Wedding Flowers on the Cheap!

I'm sharing something very useful today – how to do wedding flowers on the cheap! I spent about £200 on flowers – good going when you think some brides spend the same amount on their bridal bouquet alone! Everyone has different priorities I guess, and I decided to keep my floristry budget to a minimum. Here's what I did (with lots of pretty pictures).

Firstly, I decided whether I actually liked the idea of flowers at my wedding, and when that turned out to be a yes, I considered the types of flower that would make my heart sing. After a long time spent reading mags and cutting out pictures, I came up with the concept of a mixed bag of dainty wild flowers with that just-picked look.

After that, I employed the best florist on the planet: Becky from Peony Flowers. Becky helped me to design a delicate bridal bouquet, consisting of a variety of seasonal wild flowers. I didn't want anything too large or heavy to hold so I opted for a small-sized bouquet (which also kept costs down).

In addition, Becky incorporated my home-made paper flowers into her arrangements for my bouquet, the bridesmaids' corsages and the groom's buttonhole. The other buttonholes comprised small flowers, similar to those in my bouquet, with stems wrapped in old book pages. Not only did the paper flowers tie in with my vintage theme, but they were also an inexpensive substitute for real flowers. (I'll tell you how to make my paper flowers in another blog.)

I didn't adorn the church venue with flowers, as this was not a priority of mine. For me, the focus was on the ceremony, not the decoration. In any case, the church had already been dressed beautifully with flowers, by the church wardens. Why pay to replace perfectly good stuff, I say?

At the reception venue I used a combination of flowers from a supermarket and my mum's and her neighbour's garden. I displayed the flowers in old jam jars that I'd been collecting for yonks, to add to the home-made feel. The piles of old books added to the vintage theme.

Although I gladly left the production of my bouquet, buttonholes and corsages to the professionals (thank you Becky), I managed to save so much money by creating my own paper flowers and centrepiece arrangements, with the help of Auntie Glinda, my mum and Janine. If you have the time, give it a go! It's not as scary as you might think.

Calling Out from Newly-Wed Area 51!

A weird thing happened about two weeks after we got married...people started to ignore us, even our closest family and friends, and it's still the case now, even though it's four months on!

I'm pretty sure they all enjoyed sharing in our special day – they seemed to laugh, cry, eat, drink and dance at the right times, but I've come to realise it was only on this precise day that they wanted to partake. After that, we were on our own!

It's as if they've decided being newly-wed means hubby and I no longer want visitors, phone calls or texts. It's like they think we'd think they were intruding, trying to burst our beautiful wedded bubble. They've moved swiftly on to the next husband-and-wife-to-be combo, posting hubby and I to some strange sort of Area 51 for newly-weds.

I've observed that this awkward Billy-No-Mates period happens to lots of new married couples. It seems to be the natural order, and we just have to accept our weddings are never going to be as interesting to our guests, once the literal honeymoon is over.

But the frustration is newly-weds do want to see people, and it's a real shame our wedding memories have to be curtailed in order to avoid glazing over of eyes. Hubby and I are still really buzzing from our wedding day; we've probably viewed our video highlights at least 20 times already!

So I was wondering, what's wrong with reminiscing about the biggest day of your life from time to time? It's something we need to do, in a way, to get used to the idea of being married.

Therefore, I'll continue to share my wedding stories, ideas and tips with the only people who'll now care to listen: you my fellow newly-weds and would-be brides and grooms. And I'd love to hear your wedding news too – you don't have to be alone!