The flowers I loved most were the ones for the ceremony. The florist did an amazing job here, and I think every single person who saw the ceremony space said, "wow" out loud. They were that great.
The thing I liked about our florist is that he does a "floral + decor" type of setup, so I never had to buy a single decorative element. So, all the candles, vases, and decorative elements you see (except for those personal items we mentioned, like the table photos) were provided by him. We were surprised to find that it was actually cheaper this way!
Our photographers took a ton of great shots, which I'll show you in a minute, but I also love this one taken by my husband's iPhone, taken as he was walking around getting ready. It's fuzzy and a bit underexposed, but it captures the ceremony room kind of dark and chandelier-y, just like I remember it.
Near the altar were pedestals with huge arrangements on top, and at the base of the pedestals were lots of candles. Lining the aisles are these cool submerged flower-candle things, an idea I stole from this wedding (from photographer Marie Labbancz). Here is our version of it:
At the sign-in table, we had a bunch of vases with flower petals. I had mentioned briefly to the florist that I would have loved to be pelted with flower petals at some point, but we couldn't unless we had an aisle runner. Since I hadn't planned to buy one, I nixed that plan.
But on the day of the wedding, I found an aisle runner and tons of petals. By then, it was really too late to change plans or tell people to grab petals on the way in. I wish I'd known in advance... wouldn't it be great to be pelted with petals? Oh, is it just me? Never mind. It pains me to think that all these petals weren't used to make a mess somewhere.
Anyway, here's the table.
Here it is again. Do you notice anything different?
We also had our escort cards (calligraphy by Nicole Black, who did our invitations), with some flower petals sprinkled throughout:
The florist also did a great job with the broom, which I absolutely adore.
For personal flowers, we had the bridesmaid's bouquets:
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...white bouquets for the mothers of the bride and groom
...boutonnieres for my husband, the groomsmen, and my little brother. Oh my gosh, aren't they so handsome?
At the reception, we had some beautiful table arrangements that alternated from small to tall. Mr. Oyster gets credit for choosing these submerged tall arrangement things, which I really liked, too. It only just now occurred to me that they match the submerged arrangements we had lining the aisle!
Also, our DJ provided the lighting for us, and he did a wonderful job. A while ago I'd seen another bride with this same venue, who accentuated some of her floral arrangements pin-spot lighting. I loved the effect so much that I stole it. Here, you can see it in action. I just now realized that there's a rose opening in this arrangement, can you see it?
That's the good news. Now it's time for the truth.
As lovely as all of these flowers are, and as much as I like many of them, they are almost completely wrong (except for the ceremony). We specified that we didn't want a lot of color and no bright colors at all; just little hints of pink, but mostly white/off white and soft colors. This was one of my major inspirations:
from the February 12, 2009 issue of Southern Weddings Magazine
And these are the predominant colors we received:
I know that the "inspiration" photo is a little washed out. I also know that flowers go in and out of season, and if that were the case, someone could have told me and I'd have been fine. But there's still a big difference between the two.
I know flowers don't seem like much, but these were so far off from what we'd hoped for that I noticed it immediately. When we walked into the reception room to preview it, I tried my hardest to be gracious. But there's absolutely nothing like walking into your own wedding expecting off-white and seeing hot pink in its place. (Hot pink...!)
There were several floral mis-haps that I haven't mentioned. Most egregious were the colors, but there were wrong sizes, decor that was promised and didn't appear, my own bouquet was the complete opposite of what I'd requested (the floral assistant worked on it during our portraits), and my poor MIL -- we specifically requested she have a wrist corsage because she uses a cane, but they didn't get that right either. I mean, these flowers are great, but they look like they belong to someone else. After the wedding, I found that the florist has a peculiar reputation for being very efficient, but wrong about colors (I'm lucky -- one bride requested lavender and got several beautifully styled orange bouquets!).
So I can't be too disappointed. First of all, I'm very, very blessed that the most memorable mishap of our wedding day was the color of the flowers. When we first began planning our wedding, we weren't sure if we'd even be able to have so many flowers at all. The ones we had were undeniably beautiful and I'm grateful to have had them. And most importantly, our guests had no idea -- they absolutely loved them and raved about them all night!
*Unless otherwise noted, photos are by David Wittig Photography.
Previously:
- A dark and stormy night
- Our Wedding Rehearsal
- The rehearsal dinner
- The Wedding Morning
- Getting Ready
- The Unveiling
- Fun With Cameras
- More than a Bridal Party
- Wedding Portraits and the Scary Moment
- The Oysters Get Married
- The Oyster Wedding Details
- The Oyster Wedding Photo Details
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