my wedding: the flowers

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I was my own wedding planner. I loved all of the do-it-yourself details. I won’t share everything here, but I wanted to share my flowers.

So simple, yet I wanted red. Weird because I’m not a “red” person. But in the middle of March, red (and chocolate brown) seemed like perfect colors.

Where to buy beautiful red roses, on a budget? Two of my friends used GlobalRose.com before I did and we used them again for my mother and sister’s weddings (both of which I was in charge of the flowers!) We could not have been more pleased with the quality or timeliness of the flowers.

How many do you need? It is important to over-calculate. I figured 30 for me, 15 for each bridesmaid, 10 for bouiteneres and corsages, 20 per centerpiece. I don’t remember how many I ordered, but we had enough and that is a good feeling. The day before the wedding, my bridesmaids and friends all gathered together to make the centerpieces and bouquets.

For the reception centerpieces, I bought tin buckets and placed a cut piece of green floral foam inside {affiliate links}. We had red roses and dark ranunculuses which I adored. I had hot glued a velvet red ribbon with a bell on each bucket.

My aunt picked up our plain white cake (the top was carrot cake for my husband), and she decorated it beautifully with our flowers, and she even added some of her own that she picked up. I provided her a picture of what I “envisioned,” and I was so happy with how she decorated it.

For the bouquets — we put together all the flowers we wanted, and then you put floral wire around it, followed by floral tape. Finally, you add ribbon and secure with pearl pins. So beautiful and easy. (We used this method for my mom and sister’s weddings, all turing out beautifully!) We kept all the roses long and only cut them right before the ceremony, so that they could remain in water.

My sweet flower girls had little wooden baskets with rose petals. I simply hot-glued ribbon around the handles and red silk flowers all around the outside of the baskets so they’d look dainty and pretty.