DIY: Flowers

Ok, Ok......I KNOW! It's been forever! But I've been waiting on pictures from my photographer and I needed a little break from wedding stuff. It's been a nice break, but for now I'm back to recaps.

So I took on the brave and stupid idea of doing DIY flowers, bouquets, centerpieces, etc. The good news is it worked! and it was cheap! and I had help!

Originally my inspiration included this:

Ranunculus and anemones and maybe roses?

I ordered my flowers from www.fiftyflowers.com. I placed my order for roses, ranunculus and anemones. I got a call about two weeks before the wedding that they would be unable to fulfill my order for anemones. :( I was really sad....my whole wedding was black and white and those flowers really tied it all together. (Kind of like the rug in The Big Lebowski). So after I pouted for a few days and tried to find black and white anemones I surrendered and decided fine....I just do ranunculus and roses. Well.....they couldn't get me anymore ranunculus! AGHH!! "Oh well. What other white flowers you got then?" They decided tulips are basically just like anemones and sent those. That was fine, except that in all my research I didn't realize that tulips keep growing....this will be important later.

I didn't really get to take pictures of this next part, but I'll tell you about it. My flowers arrived two days before the wedding. I followed the directions from the FiftyFlowers website about prepping the flowers. Cutting the stems in water, adding flower food and putting them in buckets. I kept the roses in the very dark air conditioned room at my mom's house, I kept the tulips and ranunculus in the patio at my mom's. (They needed to open up a bit more).

I have some FABULOUS friends and family! I had about 7-8 girls show up to help me get my flowers done. That was the best thing! They worked their butts off! They stripped flowers, cut stems, made all my centerpieces!

Mo made the cutest centerpieces!

(Ranunculus Doctor)

The ranunculus had VERY weak stems. Hannah spent her time adding wire and floral tape to the stems to make them strong enough to use for bouquets, etc.

My sister and I were pretty freaked out to start the bouquets.....we started small and kept adding.

Don't I look terrified?!

I think we ended up with 15 centerpieces and 4 bridesmaids bouquet, my bouquet and a toss bouquet. We wrapped the bouquets in matching black satin ribbon. I also ordered rose petals from FiftyFlowers.

Here are some pictures where you can see the flowers.

All the following pictures are by my photographer Allison Ruth.

See that rouge tulip? It kept growing!

Here is where I show you how I made the centerpieces.

LET ME EAT CAKE!

So the cake was a big pain in the A$$.

I heard rave reviews from everyone about ABC Cake Shop and Unique Cakes by Karyn.

It was a battles of prices so I went with ABC Cake Shop.

Now remember this in Albuquerque and Greg and I live in Denver. So we had to plan from Denver and around our trips in town.

Cake inspiration

Originally we went for our tasting in December 2009 and were able to taste a bunch of flavors, fillings and icings. We got a couple of price quotes and were told we could make our final decisions as late as two weeks ahead of time.

Everything was going fine as I was fretting over what flavors we wanted, what style of cake we wanted etc. One trip in town we went to put our final information down and I was told, "Oh no we definitely don't recommend whipped cream filling, for those decorations there is a $$$$ upcharge, blah, blah, BLAH!!!

The main problem was that ABC Cake Shop was reorganizing their wedding department and we were in the middle of getting conflicting information. Apparently the at the original tasting the guy just told us whatever we wanted to hear and didn't really know what he was talking about. Ok that's fine. I'll deal.

BUT, after realizing that our guest list count was much lower than we anticipated I tried to call ABC Cake Shop and email ABC Cake Shop numerous times over 2 weeks to update our order. I repeatedly asked them to confirm these changes with me as it was very difficult for me to be able to come in and confirm. Jen and Andrea did not email me back until a wek after Greg's mom went in to speak with them. So that was like 3-4 weeks after my original phone call. Not acceptable.

In the end, the cake turned out great, it was gorgeous and was what I wanted, but working with ABC Cake Shop over the phone from Denver was not easy. I understand they are reorganizing, but seriously send a flippin' email.

Anyways, I'm done with my rant, but here are the fabulous pictures of our cake!

The topper was custom-made by NakedPeggies.

We had two flavors. They were almond cake with bavarian cream filling and chocolate cake with chocolate cream filling. Our frosting was buttercream and the rose petals were fondant. It was all hand-sprayed with pearl shine-y stuff.

I had the almond cake which was awesome! I heard the chocolate cake was awesome too, but I didn't get to try it.

So all in all the cake was great, it was just pain in A$$.

Le Dress

Yes, it's true, I got my dress on ebay!

I tried on dresses at numerous boutiques. Once my mom came with me she found THE dress. Of course THE dress was WAAAAYYY over my budget.

I looked on Preowned wedding dresses, oncewed, and weddingbee. I looked for any of the dresses I had tried on, but I was really looking for Enzoani Dorothea.

And then I checked Ebay. I found it! It was a sample size (10) just like the one in the above picture. Those clothespins are holding back quite a bit of fabric. That is how big the dress was that I bought. It was brand new with tags for over 75% less than retail. I took a big chance and bought it! I had no idea if a seamstress was going to be able to size it down to me or how much that would cost.

***

But it worked out great! The Wedding Seamstress, here in Denver is AWESOME. Deedee made it work. She altered my dress and it fit perfectly the first try! She was quick and very knowledgeable. I would send any and every bride here! She was also VERY affordable!

So from a size 10 to a 4, from Ebay to my wedding, my dress was PERF!

Dancing the night away....

Our DJ was awesome. He was worth every....last....cent. His name is Chris Torres and his company is Tuffersound.

He did our ceremony music. We had a variety of music. Two songs were the Beatles and my brother recorded a violin and guitar version of his interpretation for me. I think we got Chris the music the day of. He had a microphone set-up for the officiant and the music played at all the right times!

He also did our music for the reception. He did our entrance song which was Mississippi Queen by Mountain. It was great!

Right when we sat down to eat our photographer told us she only had 1 hour left to get the rest of the pictures. I really wanted pics of the first dances, cake cutting, garter/bouquet toss, etc. We informed the DJ and he made it happen. He moved everything right along from the first dances to cake cutting, etc. He ran the show and did a great job. I was so glad that someone else was in charge of timing and getting everyone's attention. He seriously took away our stress!

Our first dance....Warm Love by Van Morrison

My dad wrote a song for our father/daughter dance. It was very special.

Greg and his mom danced to Lynard Skynard's Simple Man

Our cake cutting song was One Love by Bob Marley

The best man (Greg's brother) and maid of honor (My sister) caught the garter and bouquet! haha

Pretty much after the food was eaten, everyone danced all night long. I don't remember the dance floor being empty at all. Everyone had a blast!

I think this picture sums up the night.

Venue!

Our venue was the Sandia Golf Club in Albuquerque. In planning our wedding Greg and I both said "No ballrooms". We both wanted something outdoors, but there are limited choices in ABQ. I had never seen a wedding here, or heard of a wedding here. Greg's brother works with Guest Services and he offered it up when we were starting to plan our wedding.

Sandia Golf Club

Our ceremony would be here, on the driving range. This picture was taken over a year ago when we were checking the place out. It was high noon.

Here is a view from the patio.

Here is a view of the patio.

Originally we were looking at this piece of grass to have a tent reception. The patio would only hold 12o guests and we were thinking closer to 150 would come so our only option was to rent a tent for that piece of grass. Up until 2 weeks before the wedding, everything was planned for the tent. Once I realized that only 120 people were coming, I switched it to the patio....BEST DECISION EVER!

It made everything easier from alcohol serving, food serving, music, dancing, cohesiveness.....it just worked. Jeff Elliot (the food/beverage guy) was awesome to work with. He was easy-going, answered all of my questions and executed everything.....perfectly. From the set-up to the servers everything was like a well-oiled machine. I could not have asked for a better venue. It was also VERY reasonably priced....I mean VERY.

Here are some pics of the scenery.

Originally the paper lantern chandeliers were designed to go inside the tent, but Greg's dad made it work with our last minute change of plans. I just feel like everything was well designed and well executed. I didn't even imagine how wonderful everything was going to look.

The more I think about it, the more giddy I get.