Flowers for Weddings & Special Times
April 24, 2009 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Home & Living
This is the season to plan for weddings, graduations and other special events. Flowers usually play a prominent role in these occasions. Floral arrangements can be expensive or within a reasonable budget.
Image: sxc.hu
A couple examples of keeping expenses down are my daughter’s and my weddings. Perhaps you have some other tips to contribute.
Neither my daughter nor I had the traditional floral arrangements and bouquets for our weddings. I had natural flowers and my daughter silk ones. For both of us, the cost wasn’t exorbitant.
For my wedding, my mom purchased a mass of flowers from a local florist. My mother-in-law-to-be made the bouquet for my aunt (who was my attendant), corsages for the mothers and two other aunts, boutonnieres for the men, and a floral arrangement that encompassed the small white Bible I carried. She also made up vases of flowers for the luncheon tables. The reception took place in the yard of my parents’ home.
Our daughter was married 600 miles away from our home, so there wasn’t a great deal I could do personally for the wedding. I took care of the flowers and arranged for a local silk flower artist to make up the bouquets for the bride and bridesmaid, corsages for the moms, one grandmother and aunt, and boutonnieres for the men. These arrangements were lovely and looked like real flowers.
You can order the traditional flowers for weddings or look to your or someone else’s talent for creating artistic arrangements. If you plan well, you can keep your special event flowers within a reasonable budget.
Any tips on what has worked for you?
This post brought back memories. When our younger son got married, his wife was so busy she had no time to prepare for the wedding, so Chip took over. When we arrived, he had a two-page spread from a Martha Stewart wedding magazine ready for me. It outlined how to make a bouquet. He’d bought all the necessities except the flowers which we bought together. In general Chip has about as much interest in this stuff as he does in jumping out of a plane, which is to say, none. But he was determined to make everything beautiful for Sam and despite the fact that I had never done a bouquet before, it came out beautifully. Looked like it had cost a fortune! Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you, Lynn, for sharing this special memory of your son’s wedding. What fun the two of you had making the bouquet. I hope you have some nice photos. I also stopped by your web site and enjoyed the visit.