but found that simply just sticking them into the ball, held them enough)
3. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the green of the floral foam ball is no longer seen
4. Then take a strip of ribbon and fold it over into a knot. String a large metal paper clip through the ribbon and stick the paper clip into the floral foam ball.
5. Adjust the daisies until the paper clip is no longer seen.

photos courtesy of Mr. Dolphin

And… voila! You have a daisy pomander, ready to hang on a cute little shepherd’s hook, or a chair arm.

• faux white daisy bunches $4.50/bunch
• green floral foam ball $2.37/piece
• 40 inch shepard’s hook $5.97/piece

Total per Daisy Pomander set = $13.28
Grand total for 6 sets = $79.71
all items bought at Walmart

The ad on Weddingbee classifieds charged $7.50 per pomander (no hook), and I made them for about $7.31 each (no hook). Which I think, isn’t quite bad at all!

Our ceremony decor hanging in our wedding closest. Mr. Dolphin even installed a light in the closest, so I could better see and organize all our wedding stuff. What a sweetie!

These babies are now hanging peacefully (as long as Dolphin Kitty doesn’t get to them!) in our wedding closet.

How are you keeping your animals out of your wedding stuff?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Confession: I’m scared of flowers.

Before wedding planning, my flower facts included yellow roses are for friends and the fact that I like gerbera daisies (just to prove how clueless I am, the first time I wrote this post it read “Gerber daisies”. Gerber as in the baby food brand, sigh). I can tell if something is “pretty” but I can’t verbalize what I like about them. This is why I dreaded the floral decisions.

NOT

Gerbera Daisies, Gerber Baby Food

Sadly, Googling “wedding flowers” didn’t help me much either. Then I found Style Me Pretty’s 121 pages of floral inspiration and Martha Stewart Weddings’ flower section.

I’ve always loved the fluffiness of them but I’m pretty sure peonies are out of the question in August. Then I found a viable alternative from Martha Stewart… and look how fluffy they look!

I wanna be peony

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Better yet, roses are less delicate than peonies and so they’ll be able to withstand the August heat and my abuse better (I don’t treat my things nicely, especially under stress). I also like dahlias and ranunculus, but maybe more for the centerpieces:

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I love how the tones of pinks and purples in this centerpiece tie the colors together.

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The multiple vases with different or single blooms adds some texture to the tablescape. The antique silver vases add a nice vintage garden feel, too!

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As you know, many brides are shocked when they get their first floral proposal. I didn’t want to be one of them. Luckily, I stumbled upon Weddingbee’s sister site Weddingbee PRO which has florist bloggers. This blog post was also helpful in understanding why wedding flowers are priced the way they are.

I am now armed with a few ideas and inspiration and a better knowledge of floral pricing. The next step would be to meet with one of the recommended florists.

Are you as scared of the floral decisions as I am? How did you do your research to prepare yourself?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

We’re quickly approaching the equinox, which for us means that it’s getting harder and harder to get out of bed and go for a surf in the chilly mornings, but for those of you on the other side of the world, it means spring is coming! Which means, I really need to start thinking about what kind of flowers I want. Pronto.

We still have 5 months until the wedding, so why so early? Because we are hoping that our talented friends and family will be able to grow us all of the flowers we need for the wedding, which means said flowers need to be planted. This also means that this veggie farmer needs to start thinking blooms.

Looking back I see that I went about this process in the complete wrong order. You see, I scoped out ideas, fell in love with certain flowers, and then figured out what they were called and when they were in season. This whole process involved some mild heartbreak when I found out that peonies and ranunculus (two of my faves) will definitely not be in bloom in the Eastern U.S. in August. I probably should’ve found a list of what is in bloom, then picked some off of that that I loved. Oh well… live and learn.

Here were the inspiration for my flower choices: (You knew I’d have an inspiration board or two for you.)

Sources: Top: Left, Center, Right; Middle: Left, Left-Center, Right-Center, Right; Bottom: Left, Center, Right

Sources: Top: Left, Center, Right; Middle: Left, Center; Bottom: Left, Center, Right

And here are the blooms that are involved in making these dreams come true:

Sources: Phlox, Brassica, Aster, Craspedia, Chrysanthemum, Zinnia, Peony, Dahlia, Poppy, Garlic Scape, Ranunculus

Yep, included in that list are brassica (cabbage) and garlic flowers. What would a veggie wedding be without some veggie blooms?

Luckily after researching what is in bloom, almost all of these are possible. We’ll probably need to say goodbye to peony and ranunculus, but I’m still holding out hope for late blooming varieties that might be grown by our guests coming from Maine and New Hampshire. Garlic scapes are also an early summer flower, but here’s hoping that one of our creative friends finds a way to set some back (Piling snow on top of the garlic bed? Planting them in shade?).

There are some drawbacks to our approach to flowers. Will we know ahead of time what our centerpieces and bouquets will look like? No. Will we have to spend time the day of putting it all together? Yes. Will I have strict creative control over how it all turns out? No. But we’re OK with all that. For us, the upsides: no money spent, the love of our friends and family going into our big day, and a low carbon footprint, definitely outweigh all the drawbacks.

How did you decide on which flowers you wanted to be included in your wedding? Are you including any non-traditional flowers?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Catching up on our newsreader this week we stumbled across this post over on The Brides Cafe featuring these utterly gorgeous corsages from Emersonmade. Feast your eyes on these little beauties:

This article was originally posted onWeddings by Zoe Lingard.

For many brides, choosing a beautiful bunch of wedding flowers may be one of their priorities as they accessorise their dress.

However, according to one publication, they should not worry too much about what is in fashion and instead, should just pick what they like.

According to thestar.com, people are giving too much thought to their blooms instead of going with their instincts.

Similarly, they are also over-thinking the practicality of their flowers, especially when it comes to bouquets that may get crushed when they are greeted or hugged by relatives.

"But, like so much about planning a wedding, that is but a needless worry. Ruined by embraces? What a lovely way to go." the news provider states.

It adds that the wedding flowers should be used as a way to enhance the occasion with fragrance, as this "makes memories better than anything else".

One thing women may not struggle to decide on for their wedding is how they are going to wear their hair, as creative director at the Mark Hill Salon Jules Holland said that 1940s-style waves are very in vogue this year.

Whatever colour scheme or style of wedding you choose, be sure to find a matching flower in the hitched.co.uk wedding flowers section

This article was originally posted onHitched.

So, if you’ve been following along, you know that I decided on using baby’s breath for our DIY centerpieces, and that I scoured the stores to find a plethora of vintage-y vases.

Now, it was time to take them on a test run (please try to ignore my end-of-day nasty hairdo if you can)!

I purchased 3 small bunches of baby’s breath from Publix (they sell 3 bunches for $10). Each bunch included 3 stems. First, I cut the stems down (each stem has a number of smaller “branches” splitting off on each side), and then simply placed them in a vase until I achieved something that looked like this:

So simple, yet so pretty! Each vase requires an average of about 3 stems of baby’s breath. I was pleasantly surprised to see how full the vases looked with what seemed like 3 measly stems when I started!

But, we decided that we needed to make the process even easier, since we will have to assemble them ourselves on the day of the wedding. We tried out the method of securing the stems with a twist tie. Easy! We arranged the stems into a “pouf”, wrapped them with a twist tie, and then dropped them into the vase. This will work out well, we hope! The plan is to assemble the poufs the night before/the morning of the wedding. We are starting to collect wine cases; each pouf (and its matching vase) will be placed in a slot for easy travel.

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Then, we will simply have to place each pouf into its vase when we arrive at the venue. Hopefully, this will save us time, as we won’t have to hang around the venue to assemble flowers the entire morning!

Did you take on a DIY with flowers? How did you go about transporting/arranging them on the day of the wedding?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I already started talking about the research that I had completed to find the best flowers for the lowest prices. I was pretty satisfied with my selections, but I wasn’t really sure how things would pan out at our meetings with the vendors. Knowing that florals can occupy a significant portion of the budget, I was nervous to see what we would be quoted by the local florists for what we wanted.

I had made this list of things I thought we would need:

• Bridal bouquet
• MOH bouquet
• 8 bridesmaid’s bouquets
• Groom’s boutonniere
• Best Man’s boutonniere

(Wondering where the rest of the boutonnieres are? You’ll see)

• Mothers x 2
• Grandmothers x 3
• Godmothers x 1
• Centerpieces = 3 different kinds (high full, low full, minimalistic) x ~10 each
• Family table = 1 large centerpiece + 8 small (bud vases)
• Cake table arrangement (or bridesmaid bouquets)
• Gift table arrangement (or bridesmaid bouquets)
• Place card table arrangement

I brought these pictures with me as inspiration, and I was able to talk about my likes and dislikes of each as we went.

(source)

This was the first purple and green bouquet I ever saved a picture of. It was also the moment I knew that hydrangeas would be a big part of our wedding florals (they are so gorgeous and BIG!). I really like the variety of antique green hydrangea seen here. Also, see the green seedy-looking stuff hanging out of the bouquet? It’s a type of eucalyptus, and guess what? It’s sage. Not green-green like a lot of other filler, its a pretty sage that matches perfectly!

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Even though the purples are a little off from our palette, I still love the way this bouquet looks, ESPECIALLY against the black bridesmaid’s dress. I considered getting black dresses for quite some time, but I know that the deep eggplant dresses will look gorgeous with the bright flowers.

(source)

Mmmm garden roses! So gorgeous for brides that don’t have peonies as an option (like me!).

(source)

I love the pinks and peaches in this bunch. I know that I want a lot of purple, but I also want light pinks and peaches in our flowers.

(source)

I love the variety of colors and different flower types in this one. If I sub out the darker pinks with some purple flowers, I can almost see my concept here!

After discussing all of my flower and color choices (as well as reception centerpiece shapes and sizes), our floral consultant at Woodrings gave us a number we couldn’t refuse. I was pleasantly surprised that she felt she would be able to do everything on my list above within our budget! Yay.

So now, my attempt to visualize our wedding florals:

Top Row: Antique Hydrangea, Ivory Anemone, Purple Mini Callas

Middle Row: Ivory Anemones, Amnesia Roses, Pale Pink Roses

Bottom Row: Picasso Mini Callas, Pink Ranunculus, Antique Hydrangea

My bouquet will include a bit of the following:

1. Hydrangea – antique and ivory
2. Roses – amnesia, ivory, pale pink
3. Anemones – ivory (they look pinkish)
4. Ranunculus – ivory, pale pink/peach, purple
5. Mini Calla Lilies – purple and picasso

Cheeseburger SisterMOH’s bouquet will be a smaller version of mine. The rest of my girls will get more streamlined versions that I’m not completely decided on. I obviously love mixed bouquets, but there is something lovely about a bouquet filled with all the same flowers. I have seen other bridal parties that have had BM#1 carry all roses, BM#2 carry all hydrangeas, and so on. I have also seen the same idea with each girl carrying different colors. In the end, I suspect I will go with mixed for the girls, but you never know.

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I kind of feel like this post should be over on Backstage! But since it’s not, here goes …

I was having a bit of a tough time getting into the holiday spirit. Lots of family stuff going on. Way backed up at work. (I’ve got a very understanding boss, though.)  I was looking for some serious winter inspiration (which would mean going into last years’ weddings) and I happened upon Beautiful Blooms’ blog.  And whoa! What I saw … Simple eloquent beauty … the absolute jump start that I really needed to remember how great it is to ‘deck my own halls’!

I literally stopped in my tracks and just smiled. One of those ah-ha- moments!

(photography by the fantastic Marie Labbancz)

After seeing these holiday arrangements from Beautiful Blooms, my juices are flowing and I’m ready to hit my local florist for bunches and bunches of lovelies! I KNOW I can’t even come close to creating the beauties that Donna does, but that’s not going to stop me! I love flowers. I love color. I have ALL SORTS of containers. I’m all set!

However … since this is the LBB blog and I’m supposed to be all about weddings, I should also say that I can totally see YOUR December wedding overflowing with these designs from Beautiful Blooms! Just imagine, rows and rows, or mini-clusters of simple, sentimental blooms in clever, colorful containers for centerpieces all over the place!

When I told Donna that her blog post was just what I needed today, she sent me a few more photos … here are a couple of shots from their Boutique (just around the corner from the design studio) …

Super cute, aren’t they?

You know, they kind of do it all now from design and decor to floral, draping, lighting and details. Honestly ~ you need to take a look!

Thanks Donna for my own one-on-one pick-me-up and for awakening the joy that I knew was deep down inside me! I DO love Christmas so much! We really hope to see more of your holiday delights in the next few weeks!!

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Post tags: Beautiful Blooms, Beautiful Blooms Boutique, Christmas Inspiration, Floral Design, Holiday Weddings, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Winter Weddings
Post categories: Centerpieces, Little Black Book Blog, Wedding Flowers

This article was originally posted onStyle Me Pretty.