We Have a Winner!

We have a winner from the Baubles by Kari giveaway! The lucky lady is...

 

Debbie!!

 Congratulations, Debbie! Contact me with your email address and I'll get you in touch with Kari. Thanks to everyone who entered!

DIY Detail: Flowers - Part 3

I lied, I have one last DIY detail. This one was really my mom's project, though, and she did an absolutely FABULOUS job. Back in February my friend J (who I've talked about before and who is getting married THIS Saturday!) and I found some huge vases at TJ Maxx to use for the arrangements at the front of the church. We each bought one and I used them for our ceremony and she's using them this weekend for her's! 

I don't really have step by step instructions for this project, but I did want to share some tips for artificial floral arrangements. We saved SO much money by doing these ourselves and using artificial flowers. And my mom was able to finish them the week before the wedding, which saved everyone some stress!

• When using a tall vase, you need something in the bottom of it to keep it from being top heavy. We used black river rocks from Dollar Tree - It was inexpensive and they looked great. I'm planning on selling them on Craigslist (so I don't have to ship them)

 

• For arrangements at the front of the church/ceremony, you can use lower quality/cheaper flowers because no one will see them up close. Some of the 'filler' flowers were from Dollar Tree and people were still asking us if they were real!  

 You can see them in the background here - More explanation of the actual picture during recaps! 

Lola Jo

• To save yourself time and money, you can make the back of the arrangement flat. No one will see it from the back, so there's no need to add flowers facing that way.

•  Repurpose the arrangements by moving them to the reception and using them as decor there - We placed ours on either side of the head table. You can see one of them on the right side of the picture.

Lola Jo

I would defnitely recommend using artificial flowers for your big arrangements if you have plans to DIY them! I know lots of brides are against fake flowers, but they saved us lots of time and stress and they looked great! 

Are you using any artificial flowers?

*I'm officially finished with my DIY details! Tomorrow I'll finally get to start our honeymoon recaps, and as soon as I'm done with those I'll start our wedding week and actually wedding recaps. Our pictures are online and we should have the CD within the next few days!!*

More Flower Goodness

I mentioned that I have a wonderful, generous friend who is willing to provide you guys with even more flower goodness! Kari is giving away an order of her gorgeous teardrop crystal baubles (the ones I used in my bouquet!) to one lucky reader!

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The baubles are about 5" long and are made with 8mm teardrop shaped irridescent beads and silver wire. They're a great addition to any color bouquet! 

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To enter, comment on this post telling me what your bouquet will look like!

For additional entries (separate comments, please!):

1. Heart Kari's shop on etsy

2. Like Kari's Facebook page
3. Make a purchase from Kari's shop (5 additional entries)

4. Become a follower of my blog :)

You can see the baubles in action in my bouquet here:

Lola Jo

The giveaway will end Sunday, August 1st at 5 PM CST and the winner will be announced Monday morning. Good luck!

DIY Detail: Flowers - Part 2

The Thursday evening before the wedding we had my mom, FMIL, and both of my FSILs (David's younger sister and his brother's wife) over to my parents' house to work on assembling the bouquets. I blogged about my inspiration for the bouquets and mentioned using feathers in the bridesmaids bouquets. We were actually able to find perfect feather picks in the floral department at Hobby Lobby and they were 50% off, making them only 50 cents each! We also had the black baubles from my friend Kari to add to them. (You should visit her etsy shop right now - They are SO well made and she's basically awesome!) Aside from that, our other supplies were floral wire, floral tape, wire cutters, ribbon, scissors, and pearl head corsage pins (also from Hobby Lobby).

There are all kinds of tutorials online (and even youtube videos) and wedding flower books that give in depth instructions for hand tied bouquets. Honestly, you just arrange the flowers in a circular pattern and move them around until there aren't any gaps. We didn't make all of the bridesmaid bouquets one specific way, and in fact they were almost all made by different people.

JrBM K made her own!

A look of exhaustion and frustration

I wanted to assemble my own bouquet. I worked at it for probably 45 minutes and I just couldn't get it to look quite right. It just wasn't perfectly round and I couldn't tell where exactly I needed another flower or what shape it needed to be. My SIL took it from me and slowly turned it so I could see it from further away and from all angles. Sometimes this is exactly what you need - Don't get frustrated if you have to hand over a bouquet to someone else because they can see something you can't. It's so much easier with several pair of eyes!

Please excuse the awful look on my face

Eventually my mom took it and was able to figure out exactly what it was missing. As soon as you have it the way you want it, the tricky part is wrapping the stems with wire without it falling apart. We found that the easiest way to do this was to have one person hold the bouquet near the flower heads while the other person wrapped the stems (tightly, but not tight enough to cut into the stem) with wire and floral tape. After the stems are wrapped, you can start wrapping with ribbon. David stopped by around this time, and he got sucked into helping cut wire. :) 

My mom loves this picture of us - I'm working on wrapping my bouquet

For my bouquet I used thick damask ribbon and secured it with the corsage pins (you'll have to cut the ends of them with wire cutters because they go all the way through) and then criss crossed thin pink ribbon around it. For the bridesmaids I used hot pink ribbon and then tied a knot at the top with a coordinating black and pink ribbon. I used a piece of the thin pink ribbon to attach the bridesmaids' bouquet charms, but hid it under the thicker ribbon.

Lola Jo

Stamp of Life Photography

I don't have a great picture of my bouquet individually, but you can kind of see how it turned out in these: (And it gives me another excuse to post one of my favorite pictures!)

Lola Jo

Lola Jo

Photo by my cousin, M - Funny story behind this one that I'll tell in our recaps!

We made small bouquets for the moms, boutonnieres for my dad, FIL, grandpas, and ushers, and a couple corsages. For some reason I don't have pictures of any of them. I'll be sure to update this post once I get our pro pics of them!

After the bouquets were all assembled we put them back in the buckets and put them in the fridge. (Make sure that you don't wrap the stems with ribbon all the way to the bottom so that they can still be in water.) We kept them refridgerated as long as possible, and the boys (who got ready at our house) brought them with them, still in water, to pictures. 

I would definitely recommend DIYing your flowers! We saved so much money, and I was able to get exactly what I wanted. My mom was really stressed about it leading up to the wedding, but even she says now that it was all worth it and that she'd do it again. And I love that I got to spend the Thursday night before the wedding with my mom and soon-to-be family - It was really fun, and I think a couple of them realized they're more crafty than they think! :) (Thank you to all of you!!) 

I'll leave you with my tips or suggestions for choosing to DIY your flowers:

• Be flexible! Things might look a little different than you envisioned. Maybe one type of flowers is a different shade than you expected - It'll be fine and no one will even know!
• Allow more time for assembly than you think. I figured we'd be finished within a couple hours, especially with several people helping. We worked from about 6:30 to midnight (although a couple of our helpers did leave before then) to finish everything. Thank you, L, for staying up half the night with us!
• Ask for help! You more than likely know someone who has an inner florist dying to get out. And people (especially family!) are usually more than willing to help. 
• Find lots of inspiration. It's so much easier for people to help you if they know what kind of look you're going for. For the longest time my mom and I just weren't on the same page, but I showed her my flower inspiration board (with 5-6 bouquets that I absolutely loved) and after that she could envision what I wanted.
• If possible, try to determine how many stems you want in each bouquet before hand. We ended up with WAY too many flowers. It was nice that we were able to pick and choose the best ones, but we really didn't have anything to do with the leftovers. We could've saved even more money had we not ordered one of the boxes. 
• Have multiple wire cutters and scissors on hand. It makes things flow a lot more smoothly and quickly when you're not always waiting on someone. 
• If you're getting frustrated, take a step back or have someone else look at the bouquet. Sometimes you just need a different angle or a second set of eyes to see what's not quite right. 
• Take a deep breath. They're flowers - They're going to be pretty! And chances are you're doing this a couple days before your wedding and the important part is that you're about to be a wife, not that you have a perfect bouquet. 

I'm sorry this turned into a novel, but hopefully it's helpful for those of you that said you planned to DIY your flowers! It's a lot of fun, and it's so rewarding when someone compliments your work! :)

Because it's Monday (and because I have a fabulous, generous friend!) I have an added flower related bonus for you guys. Be sure to check back later today for a giveaway!

DIY Detail: Flowers - Part 1

I've finally gotten to my last (and biggest!) DIY detail! Thanks for sticking with me through all of them - I guess I saved more projects for the last couple weeks than I thought!

I told you guys all about my plans to DIY our flowers with the help of my mom, and I'm so happy to tell you that they turned out great! The bouquets were exactly what I wanted for a fraction of the price the florist wanted to charge (for MUCH smaller bouquets - as in like 5 roses per bridesmaid) and the process was a lot of fun too! I know there are several tutorials out there for actually assembling the bouquets, but I really didn't see many posts that detailed the process leading up to that. And believe me, it's definitely a process. 

For us, the process started in the middle of May. We had planned to use some of the peonies from my parents front yard, but they usually bloom mid to late May. We searched online for instructions on how to preserve the peonies (keep them from opening) until closer to the wedding, but we really didn't find any detailed instructions. Having to 'wing' something like that was a little intimidating, but my mom did a great job. While the peonies were still closed (but the heads were soft like a marshmallow) my mom cut them off the bush. When the heads are soft it means the petals have formed and they're about to open. She took bunches of them, removed the leaves, and then wrapped them in newspaper and put them inside of a paper grocery bag. Then they were put in the fridge (thankfully my parents have two!) for the next several weeks. She spread out the cutting over several days so that at least some of them would open - It was hard to know when exactly was the right time to cut them. Depending on when you cut them off of the bush, they'll either open faster or take longer to open once you put them in water. 

We took the peonies out of the fridge the Monday before the wedding and put them in water. Again, we didn't really have anything to go off of when it came to a time frame for them opening, so we took a guess. They were almost open by Thursday when we assembled the bouquets and were pretty much completely open by Saturday. When we took them out of the fridge they looked like this:

We put them in buckets of water with tape across the top (to keep them from falling over and crushing each other) and put them in a decently warm room (not the basement). We were able to get several buckets for free from Sams that they use in the bakery for frosting, but this particular one is just from Dollar Tree, so that's another option. You'll need several buckets.

We also ordered the other flowers in bulk around the same time. We bought them through Sams Club and I know the lady at the floral desk was a little frustrated with us for waiting so long to place our order, so you probably want to do that further in advance. Everything worked out fine, though. We ordered a box of hot pink roses, a box of hot pink mini roses, a box of pink carnations, and a box of baby pink carnations. We spent around $200 for all of the flowers. 

We picked up the flowers from Sams on Tuesday and once we got the boxes home the flowers needed to immediately have the leaves taken off, the ends cut, and be put in water. The woman told us that using scissors on rose stems will make the heads droop, so we cut every. single. one. individually with a knife. 

Be sure to cut the stem at an angle rather than straight across and avoid touching the rose petals as they'll turn black more easily. As soon as the stem is cut the flower needs to be placed in water. Thankfully we were able to use floral scissors for the carnations, and after an hour or so, we had this:

The roses were supossed to be kept somewhere cooler, so we just kept all of the flowers in the basement. We actually ended up moving the peonies down there too, because they were opening up faster than we thought they would. We let all of them sit and slowly open until Thursday when we assembled the bouquets and boutonneires. But I'll save the assembling party for Part 2!

Are you thinking about DIYing your flowers?

Flower Power

If you've been following along for quite some time you already know that I plan to DIY my flowers (with the help of my mom). I'm SO excited about it, but she's a little nervous. Basically the look I'm going for with my bouquet is a mix of the two of these:

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And for the bridesmaids a mix of these two bouquets (with no green):

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We've ordered two cases of hot pink roses, a case of hot pink carnations, and a case of light pink carnations. And hopefully we'll have these beauties to add:

My parents have multiple peony bushes in their front yard so we (well, my mom) cut about 100-200 of them just before they bloomed, wrapped them in newspaper, and put them in the fridge. We've "tested" a couple by taking them out and putting them in water and one opened almost fully and the other opened partially. I'm so excited about them - It will be sentimental for me and I'll get to have the peonies I love without paying for them! 

I'm looking for small black feathers to add to the bridesmaids' bouquets, but we'll also be using little pretties similar to these made by my friend Kari!

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And my bouquet will have these added to it:

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You can look at all of the options Kari has available by visiting her etsy shop!

The last little touch that the bouquets will have are charms. I made each of the bridesmaids a charm with their initial. Each of them is a little different, but I love how they all coordinate still!

My bouquet will have a locket charm with a picture of my grandma and some angel wing charms. I haven't found the perfect picture for the locket yet, but I'll be sure to share it with you guys when it's finished! If you're interested in doing the same thing, all of the charms came from Michaels in the jewelry department. They're meant for pictures, but I just printed my girls' initials on white cardstock and cut them down to size. Easy and pretty inexpensive! 

I can't wait to see how it all comes together and I'll be sure to share my tips with all of you after it's all said and done! 

Are any of you DIYing your flowers or did you? If so, do you have any tips?

Stop and Smell the Roses (and Peonies!)

When it came to flowers, I knew exactly what kind of look I was going for. I also knew I'd like to be involved in the arranging of our bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, etc. When I found out about DIY option that the Flower Factory in Wichita offers, I was excited to check it out! Basically, they allow you to order flowers through them and then use their facilities and either buy/rent supplies and containers from them or bring in your own. I went into the consultation with pictures of three different bouquets that I loved and a copy of our inspiration board.


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So basically, bright pink roses and peonies. My parents actually have a row of about 8 peony bushes in front of their house (which I think is part of the reason I like peonies so much!), and Pam, the owner of the Wichita Flower Factory who I had my consultation with, said I could bring some in for my bouquet.



They usually bloom in mid-May, so we're hoping for a cool spring so they bloom a little later and we can hopefully refrigerate some of the buds for a couple weeks before the wedding. Unfortunately, we didn't think of it in time to try it this past May and make sure it would work.

Anyway, the estimate for my bouquet which would include the peonies I'd supply and some garden roses and a few hot pink roses would be $210.00. Uh, what?! And the DIY option for my bouquet would be $175.00. A toss bouquet would be $25.00. My MOHs bouquets, which would consist of 6 roses, were priced at $40.00 each. My bridesmaids bouquets, which would consist of 3 roses and some fillers would be $15.00 each, and my jr bridesmaid's single rose would be $7.50. It would be another $205.50 for all of the corsages and boutonnieres (moms, grandmother, groom, best men, groomsmen, jr groomsman, ushers, ring bearer, fathers, and grandfathers). It came out to $643.00 (+ tax) for them to do everything and $550.00 (+ tax) for the DIY option. I'd made up my mind before we left the shop that I'd be doing all of my own flowers.

I'm a little nervous, but I actually really enjoy making flower arrangements and have made a bouquet before. My mom made all of David's boutonnieres for homecomings and proms, and they always looked great. Although, I'm still debating about even doing boutonnieres for the groom and groomsmen - Would pocket squares be enough? David is totally fine with just doing pocket squares, but we're still undecided. I think we'll order roses from either Sam's Club or Costco. My mom and I have always been really happy with Sam's flowers, but we don't have a Costco in Wichita so I'm not sure of their quality. Costco does have an assortment of 100 hot pink and light pink roses for $100, though! If we go with Sam's, they'll have to be all hot pink, but they have 125 stems for under $85.

My mom and I did pick up a few artificial stems from Hobby Lobby when she was in town a few weeks ago because they were all 50% off, so I'm think the bouquets at least will be a mix of real and artificial flowers. I'll keep you updated on our progress and any trial runs!

Are you attempting to DIY your flowers? If so, do you have any other recommendations for ordering flowers in bulk?