Flowers

Ok, this blogging thing would seriously be easier if I had a camera that works. Our one has gone nuts - you put batteries in, take five photos, and then they're dead. Needless to say, we don't keep buying batteries every five photos...so right now there are none. So I can't show you my favours...which aren't complete anyway, though they really should be! So maybe it's just as well.

I realised that I never really posted about the flowers I finally chose for the bouqets and centrepieces. To be honest, they're ever-so-slightly up in the air until the Day Of, because I told the florist just to get what's available in the right colour for the centrepieces, in order of preference: Lilies, tulips, peonies......and waaaay last, roses. Reason is, my friend Henni (her brother) is paying for my flowers, and I don't want to overload him and make him pay for more expensive lilues, say, when peonies will do just fine. Or whatever. As long as the look and feel is there, I don't mind! This is the look I finally chose:

Except that I felt it was just a little too much going on for one table, not to mention a few too many vases and flowers expense-wise, so I trimmed it down to this bit:
Except you need to ignore the green mums in the left corner. What I decided for the second vase, which in this pic has what looks like twisty twigs in it, is to fill it with a couple of white flowers submerged in the water. That way I satiate my desire for submerged blooms (oh, how I love them!) without going overboard like THIS pic would entail:

It's nuts. But gorgeous nuts!

I think one vase of red flowers and another with some submerged flowers inside and a floating candle on top is plenty, right? There will be candles scattered around them and I'm getting a round mirror-base to reflect some pretty, romantic glow into the room, so I think that's plenty per table. And in the end, it doesn't matter if it's lilies or tulips or whatever.

My bouquet, however, is another story. I know dang well what I want, and it WILL be that. The end. Except I can't find the perfect picture! But it will be these lilies:


But in a style more like THIS bouquet (only without the greenery):

So I think it'll be pretty...interesting (and let's just hope not disappointing) to see what she comes up with there. I know that the deep red ones aren't as big as the purple ones, so they might not work in that style...I'll just have to trust her florist judgement! The black satin ribbon I'm using for everything will be around the stems with little diamante pins. Mmm.

The two bridesmaids' bouquets will be like these:
With the same black ribbon. Nothing startling or difficult there, hopefully.

And, finally, the men's buttonholes will be white lilies for the groomsmen and Dads, like this:

And Mr Slippers' will be a red lily to match my bouquet, something like this without the extraneous white flower:

I've met with Jenny (the florist) twice, and she SEEMS to be on top of things. I just hope it all looks as pretty in real life as it does in my head!

Martha Stewart fabulousness

Martha Stewart isn't as big a deal here in South Africa as she is in the USA. Over there she seems to reign supreme, on high, as the Queen of Decor, Weddings, Entertaining, Crafts and Homemaking. And here we get one or two of her magazines and that's about it. Still, it seems that planning a wedding online (read as: stalking blogs and living on forums) I was bound to run into her sooner or later. And I did, a little while ago, when someone recommended her Wedding Planning Tools.


I had to check this out. I'd already been to two websites which promised easy-to-use guest list, RSVP and seating charts, but I was sorely disappointed with both of them. The one wouldn't let me drag my guests around to other tables, and the other didn't seem to want to let me add any more people than myself and Mr Ruby Slippers. Um, ok, NOT what I'm looking for in a gust list, thank you very much. That's more of an evening at home, not a wedding reception.


So I logged onto http://www.marthastewart.com/ and went to Weddings. And I must say I was very impressed! I'm not a technophobe, but clearly at least one of those other websites was too much for me to handle. Martha's wedding section is incredibly user friendly and fast. There are places to add your guests, divide them up into parties (families, couples etc), list who they're connected to (Bride's friends, groom's co-workers, etc), track RSVPs, and SEAT them! This was what I really wanted the website for. I needed something where I could adjust the size of the room, the number of people at each table, have varying sizes and shapes of tables, and move them around to see the layout I wanted. Martha doesn't disappoint. Here is a screenshot of my first attempt at seating my guests...most of whom have yet to RSVP, but that's another story.

This is just a rough guide of where people might sit if they actually come. Hence the big gaps. But I'm finding it an extremely useful tool! Actually, my biggest problem now is not what table to seat people at, it's where to place said tables! Not only "where do we have the dancefloor?" but "Who sits closest to the head table and who sits furthest away?" Because that's basically like grading people according to importance, which is so not cool.

Martha also lets you keep track of vendors, payments, checklists, budget and timeline.

I HAVE 69 DAYS LEFT. SIXTY-NINE. Oh. My. Gawd.

Candle Bling!

When I bought the crystal beads for my hanging table cards, I had to buy more than I needed, due to sneaky packaging. I felt like Steve Martin in Father of the Bride, ripping open the twelve-packs of hotdog buns so that he only had eight to go with his eight weiners. Ok, actually Didn't care at all, since I was just thrilled to find the perfect crystal, but if I had cared, it might have turned out badly :-)


The shop where I bought them sold them in packs of eight, and I needed nine, so I was left with seven extra beads, too pretty to waste! So I decided to use them elsewhere in the wedding. But where? There weren't enough to attach to the chairs along the aisle, and they were a bit too big and unshapely to put on the bouquets. And then it hit me: Candle Jewellery!


A friend at work gave me a ton of candles, which are sitting attempting not to gather dust even as I type, so I already had them to work with. I had already decided not to do flowers on the head table, because that would end up blocking us from view, and of course it's all about us! So my idea was something like this:

Except in our case the row of candles will be on the outside edge of the table, not down the centre. And they're bigger, and not glass votives. But you get the gist.

So then I figured, since the candles will be at the end of the table, why not give them little crystal "necklaces" to hang down off the edge, and prettify the table a bit? So this is what I came up with:

Excuse the edge of the bed. I don't own a table. Pathetic, right? (well, I do own a table, but the computer and a million things are on it.) Anyway, I think these will add some lovely sparkliness to the table, and match the placecards! So yay!

Look what iiiiiiiiiiiiii got!

I'll give you a hint.



Oh, am I too obvious?

Yup, you guessed it - I FINALLY found damask for my table runners! Whoohoooooooo!

Here it is laid out on the edge of my bed. What a great pattern, right? And though you can't tell, the black part is flocked (ie velvety), giving it a wonderful luxurious texture. Mmmm.

So on Sunday when we had our great invitation assembly line (more on that story later) at Mom and Dad Ruby Slippers' house, I laid it out on their dining room table and cut it into strips, using only the pattern and my own wits to guide me...

Sister Ruby Slippers, Best Friend Slippers and Mom Slippers look on in horror and amazement as uncoordinated little me slices into yummy damask goodness...


"This isn't so hard!" (Best Friend RS and Mom RS seem to be enjoying it, anyway!)

Turns out my arms aren't as long as an eight-seater dining room table...Sister RS is deep in thought trying to solve this puzzle...

Ah, what the heck, I'll just jump on the table and do it that way! Check out my Dad in the background taking pictures of me with my butt in the air!

Deep concentration is so attractive. :-) And my highlights totally need redoing!

So there you have it. I've left them there with lovely Mom Slippers and her slightly iffy sewing machine, to be transformed into the yummy wedding goodness that you saw in the first two pictures. And there's even enough left for the cake table, if I can find out how big that is!

Do you think I'm asking too much in hoping that they won't be too damaged after the wedding so that I can sew them together and make curtains for our new house? Because talk about reuseable practicality!

Man, I love damask.

Free stuff...yeah baby!

I love candles. I want a ton of them at my reception, on every table, reflected in mirrors, lining the walkway, the whole shebang. But, well, they're pricey. And essentially I wanted them to be in little glass votives or big hurricane lamps, because I love the look of a flame in glass, and it's safter that way anyway. But those are even MORE expensive! So the week before last I was chatting to this lady at work about candles, and I mentioned that it might be cheaper if I just bought el cheapo candles and melted them down and set them in little glass holders, rather than BUYING them like that, and she said, "Oh, I have a bunch of half-burnt candles from my daughter's wedding; do you want those?" So I said yes please, of course! Duuuh. But what was great was that when she brought them most of them were barely burnt down at all! Seriously, once they're lit you won't even notice that they aren't new. So I'm just going to use them like that, none of this melting and setting nonsense :-) Three green shopping bags full! I have candles coming out the wazoo.

I could do this on every table if I wanted! Only not in the glass holders...

Then (I love this lady) we got talking about petticoats, and how Bride & Co wants R500 for a petticoat (daylight robbery), and she immediately offered to lend me her daughter's one too! I tried it on the other day and it's perfect! So whoohoo, freebies on two pretty big items (you know, not big like photography or food, but big enough for me to be thrilled!) Anyone else get some awesome free gifts or loans for their wedding?

Centrepiece woes...

Who knew centrepieces could be so complicated? Probably everyone except me…it’s just, in the old days (you know, like the eighties!) everyone had these big floral arrangements on their tables, the kind that were poofy (to match the sleeves on the wedding dress), and so huge you couldn’t see five people on the other side of the table. Not me, I decided, I’m going to have something simple and elegant and (ahem) cheaper...


Definitely don’t want this…

BLECH.

Anyway, so I’ve narrowed my idea of simple and elegant and inexpensive down to about fifty. Just kidding. I’ve got it down to forty-seven now. :-)


These are some pictures I love. I just don’t know how to decide which one to go with! I feel like the submerged flower idea, while stunning if it’s pulled off correctly, can end up looking really shoddy if done badly. At this point I should say that I’m not having a florist decorate the tables, because a friend of mine is paying for the flowers as his wedding gift (isn’t he the best?) but another friend of mine - and possibly me, depending on time and stress - is going to pull the decor together. So it CAN’T be too complex!




LOVE the elegance of this..but it’s too tall.

This is pretty and romantic…but too plain?

This is stunning…but it’s more daytime and summery than my wedding…

Just love this one too, but is it too many littles vases of stuff? Can we say "Complex and time-consuming?"

Yeah, so basically I don’t have a CLUE what I want. How on earth do I combine all the elements I like from all these photos, while doing the whole thing kind of DIY?

Oh, and did I mention I also don’t want my poor friend who is PAYING for all of this to fall over in shock. And then never speak to me again!

Flowers are a pain. Pity I like them so much! It would be so much easier with just candles.