me: quite contrary

I don't call ... I don't write ... I sure as hell don't blog ...

... but oh, how my garden grows:







Also: just because it's overcast doesn't mean you can't burn. And I knew this ... but now I know this.

playing catch-up

I figure I should probably finish posting about all the stuff leading up to the wedding before I start on the recaps. (Besides, I might have more photos by then.) So: here's my last 2 major projects.

1) Programs: The Mr. & I had agreed on the idea of fan programs (you know -- an outdoor wedding in August) quite a while back. But we hadn't finalized details like music choices until frighteningly close to the event itself. Good thing: we had exactly enough paper left over from making the invitations for these. Bad thing: I spent the better part of 2 days assembling them, becoming progressively less & less concerned with any semblance of "perfection."

This is what I started with.

This is the finished product.
Getting from point A to point B entailed a second trip to Kinko's when I realized I hadn't saved the file as a PDF, which caused my pretty script font to reset to something I think is called "Nerd-tastic Robot", making yet another trip to Target when I ran out of glue dots, and a stop at Michael's on our way out of town because I ran out of ribbon after making about 10 of them. Good times. But hey -- they're pretty.

2) Flowers: In a move that suprised even me, I decided to "wing it" when it came to the flowers. The Mr. & I swung by the S.F. Flower Mart on Friday morning & bought stuff we liked that was the right colors. Good thing: nice hotels will bring you all the extra vases you ask for, and even cart away the copious trimmings. Bad thing: I was hideously optimistic in estimating how much time the assembly would require.

This is what we started with:
From left to right, those are jade roses, white lilies dyed blue, cream roses and white freesia. I'm normally not a fan of dyed flowers, but the lilies pulled the color into their petals along the veins, which created an amazing, delicate stripey effect. We both gasped out loud when we saw them. Total cost of the above 7 bunches: $50 cash. And we found street parking -- woot!

After going through a lot of this:
and thoroughly soaking the jeans I was wearing, I ended up with these:


My bouquet was made of the cream roses and the freesia. It smelled amazing.

And these are my ultra-fab b-maids holding their bouquets of the jade roses, freesia & lilies.
I finished making them & wrapping them with florist's tape the day before, and plunked them in those hotel-furnished vases. At about 11 a.m. the day of, I just wrapped the stems with dusty blue ribbon. The groom's boutoniere was a single cream rose to match mine, and the g-men each had a jade rose. (That part was the Mr's idea -- oh yes, he's that good!)

This is my favorite picture of them -- all the flowers together:
Ps: if you are useless at maintaing nicely-manicured hands, fluffy flowers are your friend!

first 4 pics by me
last 4 pics by Marija Thomas Photography

pretty and cool

source

White & green striped orchids. I have no idea if they're available in California in August, but I love them anyway. For the centerpieces -- not the bouquets.

Sometimes, you just gotta have a wishlist.

boldly going where I try not to go

In an attempt to solve my flower dilemma, I've been cruising The Knot. Which I usually prefer to think of as The Not, as in "I'm NOT going to get caught up in the 'how can I compete with that?' crap that they not-so-secretly promote." But from previous forays into their territory, I do know that they're an excellent resource for almost too many photos, broken down by category to the nth degree.
I like the ivory roses, and the blue leaves tucked in between them are called dusty miller. Its incredibly hardy (always a good thing) and comes from Italy, which would be a nice detail since I lived there for 4 years.

The blooms are pretty tiny, but I really like the color of these blue tweedia. They look great tucked between the fluffier white flowers.

I like the hydrangeas' look much more when they have other things mixed in.

The simplicity of these is also gorg -- magnolia blossoms & leaves.

Another hydrangea mix, with orchids & lilies. Not the orange, but I love the balance of this.


Just a simple mix of roses & lisianthus. I'd go with jade roses (the pretty pale green ones) instead of all-white, but I played with lisianthus when I made my trial run to the L.A. Flower Mart, and they're great.

Another thought: I'm mulling over the various merits of planning to buy the flowers when I get to S.F., which would give me one more thing to do up there, versus getting them the morning that I leave L.A., since I'm obviously going to be driving up with all of my d.i.y. crap. I guess it all depends on how to store them for the ride, and whether I can get the hotel to provide a frig that's not filled with airline liquor bottles and $5 cokes.

And now, a confession: I went to another place I've been deliberately avoiding for months. I shopped. In my defense, I've been helping out with the merchandising at S lately, and I spend my Mondays in a stockroom filled with goodies that taunt me. And I've been very good: no non-wedding related purchases since ... well, since I started making wedding-related purchases. And I get a pretty sweet employee discount ... oh, hell -- I'm totally trying to justify this, when really I think that all I need to say is this:
For the record, it's very hard to photograph a shoe on your own foot, and yes, that's my giant stuffed St. Bernard in the background. His name is Bernard (British pronunciation, with the accent on the 1st syllable.)

All bouquet pics from The Knot except the last one (which I lost -- let me know if that's yours!) Shoe pic by me.

indecisive = me

I apologize for all of the non-wedding related rants & dancing bird videos I've posted recently. I actually have been working on wedding stuff ... I just haven't been writing about it. If I had to give a reason for the disconnect, I'd blame my elevated level of general (aka non-planning) insanity. I've been busy, which is good, but tiring. Also, I like to rant. It pleases me.

I noted last night that my little "subject cloud" on the right shows a greater incidence of things like "insanity", "silly" and "rants" than it does "veil", "shoes", "programs", "favors", etc. Ah, well. I am what I am. But I'll try to get back on topic today.

The main area I've been working on is food. Post-ceremony dinner, and reception buffet, to be specific. I think my main reason for being reluctant to go here sooner is that these are likely to be the two biggest expenses of the whole nuptual circus. Which makes my guts contract just a wee bit, because I don't think I can get around it by being clever this time. Sure, our ceremony site is a city park, and I found my dress on eBay. But I don't see myself pulling off a similar cost coup on the food. I've never fed 120 people before. Not even accidentally. I've seen it done, in my few experiences as a cater waiter, and the amount of waste behind the scenes makes me barf at the thought of it. Whatever we choose as our final solution, that ain't happening on my watch, I promise you.

credit

I'll confess to having thought, "Can't we just get a crap-load of pizzas?" But Mr. UB withered that thought with a mere glance. And while some people make pot-luck receptions work beautifully, its not right for us. So we're meeting with caterers. Two of 'em, who we found via great recommendations. I'll keep you posted.

For my next total conundrum: flowers. We're not going to have many of them at the reception (hooray for the more cost-effective power of candles!), but I would like to carry a few of them in my hands down the aisle. I'm a contrarian, but not that much of one. The problem is ... what kind of flowers? We're getting married in August, in California, where the temperature tends to climb upward during the afternoon. And my favorite flowers, tulips, like to do this in the heat:

credit

No bueno. Also, I've decided that I'd like to have a little color involved here, since everything else is so neutral. I like hydrangeas, but I don't know if I want them for this.

Meh.

I saw a great bouquet on Southern Weddings that had gerbera daisies mixed in with roses, but I don't know if I can make that look like anything other than a great big polka-dotted ball o' petals. (Did I mention that I want to do this myself?)

Oy.

How early will I have to get up to S.F. on the day before to make it to the Flower Mart, and will the control-freak in me be okay with just "seeing what's there that day?" (Answer: hell, no.) Sigh. I'm going to go to work, and stop worrying about this drivel for a few hours.

Suggestions in the comment section are welcome. Solve this for me, and I may just buy you a pony.

credit bouquet 1
credit bouquet 2
(no disrespect to the owners or creators of these bouquets - they're just not me)