the week of our wedding: flowers pt. 2

In case you're behind, catch up on the thrilling saga with part 1 here.

Okay, so where were we?

Oh yeah, it's the day before our wedding and I'm in a state of full panic. Did I mention how uncool that felt? It was the epitome of uncool.

With all our grocery store options exhausted and my refusal to pay an arm and a leg for cut flowers, we were running out of time in the city and were headed back to the cottage for the rehearsal. Before we left, however, we needed to make a pit stop at my grandmother's house to pick up the cupcakes which had been stores in her gigantic freezer. So I chronicled the horrendous flower situation to my ever-sympathetic grandmother. She promptly asked me why I was panicking when she had a garden full of beautiful flowers. Most specifically, she wondered why was I in a state of panic when her peony crop was in full bloom.

Can you say "relief"?

I couldn't believe the luck. I love peonies! So much so that I was disappointed a few months back when I was told that they don't usually bloom in our area until the middle of July. Well, guess what, this year they were early. Right in time for June 26th, in fact. A miracle? Probably not. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

So after 10 minutes of clipping peonies and me saying: "But nana, I don't want to take all of your flowers..." (to which she would always answer: "You only get married once, take as many as you want") we had 2 buckets full of peonies. White, dark pink, light pink. Enough for my bouquet, the Best Lady's bouquet and extra white ones which could provide filler to the bridesmaids bouquets if we needed it.

I could not have been happier. For about 5 seconds, I was disappointed that my bouquet which would now be comprised of spider mums and peonies wasn't going to be the handpicked wildflower bouquet I'd dreamed of. However, at that point in the day, I was so happy to have something that I didn't care.

To be honest, I'm proud of how I reacted to the whole thing. After months of researching bouquets and saving inspiration photos, the flowers we had collected the day before were the exact opposite of what I'd wanted. This could have easily been a major roadblock. A sobbing, cursing, depressed bride kind of roadblock. Thankfully, it wasn't.

This is a lesson learned.
If I could go back in time, I still what have gone the DIY route, so there's no regrets here. There is some hindsight though. My suggestion to the couples looking to DIY their flowers is that they need to be flexible with their flower choice. I'd heard that suggestion before but I ignored it because I figured that I could order what I wanted from a florist. But since I'd flip flopped so much on my flower choice and because the flowers I did like we often too expensive even to purchase by the stem, I had expectations out of line with my options. Bad idea.

So I say it again, if you're going to depend on grocery stores of Farmer Markets, be prepared to be flexible. If you have your heart set on a specific type of flower, order that kind from a florist and get the rest from a local source if the filler doesn't matter to you. For me, the lack of my favorites wasn't as upsetting as I'd thought. If you'd asked me 3 months ago if I would be okay with a bridal bouquet that didn't include dahlias, I probably would have said something along the lines of "hell no". Turns out, it didn't matter in the slightest to me after being faced with the possibility of having nothing.

Funny how a little panic can cure what ails you.
Or just make you realize that the presence of dahlias won't make or break your wedding day.
Silly me.

Part 3 (the assembly process) and photos (hopefully) coming soon.