Ceremony detail: music

I barely noticed the presence of the string trio since I was so out of it, but for those interested, we asked a friend who books classical musicians do this for us. He said that he works only with top-notch players (both pros and non-pros) and that he could work with any budget b/c it is a buyer's market. At first he suggested a quartet headed by a guy who regularly plays at the Met, all for $1000 for a few hours. But we gave him a budget of only $300 and he eventually came up with 3 ppl that would play for 1.5 hours. He then found the appropriate sheet music for what we wanted (arrangements for strings) and we were set! If only I were a guest at the wedding, so that I could hear all the beautiful music (ranging from Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" [the 3rd movement, "Autumn," which fit in with our seasonal theme :P]). From the people that I asked, they said the trio did a good job (or at least they didn't notice any mistakes -- anyone want to add their opinion?).

MUSIC booked by JOHN GINGRICH MANAGEMENT: A
I have no idea how much he charges since he is a friend, but he has mentioned his work with weddings. I just discovered his website online: http://www.gingarts.com/ and I see that he represents vocalists, as well as jazz musicians. If we had a bigger budget, I'd have asked him about music at the banquet and/or cocktail hour as well. *sigh*

And just for fun, here's one of my floral monograms in action:

How it all came down: the morning before

I started this day bright and early (7:30!) in the Flower District, making decisions about flowers with BM's friend, who helped with the flowers and shall be called floral friend (or FF) from this point on. Yes, I had planned on doing all the flowers by myself but when everyone told me that I was crazy, my BM enlisted the help of her friend who's done flowers for friends' weddings before. So I still had a pretty active, hands-on role with the flowers but I didn't have to do the extra complicated stuff and there was someone there to guide me on what to do -- a good compromise in the thick of wedding craze. Anyway, FF and I had met up two weeks prior at the market to see what's in season and to take note of prices. I told her that my budget was $300 (I purposely undershot this figure, knowing that I'd go over), that I wanted a fall color palette (specifically orange, red, yellow) and that I'd like callas in my bouquet. I also told her about the arrangements that I wanted for the church, which would be moved to the banquet hall later on, the corsages for the mothers, and all the boutonnieres.

So the Friday before the wedding, we rushed around the various crowded shops to get choice picks (7:30 is right in the middle of the primetime -- towards the end of our stay we were sorta scrambling to get nice stuff). FF had already set aside some flowers she saw (she got there a little earlier) and I approved this bunch of roses from store 1 vs. roses from store 2, etc. In the end, we got 1 bunch of deep red roses & 2 different types of red callas for my bouquet; 2 bunches of yellowish-orange roses and 2 bunches of yellowish-orange callas for the BMs' bouquets; 2 bunches of red roses for relative boutonnieres; several bunches of orange, orange/yellow, yellow/red carnations for the pews; 1 stalk of lavenderish-red orchids for the corsages; 1 bunch tinted euculyptus, 2 bunches wax flowers, 1 bunch lavender, and 1 bunch Japanese hydrangea for the church steps arrangements. All this went over my meager budget but still came in under $500.

At the flower market, once you pick out the flowers, you get a bill from one of the workers who prices everything for you off the top of his head (I think there's some scamming going on there). Then you bring the bill to the counter to pay while some other guys wrap everything up (somewhat neatly) for you. Some places take credit card but some don't and at one of the places we had to pool all our money together to get what we wanted. After buying all these flowers (heavy and bulky, but fit in the car), we headed down to the church where we could start arranging things. We got buckets of warm water to let the roses drink and bloom, and we prepped them by removing thorns, outer petals and leaves. We also started to arrange the carnations for the pew buckets while FF started working on the bouquets. FF also showed us how to make the relative boutonnieres (just a simple red rose) by snipping, taping, and sticking a pin through. With the help of 2 BMs and a friend (Dear also helped prep the roses and cut the floral foam to fit the buckets), we were done by lunchtime. At that point, FF continued working on the bouquets (she had done 2 BM ones already; I think and they were so lovely!) while I went with a BM to the friend's place to do our nails.

pictures of our work area (I think the flowers are so pretty even before they're arranged)

close-up of BM bouquet before the ribbon was tied on and before the roses opened up more

Sometime between this and the rehearsal, BM's sister went and got a bunch of cheap roses for the petal toss at the end of the ceremony and an ad hoc tablecloth for the sign-in table at the church.

The outer petals we pulled off the roses, plus some of the carnation petals for good measure.

A word of caution/tips for DIYers who would also go to the Flower District to buy flowers -- I think the prices are more flexible than you would think so I think there's room for bargaining, especially since a lot of the places only accept cash when you do not have a business account with them. I, however, was too chicken and bewildered to do so myself. I also sensed some shady business dealings and overall I thought it a shady business that there are no displayed prices, just some guy who quotes prices from his head (as I mentioned above). And FF said 2 different ppl at one store quoted her 2 different prices. Also, you should buy a little more than you think you need b/c some of the flowers were already damaged when we opened them up (we also did some damage as we worked too).

BOUQUETS

The pretty bouquets sitting in plastic takeout containers, ready for safekeeping for the next day (note the notches cut in the covers to keep the bouquets standing straight in the water).

My bouquet, decorated with ivory double-faced ribbon and round pearl-head pins.

With the flash, you notice the different callas: the darker one had a yellow center and the redder one had a dark center

Posing with the bouquets

BOUTONNIERES/CORSAGES

Spraying everything with water to keep it fresh

See how the relative boutonnieres opened up so much -- I think more of the outer petals should have been removed.

The groom's boutonniere (dark red calla with wax flowers)

I wanted Dear to have double callas but the market didn't have any mini callas so 2 of the regular-sized ones would have been too big.

Close-up of my brother's boutonniere (red rose with wax flower) and the GM's bout. (yellow rose with wax flower)

Close-up of mothers' corsages (they are composed of 3 orchids wired together; I think they are phalenopsis)

Originally FF wanted to order cattleya orchids (just one big one) but the price we were quoted was way expensive and I'm kinda glad b/c these turned out well and there were also leftovers to use for my hair in the evening. The one stalk of orchids we used was either $10 or $15 (don't remember).

Fathers' boutonniere (yellow calla with wax flower)

In retrospect, I think the GMs should have had the callas to match the groom and the fathers should have had the roses.

CHURCH STEP CENTERPIECES

FF putting the finishing touches on the Japanese hydrangea arrangements for the church steps (we could have used more flowers for the large vases -- I didn't know how they'd sit in the vase -- but I think FF did a good job of filling them up with what we had).

The ingredients for the tall arrangements from left to right: Japanese hydrangea (I wish we got the longer stemmed ones b/c the vases were a lot bigger than we thought but so pretty on their own too!), wax flowers, lavender, tinted eucalyptus.

We got the hourglass-shaped vases from the clearance section in Target for $20 each, which are totally reusable (just have to figure out where). They are huge, about 17" tall I think, with a wide mouth, which made it difficult to fill in with a limited budget. The flowers for this part were less than $100.

PEW FLOWERS

Our rendition of the pew buckets a la Martha but way cheaper, using about 12 stems of carnations for each bucket.

view down the aisle towards the doors (ignore how the floral monogram is crooked on the doors -- we eventually fixed that)

view up the aisle towards the steps (the lights are on only at night b/c during the day the huge windows let in a lot of light)

With a bunch of 25 carnations for $7.50, this was a lot more economical than using hydrangeas. I think they were just as lush-looking and maybe even nicer than Martha's, since they were such bright colors and fit in with my color scheme. The buckets were purchased from Wal-Mart for about $1.50 each (we bought 12), 2 packs of floral foam were about $6 (I think), and we hung each with tulle (part of a 1000' roll that we used for the favors as well -- purchased from AC Moore using a 50% off coupon for a total of $5, I think).

Before FF got her hands on the pew arrangements, our creations looked a bit ragged and sparse:

Then she worked her magic and they came out much neater and so happy-looking:

Once the buckets were hung on the pews, we added some water into the buckets. The cube of floral foam stuffed into the bottom to hold the flowers in place also helped to keep the flowers hydrated.

FLOWERS GRADE: A
OK, so I worked on the flowers a little too, so it's like grading myself here but I have to say FF did a phenomenal job. She doesn't do flowers professionally but I did pay her a little something and I have to give credit where it's due -- she went above and beyond what I expected (she said she'd work on the bouquets only and just show us how to do the other stuff but she ended up also putting the finishing touches on the stuff we worked on, plus the church step arrangements which turned out to be quite a challenge). She was very organized and did a good job with the limited budget I gave her (I changed relative boutonnieres to roses instead of carnations at the last minute so I'm sure we would have stuck to the budget even closer if I hadn't made that change). She also thought of solutions I wouldn't have, including coming up with a variety of flowers for my hair for my second dress (the flower we saw at our first meeting weren't available on the actual day we needed them). I also thought the bouquets came out beautiful (though I'm surprised they didn't come out as nice in pictures), the groom's, fathers, and GM boutonnieres were nice too, as well as the mothers' corsages. When I saw all the completed flowers, my stress level definitely declined a few notches at their gorgeousness. I'm not sure if FF would be interested in future work but if anyone is interested, I could definitely forward her your info.

Final thoughts: One thing I didn't think of until I saw pictures is that I should have used a different flower for Dear's bout. b/c the dark red calla was barely visible against the black tux in pictures. Perhaps there should have been some small lighter-colored accent flowers or foliage behind the calla....

DIY flowers redux

Following up on my previous DIY flowers post, here's another from Better Homes and Gardens. From that site, I've been immersed in researching flower-decorating ideas. Following is my work-in-progress, draft vision.

BANQUET/RECEPTION
For the banquet at night, I was thinking of gathering a bunch of shiny buckets (probably of different sizes) and arranging them in various groupings -- some scattered by the sign-in table, some by the cake, some on the head table? -- instead of having just a few of the giant floral arrangements that many florists will make. I think the same groupings can be made for the front of the church in lieu of the main altar centerpieces. The only thing left to figure out is what flowers to use. I think I will need at least some flowers with some height, like the gladioli at right (though I'm not a fan of the gladiolus, so maybe some branchy orchids or willow?).

CEREMONY
Ideally, some of the buckets for the banquet decorations would come from these buckets hanging from the pews, via Martha. Using less arranged pieces would also make it easier to give out the flowers at the end (they'll likely last longer too b/c they'll probably be sitting in water, not stuffed into foam).

Here is also an interesting idea from Martha, but not sure if it'd be tacky/too casual. It looks like they used a Chinese tea container too -- can you imagine other Chinese tins, like cough drop tins?Other ceremony decoration ideas:

lush head of hydrangea from Knottie AllAbtDetails

same example in purple, from www.winecountryflowers.com

Or, instead of a ribbon hanging from the flower, flowers hanging from the ribbon, from www.wiggyflowers.com.

And maybe once the ceremony is over, all the pew decorations can be gathered into one big container for the reception welcome centerpiece, like this:


BOUTONNIERE IDEAS
Most likely it'd be a double flower for the groom, just one for GMs.
I do lke hydrangeas but not sure if it'd be easy to find an appropriate color (purple would clash with the red, I think).

Here's a good how-to on corsages (sans feather please), which I imagine is similar to making boutonnieres.

(SOME) BOUQUET IDEAS/HOW-TO
- simple orchid bouquet how-to

- calla lilies (I like the color but not sure if it will be available

- red bouquet ideas

Some bouquet color combinations that I like:

And I love the orange of this Mokara orchid. Maybe something like this can be used on our cake? (from mayesh.com)


SOURCES?
http://www.freshflowersandmore.com/flower-care.html
http://www.mayesh.com/wedding.htm
http://www.1888orchids.com/catalog.php?id=2

I've also heard that you can order flowers through Whole Foods (specifically the one at Columbus Circle, though I have a feeling any of them would) and Costco.

(All images, unless otherwise noted, from bhg.com)

DIY flowers

I think it's a sign -- in the past two days I've unintentionally come across 2 separate sources of information about DIY wedding flowers. On the HGTV website, there is a video on making boutonnieres, corsages, hand-tied bouquets, and a round bouquet (using a foam holder). The boutonnieres look very manageable and I will definitely try to DIY those. The hand-tied bouqet of callas also looks very elegant and manageable and the Pick a Petal site gives me even more hope. I should probably practice beforehand though.

According to HGTV, you can make the arrangements a day, to day and a half in advance. You just have to keep the flowers in a cool place (no need to refrigerate) so this is definitely do-able. I just wonder whether I should get the flowers from the Flower District or order them online....

Floral monograms

So I finally have something to show for my floral monograms! After debating between a very simple one with flowers hot-glued to a piece of a fabric and a more complicated one made with styrofoam and lots of flowers, I finally decided that it wouldn't be too difficult to do the complicated one and that it looks a lot nicer. Unlike the leaves project, I didn't consider this as tedious. Actually I thought this was kinda fun, a bit like knitting (adding stitch by stitch is similar to adding flower by flower).

I started off with a 12"x36"x2" block of styrofoam from AC Moore. This cost about $7. Next I got a bunch of red hydrangeas from Save-on-Crafts. A dozen of them reduced the price of each to $1.50. I also got some green wire to create something to hang it all with. I then printed out a really large version of the monogram that I had designed in Illustrator. I made it big enough to stretch across a few sheets of paper (you have to set your print preferences to 'tile'), or about 15"x15" (my letters are more square in shape). I taped the papers together in their appropriate places, which was a little tricky b/c each sheet printed with a slight margin and the "R" didn't print out exactly as I wanted. After that, I pinned the paper in place with straight pins (they leave such a small mark that it's hardly noticeable, yet are long enough to hold the paper in place). I first tried push pins (too short) and tape (didn't really hold after I cut parts of the paper) so I recommend straight pins.

Now to the cutting.... This was a bit tedious and at times, painful. I began with a box cutter that I extended and locked at the exact thickness of the foam so that the blade would cut it without going so far through the other side that it would cut my thighs (I left the foam on my lap). However, I think that I didn't plunge the blade in totally straight so that it seemed slanted and I switched to a pair of sharp, metal scissors that I pushed through to the other side so as to form a bunch of slits (kinda like a dotted line). I got tired of this and tried a wooden pencil which definitely got straight through to the other side and then I "connected the dots" with the blade. Pushing the pencil through hurt the palm of my hand after a while but I eventually got it all done with either the scissor or pencil. The parts "carved" with the pencil were quite rough and I attempted to smooth it out with the blade but got lazy and just left it with the ridges, since the flowers would cover it all.

Because the foam's width was only 12", about 3" of each letter did not fit on the foam. I cut those missing parts out of another part of the foam and then connected it with some toothpicks and hot glue. High temp hot glue is not recommended b/c I could see it start to melt the foam but I didn't want to buy another glue gun nor did I want to buy a whole tube of styrofoam glue for a few pieces.

Here are the full letters put together. I think the connections are barely distinguishable (top of the "J" stem and bottom of the legs of the "R") but for that last piece, which was cut out of the very end of the scrap piece of foam so it was a little disfigured.
I also wrapped a piece of the wire around the top of the letters so that I could attach a ribbon from it later on. For the "J" I had to also tie a piece of string around the stem (I just happened to have green string too) and then twist the wire around that so that the wire goes from front to back. In retrospect I don't know why I didn't just use the string instead of the wire -- the wire kinda cuts into the styrofoam whereas the string doesn't and is easier to attach.

Then the fun part of adding the flowers! I pulled off each of the individual flowers of the hydrangea blooms and then pushed it into the foam. The best part about this was no need for glue! I think hydrangeas work well because you get so many flowers from one stem -- I still have a bunch left over that I can use for something else (the picture below shows how many flowers I got from one stem, with the deflowered stem next to a full one). My mistake, though, on the first letter was putting in the flowers without flattening them a little. This makes it look more lush and uses more flowers (the "R" weighs significantly more), but if you look closely you can also see the foam showing through. For the second letter I flattened and also tried to position the next bloom in such a way so as to hold it flat. Also, I should have put the flowers on the sides first so that the letters are easier to handle as more flowers are added.

From the pictures, I see that the camera flash makes the green foam in the background stand out more so I'll have to go back and add more flowers or add dabs of glue here and there to hold the petals down. I also have to buy a length of ribbon to tie to each of these and find a place to store these so that they don't get dusty and/or flattened. I was also thinking that after the ceremony, I may put these on an easel by the entrance, stand them up on a table (for which I'd have to make a stand with the leftover foam and perhaps the hydrangea leaves), or lay them down either on the cake table or the sign-in table. Aside from some of the foam showing through, this is near complete and you can see how the slight roughness or unevenness of the foam doesn't affect the overall shape (unfortunately my photo-taking skills leave much to be desired).

Music and stuff

Today we met with an old friend of fiance's who started his own entertainment company. I've seen him emcee weddings but I think he usually works with a DJ who takes care of the music. Even though he's a nice guy, I'm really not sure about 1) having a DJ and 2) booking him. His packages consist of the usual stuff -- all the stuff that I don't like about DJs and clubs. Even though we told him that we don't like hip hop and reggae and all that stuff, he still seemed to steer us toward the lighting, smoke machine, etc., stuff that I don't like. Ideally, if we had an unlimited budget, I would want a rock band that plays covers. If only I knew of a band like Hep Alien (Lane's band in Gilmore Girls) -- a band just starting out, trying to make it big.

In terms of the ceremony, at the service that I went to today, the prelude and offertory music was a sonata by Bach for piano and violin and it was soooo beautiful (I love the sound of strings, especially violin!). So I would really like that at the ceremony. The church could provide an organist, which would be really ordinary, but BM knows of a violinist who said that she'd play for us. Now if we could just find a pianist.

I've also been thinking about makeup lately. BM's friend is a BM in another bridal party and recommended someone who does both hair and makeup as a sidejob. I was so excited b/c she's worked on ppl that I know and they were happy but when she sent me some pics, I was not thrilled. Showing it to my mother and BMs, they didn't think it was that great either. So I'm back to square one now. :(

I did come up with an idea for my flowers though. A few weeks ago, someone in my small group gave us all these ribbon bookmarks with a charm on one end. While playing with it at a recent Bible study, I thought that I could incorporate this ribbon idea with the idea for my bouquet and instead of a charm hanging at the end, it could be pomander of flowers. I'm not sure if making a pomander of fresh flowers would be easy or not.

My friend was describing what she did as MOH for her sister's wedding and she said that they got up very early to get to the flower district Friday morning and it was a lot of work. She said that b/c their family is so big, they had to do a lot of stuff (besides the usual stuff, every close relative got a flower too). So maybe, with one less BM it won't be so bad for me? However, I will not have someone who knows how to arrange flowers. :(

To floral monogram or not?

As I mentioned before I wanted to do a floral monogram on the church doors. But I slightly modified the design to make the letters wider to match the logo thingy that I designed. But is it too wide? And our logo has serifs but these letters do not, so does it even matter that I made it wider? More importantly, do gerbera daisies make it seem too casual? Will a white satin-like cloth in the background dress it up a little?

Flowers

OK these images are NOT from my recent web surfing but from the book To Have & to Hold by David Stark and Avi Adler (the book I got from Target's Club Wed). Sorry these images are not very crisp (I don't have a scanner and I kinda like how they came out a little grainy). Like I mentioned previously, I wanted to incorporate my Bible with my flowers. The problem is figuring out what flowers go well with it. I think it has to be a pretty small nosegay b/c it will be too difficult to hold otherwise. Flowers that I'm considering: hydrangea, peony (so pretty, but out of season), zinnia, anemone, calla lilies (not sure if these are feasible b/c you would need a whole bunch to make an impact).

Obviously the one on the left is a boutonniere.

Or just a bunch of callas like this picture (I was watching a rerun of "Friends" recently and had to look up some images). I like this pic also b/c Monica's dress is similar to mine and I'm thinking of copying her w/ her hairstyle -- it is simply pulled back at the top with a fancy barrette (but I think I would curl mine more) and then a floor-length veil. She also lets her hair down completely at the reception.