Our Day by Design

Time for the details of the flowers. The flowers were really the main thing that we had no control over. I chose what flowers we wanted and the style but its the only thing you don't see complete until the day. I didn't need to worry though as Val Hamilton was brilliant and did everything as we discussed. I showed the church flowers in my rehearsal post; they were not done by the florist, but by the women from the church that we have known for years. My bouquet was made up of a single flower, purple Vanda Orchids with some greenery and pearls mixed in. The stem was wrapped in ivory satin. I chose not to throw my bouquet at the wedding, but instead my parents took it to my grandparents grave while we were on our honeymoon. I don't think anyone noticed at the time that I never threw it, or they never mentioned it if they did. The bridesmaids bouquets were a mixture of purple Tulips, lime green Viburnum, ivory Bouvardia and assorted greenery. The stems were wrapped in purple...

Sorry for the lack of posting over the last few weeks, things have been quite busy as you will see from the update below: I ordered more card samples to start thinking about the order of service', placecards, menu's and table name design. I ordered more grey ribbon to use on the order of service' and for the favour boxes. I paid for the rest of our honeymoon. I paid 50% of whats left to pay for our venue and arranged to meet our coordinator on Sat 30th Jan. We paid for and picked up our wedding rings; I love how mine turned out! {A separate post will follow with more detail!} I bought my shoes! {A separate post will follow!} I ordered some samples of veil fabric to look at the different colours. I booked the hairdresser; they have another wedding that morning too so they are going to open at 8am for us! I booked my hair trial for the 6th of March. My mum spoke to the women who does the flowers at the church who will arrange all of that for us with a mixture of white, purpl...

I mentioned here that I wanted to get some 70mm purple satin ribbon, the same colour as the bridesmaids dresses, to use as a sash on the flowergirls dress. That way she will tie in with other bridesmaids. I thought that Berisfords would have a similar colour, as they have a massive range, so I had a look in Hobbycraft and bought 1m of their Liberty colour, which turned out to be too bright against the dark purple. I managed to find a ribbon swatch card from Berisfords at Jaycotts , for the tiny sum of 45p, which I ordered then received a couple of weeks ago. It is great for matching up colours and samples but unfortunately, none of the colours are really suitable. Although the Blackberry colour may work if we cant find anything else {see below}, its not quite right! So my next plan is to carry on looking for dark purple ribbon and if that fails, attempt to get the original sash dyed to the same colour as the other bridesmaids. Otherwise, here is a quick update of what else we have b...

Last Monday I went to meet the florist, Val Hamilton , at her studio in Linlithgow. Graham didn't come with me as he isn't really that bothered about the flowers and the florist had suggested that it would be better as we could properly discuss my dress as well. I quickly put together a couple of pages of pictures to take with me showing the types & colours of flowers I liked as well as another couple of pages showing my dress since I don't have a fabric swatch yet. I had some ideas about the type of flowers I wanted including orchids and tulips but I wasn't sure what else would tie in. Val was really helpful and together we went through lots of different ideas and looked at what would be in season. As we had thought, the sweet peas that both my mum and granny had in their bouquets, are not available in April so I wont be having any in my bouquet. Val suggested she could get fake ones if I really wanted them but I only want fresh flowers, which she was happy about a...

Following our lovely week in the Cotswolds we returned home on Saturday evening. I spent the rest of the evening with bridesmaids Lucy and Karen-Louise then we went to the wedding fair at our reception venue yesterday. We went with very specific objectives in mind which were to book the florist, the chair covers and look at cakes. We had a very productive hour and managed to accomplish each item which was great and it takes care of the major remaining items on our list. The florist we booked is Val Hamilton , whose arrangements we had previously seen at the last wedding fair and open day we attended at Norton House and really liked, especially the tall table centres. The arrangements she was showing yesterday were also really nice and she had plenty of examples of bouquets to look at as well. As she doesn't have a shop, and only concentrates on wedding flowers, she is able to keep her prices reasonable and it means that any appointments can also be made at weekends or in the evenin...

Although I haven't really thought too much about the flowers yet {or spoken to any florists}, we will definitely be using some purple flowers within our arrangements. Possibly some tulips, to tie in with the spring & Easter timing, and of course, some orchids, since they are my favourite flower. Originally I thought I wanted to have a white orchid shower bouquet, and thought it would contrast with the bridesmaids, but once I had chosen my dress that wasn't really going to go with the style or colour of it. So now I'm leaning towards a more colourful bouquet and really like the one below that I found on Style Me Pretty a while ago. (Images from here )

Purple is one of my favourite colours and I definitely wanted to incorporate it into the wedding. The bridesmaids dresses are going to be purple but a really deep dark shade, rather than a bright or lighter purple. We are also using it as the main colour of the invitations and have already made the save the date cards* with purple card backing & purple ribbon. All the other stationery items (order of service, table plan, table names & place cards) will also follow the same theme. As the tables will already have some hints of purple from the stationery, I think we may also use some purple flowers. Since its Easter Saturday we are getting married on I think spring flowers like tulips would be lovely. Although I absolutely love orchids and I'm sure they will also be making an appearance somewhere. Until I collect enough relevant images and get round to making my own, I leave you with some gorgeous purple inspiration boards from Snippet & Ink , The Wedding Decorator , The ...