Flowers - check!

This past Sunday, Josh, my mom and I were up bright and early to go to our consultation with Holly from The Scarlet Bloom. I must say, I was nervous. Flowers are one of the tiny details of a wedding that become a central focus point: they are in the photos for eternity. I was also nervous because we are on a budget. At this point, the wedding budget is the law. We have to stick to it. Based on estimates from The Knot and other sites, I had guessed my flowers were going to cost about $500 total and that is what I budgeted for. It was definitely scary to not know if I was anywhere close to accurrate on that.

As it turns out, I did not need to be nervous at all. Holly is amazing. Besides my amazing friend and photographer Marci, she might be my favorite wedding vendor. She works from home in North Denver, so she made the drive out to where we live and met us at a local Starbucks. She was so prepared. She had note sheets already filled up based on the emails we had exchanged back and forth. She had her laptop loaded with photos (all in my own personal file folder) of the exact flowers she will be able to get her hands on. She told me she actually personally makes the trip to the flower wholesaler and garden that my flowers will come from so that she can select each stem herself to ensure quality. I am amazed by her.

Our consultation lasted about an hour. Although I am a perfectionist, she thought of details even I never would have. Basically, she listened to the style of flowers I wanted and then made some recommendations for me to choose from. What we ended up with was: English Roses, Ranunculous, fiddle head ferns, snowberries, pink lysianthus, and ivory spray roses. Of those, my bouquet will only be made up of blush and ivory English Roses and pink ranunculous with a couple fiddlehead ferns. My bridesmaids will have less roses and more of the other stuff to make them look a little different. Here's an idea of how those huge, gorgeous English Roses look in bouquets:

 

My bouquet will look more like this, mostly roses.

 

The Bridesmaids bouquets, more like this...less roses, more details. However, this blush color is going to be what my bouquet will look like, while the more magenta color above is for the bridesmaids. Confused yet? 

We decided we wanted our bouttonniers to be simple and masculine so they will be made up of a single ranunculous blossom with a fiddlehead fern, something like this:

 Our fathers and grandfathers, as well as our ring bearer will each receive a boutonniere as well.

Our mamas will be wearing a wristlet, while our grandmas will receive a beautiful pin on corsage.

My favorite detail actually arose while talking about our flower girl. Our flower girl is Josh's baby sister, Scarlet. All of Josh's siblings are a huge blessing to both of us. Scarlet is special though because she was just born when I started dating Josh. While his other siblings accepted me with open arms, Scarlet only has ever known me. I was even her nanny for the first year or so of her life. She is such a sweet, smart little girl with these eyes that lure you in. I decided pretty early on in wedding planning that I wanted her to stand out. My mom and I plan on making her a tutu to walk down the aisle in. Our chapel, oddly enough, does not allow real flower petals to be thrown on the ground. Well, I will be darned if I have to have fake rose petals to walk on. Uhm, no. Holly recommended that we make Scarlet a tiny little pomander ball to hold as she walks down the aisle. I am IN LOVE with this idea. It is so obvious, but I never thought of it. Scarlet will love it too I am sure. Here is an idea of what that will look like:

 

At the end of the day, I had nothing to be worried about concerning flowers. Holly relieved all of my fears. I told her, after selecting the flowers that I like, that she has free reign on creating whatever she pleases for the flowers. I feel confident that she will create exactly something that I would love. She also assured me that she will be in constant contact, letting me know what works and what doesn't. And she will be personally delivering my flowers to me on the day of the wedding. We couldn't be more excited for this enourmous check off the list.