Adding realism (?)

While I knew that paper flowers were the way to go for our wedding, I couldn't help but develop a fondness for all the yellow bouquets with green hypericum berries I was finding online. (Hm, I think I have neglected to mention so far that our colors are navy, kelly green and yellow.)


source
But how to incorporate them into our bouquets? Buy them from a florist and pop them in? Buy in bulk through an online distributor? How long would they last fresh? Is there a dried alternative?
Mostly what I found online was about $110 for 80-100 stems but I just wasn't sure about going the live route. I remembered a post from Miss Beagle on WeddingBee about her brilliant fabric bouquet and the faux berries she found in the silk flower department, but for the life of me I couldn't find anything similar. So I bought some green polymer clay and figured I might try making berries out of that. I've made things out of clay before. I mean, my sister and I made the most adorable little cheerleaders out of clay in high school for Christmas ornaments. Berries? Pfft. Pas de problem.

Well, I can't report on the clay berries because earlier this week on another trip to Hobby Lobby (I like to go browse occasionally ^_^) I found these interesting little styrofoam balls in a pale green. I was a little unsure on the shade of green as they seemed a little too pale and perhaps a smidge too small, but figured, what the heck. It's $2.50 for this big ol' bag, I'll give it a whirl.

Supplies:
Itsy-bead-sies, $2.50
Floral wire, $2.77 (but I think I got it on sale, actually)
Floral tape


An idea of the scale of the berries. They aren't uniform by any means, but this gives a good idea of the size range.


I cut a piece of floral wire (about 2-3 inches) and carefully pierced a styrofoam ball with one end. Make sure the wire is as straight as you can get it or you'll pop out a big chunk of styrofoam when you come out the other side, which makes things more difficult later on. Twisting slightly, I slowly pushed the wire through the ball, out the other side. I made a small loop on the end of the wire and then pushed the ball back up the wire so that the loop was mostly embedded in the ball. I thought this looked more realistic, like the little bitty stem on the end of a real hypericum berry, and would also help the ball stay in place. Repeat on other end of wire. Fold wire roughly in half so both berries stick up. I bent the wire so that the berries would be at slightly different heights.


After making 3 pieces of wire (6 berries total), I bound them together with a piece of floral tape. I tried arranging them precisely, but the act of taping made them shift anyways, so I ended up just bending the wires around to a natural-looking shape. Then I taped the bunch to a longer floral wire that could be taped to the bouquet stems.

The finished product:




Unfortunately, I think they're a little too pale next to the yellow. They look washed out (of course, the lighting in my apartment really sucks, so that doesn't help). But I'm toying with the idea of watercoloring them with a wash of slightly darker green, just to tint them a little richer shade of green. What do you think?

Les fleurs de papier

Despite having read that red is the most popular wedding color, it's never been a favorite color of mine and just seemed too predictable or traditional for our wedding. Same with all white flowers--pretty in real life but in pictures I think they blend into the wedding gown. So I knew very soon after we got engaged that I wanted yellow flowers for my bouquet and some type of blue dress for the bridesmaids (oh, who am I kidding? I totally have known this for years ^_^).

However, there was a small hitch in considering the flowers. One of my bridesmaids, M, is very allergic to flowers. She does pretty well in the outdoors but holding flowers near her face? Not so much. In her own wedding she went for all silk flowers to prevent having red streaming eyes all night. I knew I would feel horrible asking her to suffer through our wedding, so I started investigating alternatives.

Enter the wonders of the internet.

1. Shutterlove Modern Photography 2. Dozi Design 3. Martha Stewart 4. Martha Stewart 5. Brides 6. Craftster

ALL of these flowers were made from crepe paper, tissue paper, vellum, construction paper or coffee filters. Some, like the coffee filter roses, look insanely life-like. Others, like the white vellum flowers or the spiral roses, are unique and architectural. Naturally, I was entranced by the idea of making all of our flowers. Unique? Hypoallergenic? Cheaper than real flowers? Check, check, and check again.

These flowers are well suited for a budget bride with a lot of time on her hands (or at least a nice long engagement). Aka, me.

I didn't take pictures of the process of each flower, but here are some images of some of the flowers I made. I bought crepe paper in flat sheets for $0.99 at Hobby Lobby in the party section. If you can't find the colors you want in stores, this website has pretty comparable prices, but you have to pay shipping, too. I bought some in yellow, white and green and was very pleased with the turnaround time and selection of colors.

Why yes, I did get dressed up to take a picture of my paper flowers. Ignore my damp hair, plz. ^_^ I've actually made more flowers since taking this picture and increased the size of the bouquet as it seemed a little chintzy this small.

I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly you can make these flowers once you get the hang of it. Instead of buying the Martha Stewart kits (which they didn't sell in yellow. Pfft.) I looked at the online templates and cut out my own petal guides from a cardstock brochure I got in the mail. Does that count as up-cycling? The first flower has your average petal-shaped petals, the rose petals are heart shaped and the peony petals...sort of look like a flipper. I really have no better description than that. The sweet peas and carnations (which I forgot to take pics of) are folded and smushed round pieces of tissue paper. I attached the petals to the floral wire with floral tape and once I had a bunch of flowers I grouped them together in my hand, starting with one big rose then building around it in a circle, to create the bouquet.

Thoughts?

Moving In For The Kill

OR
How I Almost Lost Our Reception Site

So. Where were we? Ah yes.

The rustic Country Pines had been eliminated due to heat and bug concerns.


The affordable but generic HiMark was nixed due to an ugly ceiling and a lack of ambience. (Doesn't K look giant in there? Yeah, 6'3 is tall but he looks crazy tall in there!)


The charming, Spanish-style (in Nebraska, no less) Hillcrest it is!

After dragging both K and sister Joyce to sneak a peek at Hillcrest and get their opinions, all we had to do was send in the deposit to save the date. Which is why it's totally embarassing to admit that we had decided on Hillcrest around the 20th of June and I didn't call about sending in the deposit until July 9th.

So I called around 10 am to double check they had the date open and the best way to send in the deposit (have K drive over after work and do it in person? or mail a check?). I put on my best professional voice and prepared to make our first big commitment to wedding planning.

*ring ring* Hi, yes, I'd like to book Hillcrest for a wedding on August 7, 2010...The wedding coordinator doesn't come in till 11:15? Ok, I can call back. Could you double check that the date is still open please?....Someone is already penciled in?!...Is it possible my future mother-in-law penciled us in? Would you mind telling me the last name?...Oh. No. That's not us...I'll call back. Thanks.

NOOOOOO! After a year of being engaged, worrying about how to afford a wedding, touring a million sites, waffling over what to choose and someone else is penciled in on MY date at MY reception site?! Oh nuh uh!

I'll be honest, at this point I was a nervous wreck. It's a good thing it was a quiet day at work, because I was a ball of self-loathing anxiety. I spent the next 45 minutes on gchat sending panicky messages talking to Joyce--How could I be so lax about booking such an important thing? What if we didn't get Hillcrest?! My heart was set on it now! Why didn't the world revolve around my wishes to have the reception at Hillcrest?!?! WAAAAH!

There was a lot of whining on my end and a lot of reassuring and efforts at distraction on Joyce's end. I'm kinda embarassed about how pathetic I was acting. I was all keyed up like I was on a bad caffeine high. But finally it was 11:15 and I simply couldn't wait any longer to call the wedding coord. at Hillcrest.

The wedding coord., Kim, was very nice and said that yes, someone was penciled in, but they had been penciled in for weeks now and that she would call them immediately and ask them to reserve the date for real or release it so I could book it, and she would call me back as soon as she heard. I thanked her and got ready to spend the rest of my day distracted and anxious. She literally called me back in less than 10 minutes to say that the other couple had released the date! Victory in our time!

Filled with the sweet feeling of relief, I gchatted Joyce with the good news, left a message on K's phone so he could take a check over after work and put our names down in indelible ink for the date, and proceeded to go home for a comfort lunch of Mexican casserole and a coke. Which after all that anxiety, I felt I deserved. ^_^

So we finally have one big decision made for our wedding. Next major task: booking the photographer.

Hunting the Elusive Reception Site

Oh dear. I'm embarassed that I put the blog away for so long. I blame it on the busy cycle at work. :P

So. After being engaged for 10 months, I figured it was time to get off my lazy butt and start hunting for a reception site. So in the lovely month of March (ha), I set out with my FMIL and FSIL to go have a look-see at what the great city of Lincoln had to offer.

Even getting so far as deciding on Lincoln over Omaha had been a big of a struggle. I wasn't sure if I wanted to plan a wedding in a different city, even if it was just an hour away. All I could think of was, "Oh man. That's going to be so inconvenient, not being in the same city." But a good portion of the guest list was coming from Lincoln. And even though Omaha would be convenient for me, I just couldn't justify asking over half the guest list to stay in hotels when we could just do the darn thing in Lincoln. Besides, Lincoln is a lovely city and pretty easy to navigate, so at least there's that.

So one Friday afternoon in March (actually, it really was a lovely day. It just usually isn't in Nebraska in March ^_^), I took off the afternoon from work to go to Lincoln. After getting mildly lost trying to find FMIL K's work, we met up and set out with our google maps. I swear to God, that was the longest day of my life. I think we went to 6 "potential" sites in one afternoon. I add the quotes to "potential" because most of them were not suitable at all--they were big enough but some were in rough areas of town (um, by the train tracks near a glorified waste river? No thanks) or were inconvenient (I need to pay extra to use the kitchen, bring a caterer, rent plates, glasses, servers, bartenders, security AND I have to mop the floor afterwards?! Um, dream on).

But after the end of the weekend we had it narrowed down to 3 locations. A rough-around-the-edges outdoor location, a generic but still lovely room at a golf course, and a gorgeous ballroom at another golf course. Though seriously tempted by the outdoor location (mason jar vases! gingham check! outdoor ceremony under an arbor!) I had to come to terms that August + outdoor ceremony/reception in Nebraska = a good chance of all our guests being reeeeeally uncomfortable, dare I say miserable. Plus, when my mom came up from Missouri to check out the top 3, she absolutely hated it. HAAAAAATED it. Which irritated me because I really liked it, but I have to admit it forced me to look at the potential problems as well as all the cool decor ideas I had. *sigh* Oh well. Practicality enters the scene and starts making itself heard. Darn it.

So. We were down to two. And when it came down to the generic but lovely, slightly more economical choice vs. the charming ambience of the slightly more expensive choice...Well. Though I was immediately drawn to the charming ambience of Hillcrest, I just couldn't be sure I was making the right decision. K's mom and my mom just refused to say which one they preferred. My mom--I don't think she had a preference. K's mom--I think she didn't want to step on our toes, so she was holding back. Frankly, I wanted someone else to give me their own strong opinion and debate the pros and cons with me instead of being so darn polite and deferring to my "wishes as the bride." Ok, even more frankly, I wanted my sister there to tell me what she thought so we could hash it out with no worry about potential hurt feelings. No one will tell me the truth quite like her. Which will be readily apparent in any and all dress-related posts. ^_^

So after wibbling over the choice for, um, 3 months or so, dragging K to see the choices as well and dragging Joyce to sneak in and see Hillcrest, (making my number of visits a whopping three for HiMark and four five for Hillcrest) yesterday we finally took the steps to book the site. And oh. The drama that ensued. But more on that in the next post. ^_^