DIY Wedding

Here are some more photos of the wedding we went to last weekend. I was pretty involved in the preparations (from doing all the flowers to helping the bride pick out a dress) and Jeff created the ingenious cardboard tube vases that held the flowering branches at the outdoor "altar" and did 101 other tasks behind the scenes. Here's what we helped create:

The part that made me most nervous - making the bride's bouquet. It was a rustic hand-tied bunch of white hydrangeas, Queen Anne's lace, pink and green lisianthus, purple scabiosa, cream stocks, ivy and lime green puff balls. Against the bride's eggplant purple dress, it was very pretty and I was very pleased with how it turned out. 

What kind of boutonniere do you make for a groom allergic to most flowers? A green one. Thankfully, it looked great against his purple tie and shirt. 

Jeff's aunt, another cousin and I made the centerpieces out of thrift-store clear glass vases, greens from our gardens, mystery purple flowers from my garden, pink tulips and yellow ranunculus. The mantle was simple - just votives and ivy. 

The groom cut wood disks for under the centerpieces. My mom sewed table runners out of sheer curtains the bride found at Value Village. A trunk from our maple tree (trimmed several years ago and stashed in the garage) became the place cards. And the wedding favours? S'mores ingredients for the bonfire that happened after dinner. 

 The groom fabricated the fantastic cupcake stand out of wood disks and a brass frame. The cupcakes were from Lynne's Lovecakes in Chilliwack and they were delicious. The icing was the best icing I've ever had - light, smooth, not grainy and not sweet. They tasted as good as they looked.

The bouquet wilted during the heat of the wedding but perked up once it got back into water. It survived our day-long trip to Ikea and got home, 2 days later, looking fairly fresh.

I don't have pictures but we also did two huge arrangements of Solomon's Seal, pink snapdragons, green bells of ireland and a mass of other greens for the front of the "altar". It was great fun... and I'm happy it's over!