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Wedding DIY Bonanza

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If like me you are a fan of gorgeous wedding DIY, then this is the week for you. Abby over at Style Me Pretty is posting wonderful DIY projects submitted by her reader all week. It’s only Tuesday and there are already several that I love, love love.

My favorite so far is the apothecary jar table numbers.

Apothocary Jar Table Numbers
Apothecary Jar Table Numbers

Here is a tip, see if you can rent the jars before you go out and buy them all. It will save you money and you won’t have to worry about what to do with them when the wedding is over.

Do checkout Abby’s blog and if you are a crafty bride looking for some great DIY projects. Be sure to check out her DIY archives.

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Fruit Centerpieces for Flower Friday

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I love the way fruit adds to centerpieces. In the fall it gives a feeling of bountiful harvests and in spring a touch of joyous exuberance.
A couple of these are pretty elaborate, and some are simple enough to do it yourself.
Fruit and Candle Centerpiece

Fruit and Candle Centerpiece

Autumn Centerpiece with FruitI

Autumn Centerpiece with Fruit

Spring Centerpiece with Asparagus and Artichokes
Centerpiece with KumQuats and Dahlias

Centerpiece with KumQuats and Dahlias

In all honesty, not much is easier than a footed bowl filled with a variety of seasonal fruit with a few blooms and a couple of leaves tucked in to hide any hole. Sometimes nature at its simplest is all you need.

Filed Under: DIY Weddings, Flower Friday, Wedding decor Tagged With: , ,

Bride Wars

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I just ran across the trailer for the upcoming movie, Bride Wars. Oh my dear readers, I can’t wait. Starring Kate Hudson and Ann Hathaway as BFFs turned bitter rivals when their wedding are double booked at the Plaza hotel. Throw in Candice Bergen as the wedding planner and you have a festival of bridal angst!

The movie is set for theatrical release January 9, 2009. That is just too long to wait. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer


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My Perfect Wedding Bouquet

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I spent three very long intense days working with a florist friend of mine last week on a wedding that required 26 bouquets. During the course of all this, we got to chatting about what would be our perfect bouquet. Oddly enough, the look, shape or color wasn’t high on my list of criteria. It was the smell.

Most commercially grown flowers have little or no scent; it has been bred out in favor of looks and hardiness. There are still a few, however, that have retained their aromatic glory. This is where I went.

So here is my wish list:

Flowers for a Fragrant Wedding Bouquet

Flowers for a Fragrant Wedding Bouquet

    • Gardenias. Yes, they are very delicate, but they smell like heaven.
    • Stephanotis. Tiny little charmers that I would add crystal centers too.
    • Tuberose. A classic addition to perfumes but also a darn pretty flower.
    • Freesia. Fragrant and lovely.
    • White Phalaenopsis orchids. No, these aren’t fragrant, but I would love to see their pretty faces smiling up at me.

Being a noob at floral design, I prefaced my wish list by saying that I doubted it would work. My friend Jody immediately jumped in to say “hey, of course, it can. For you, we’d make it happen.” I trust Jody, she has been doing floral design since she was in the womb. If she says it can happen, it can happen.

Bridal bouquets were originally made of fragrant herbs as a way to chase away evil spirits. This thing would smell so good it might actually attract a few benevolent ones to your wedding. That can’t be a bad thing.

So here is a question for all my friends and readers out there in the industry: without limitations, what would your perfect wedding bouquet be? Is it color? Is it shape? Is it a particular flower? Inquiring minds want to know. If you think about it, you have seen about a bazillion bouquets over the course of your career. What would you choose for yourself?

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More Candle Centerpieces

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With the long nights of winter rapidly approaching I am longing for the warm glow of candlelight. Candle centerpieces can be a wonderful way to decorate your wedding. If you have read Wedding Dish for very long, however, then you know I am on a personal mission to stamp out bad ones. So let’s look at some great ones and see what sets them apart.

Sparkling Winter Candle Centerpiece
Sparkling Winter Candle Centerpiece
Candle Centerpiece with Orchids

Candle Centerpiece with Orchids

Blue and White Candle Centerpiece

Blue and White Candle Centerpiece

What makes these arrangements special are three factors:

  • Variation in height and shape.
  • Abundance
  • The “sparkle” factor.

These were all done using glass containers and candle holders. The light reflects and twinkles off the shiny glass. One of them has the added shine of iridescent snow, sparkling snow flake and silver balls.

A single floating candle in a low bowl surrounded by rose petals will never have this kind of impact. For that matter neither will a grouping of pillar candle, even if you use a ton of them.

Which leads us to the question of where the heck do you get all that glass and what do you do with it after your wedding? Here is the simple answer: rent it. Check with your florist and your rental company, both should have a nice selection. When your event is over, they take it all back. Easy and usually a lot less expensive than buying. While you are at it, they will most likely have a few bits of silver to add to the mix to bump the shine quotient. How about adding a silver sugar bowl filled with 3 roses cut short? Be creative and think outside the box.

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Finding inspiration.

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Sometimes putting together a color palette for your wedding seems to be a bit of trial and error for some brides. Oh, maybe not picking the main colors, but finding the accent colors can be a bit hard. If this is true for you then I have a great tool for you.

Colour Lovers is a tool a have been having a ton of fun with lately. The palette creator tool lets you pop in any image from the internet and pull the palette out of it.

In this example I used two different beach photos to put together the palette for a beach wedding. First, the pictures.

This one I used for the blues.Wedding set-up for a Florida Beach

This one I used for the sable colors

Beach Wedding Set up

Beach Wedding Set up

I plugged them into the “find inspiration” box on the palette creator tool and this is the palette that I created.

Color Palette fo Beach Theme Wedding

Color Palette for Beach Theme Wedding

You would be amazed at the colors you will discover if you look closely at something. Here is another one I did recently along with its inspiration.

Palette taken from a Tulip

Palette taken from a Tulip

The inspiration

Tulip Inspiration

Tulip Inspiration

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Doing Your Own Wedding Flowers

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Yes you can do your own wedding flowers. Really. That is assuming you are a bit creative, a bit calm and have some helping hands around.

Orange, yellow and red. Gerber daisies, gladiolas and queen anne's lace

Orange, yellow and red. Gerber daisies, gladiolas and queen anne

I am seeing more and more local florists offer crash courses on the “How To” of doing your own wedding flowers. I’m not saying they will teach you enough to be a florist, but they will show you the skills to put together simple bouquets and centerpieces.

The classes are not too terribly expensive if you look at it in light of what you will save on your wedding floral budget. As an added bonus you do get to spent a few hours in the company of other creative brides surrounded by lovely flowers. That can’t be a bad thing.

There are also books available and videos on YouTube and UBloom if you can’t find a class near you. Nothing however can compete with the hands on training you will get from a seasoned floral professional. Add to that, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with the florist. This will help out a lot when it comes time to tackle your own wedding.

Why? Well because many of them will also sell you the flowers. Will they be as low cost as the local price club or the internet? No, but, they have access to flowers you will never find at Costco and they will be there to make sure you receive fresh flowers in good shape for you big day. That in itself is well worth the small price difference.

If you think this is a DIY you would like to tackle, graze through the websites of your local floral designers or call the local floral wholesaler to see if they know who is teaching in your area.

Filed Under: DIY Weddings, Flower Friday Tagged With: ,

Cakes with Fresh Flowers

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Sometimes even the simplest cake can become a stunner with a few fresh flowers. It might even be a money saver. Check with both your baker and your florist and be sure they are working together.

Filed Under: wedding cakes, Wedding planning advice Tagged With:
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