Front Garden Time!

We love gardening together and we’ve been working on going grass free, basically we have just one patch in the back left. This year in the front we tore out the grass between the road and sidewalk and got a couple car loads of free bricks from a place that was the original dairy in our neighborhood, so cool! We dug out and made square sections in that area and then planted creeping thyme in between. And if you recall, we dug out almost all the grass in front last year and split and planted even more perennials including some white hydrangeas. The front has just taken off and everything is so happy and healthy! We’re going to rip out the bottom strip of grass and finish with more rocks and plants to help hold the slope in. We’re loving all the color and bird, bee, butterfly friendly plants! Plus I got a super cute love seat for the outside front porch and used a small hamper for a mini table which turns the space into another small outdoor room. Great for rainy day coffee outside!    
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More Wedding Flowers!

I had the pleasure of doing a bouquet and boutonniere for our friends Genevieve and Will on their big day. You might recall that Genevieve baked our wedding cake, hand pies, and brought serving dishes for our wedding dinner, and helped us out with some of the catering service as well. So naturally it was a gimmee that I wanted to gift them wedding flowers! She told me she wanted purple with some white and green and that gave me free range to style up something lovely. I went to a local market the day before and picked out all the flowers, came home, prepped them and started building the arrangements. Drop off the next morning, and it was fun to see all together at the reception. The lovely bride told me she had so many compliments on them which was fantastic! bout Here’s what I did! Flowers: dark purple statice, purple freesia, white roses, white snapdragons, lavender tulips, mini hydrangeas, leather leaf fern. I wrapped the stems of the bouquet in green ribbon and then a sweet vintage hankie. 3 shades of purple along with the white, dark green, and the limey green of the mini hydrangeas really made the monochromatic purples work! I just love how it turned out and was so happy to be working with flowers again! bouquet  
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WEDDING FLOWERS!

Turns out I was super optimistic about all the things I could get done while recovering from a major surgery, like blogging, or thank you cards. Stephan and I just happily celebrated 1 month of married life while I’ve been on the mend! I’ve decided the best way to talk wedding details is in segments. SO, let’s talk one of my faves, wedding flowers! What does a lady do when she’s the one who usually designs the flowers?!? There’s no time to do them all, well maybe I could have squeezed that in magically but there were plenty of other things to do and enjoy like rehearsals, hair and makeup, and time with out of town family and friends, and then the relaxing. I picked the flowers out, ordered them up, and wrote recipes for the bouquets. Then, my trusty and super amazing friend Michele stepped up and did an outstanding job!  We went and picked them up together, spent a little time prepping, and she took the reigns. I knew I was in great hands so it was easy to relax! Besides being an awesome friend, Michele is a talented artist and curator, check some of her work out here and while yer at it, check out the shows she curates at Kendall College of Art and Design if you’re in GR! Thanks to Michele and Cat for capturing a lot of these pics too!
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Here’s what I did for some simple, colorful, and affordable decor. These tissue paper flowers, I LOVE them! They come in a bunch of different sizes and colors. I had a great time putting them together with part of my wedding party! I also selected orange tissue paper scalloped bunting, I do have a thing for scallops. It was a great way to pack a lot of color and punch to the walls, entrances, and our door backdrop!

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Detail of our door backdrop. The doors are rentable from Gypsy Soul Antiques. I love the addition of the orange scalloped bunting and the 2 colors of flowers, so pretty! And I love that you can see through the doors to the the park and pathway, a lovely setting. And there’s our little love tree for our unity ceremony. I slip covered the bottom in some vintage fabric, we used vintage glassware to hold the dirt, and it sat atop a little vintage folding tray.

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Let’s talk centerpieces! I gathered up about 45 vintage milk glass vases from thrift stores abound. Each table got 3 vases, a few other arrangements were strategically placed, and the head table had larger milk glass vases waiting for the bridesmaids bouquets. Now, I often advise not growing your own flowers because well they can be temperamental as far as growing season, you need to pick the freshest of the fresh, etc. BUT we grew 95 feet of gorgeous zinnias from seed at a friend of ours place! They were stunning all lined up and blooming. They actually started blooming several weeks early, but we were in great shape for picking, AND we had a back up plan with a local farm so we knew we were all good. We picked up seed packets in all the appropriate colors and they were just the pop of color I had imagined! Plus we had fun planting and pre wedding harvesting together! After the rehearsal brunch a couple of my bridesmaids assisted me with the centerpieces and BAM they were done! A big thanks Mary and Toby for being the best flower growers in the land! xo

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The bouquets! Orange, yellow, and green was the theme to repeat the wall decor and pop with the ladies navy dresses. I couldn’t actually get the green eyed yellow roses I really wanted from my wholesaler, but I replaced with yellow roses saving a little loot in the end. SO, yellow roses, orange roses, orange spray roses, kermit pomps, trick dianthus, ferns leaves, fennel from our yard (another win and money saver) PLUS yellow freesia, kangaroo paw, and hosta leaves for my bouquet and the special boutonnieres and corsages. I loved the punch of color the flowers gave and it was a great early fall color combo.

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Michele’s busy feet taking a rest as we look down on the ladies bouquets. So pretty!

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And here’s what it looks like when you put 15 gigantic ferns and 20 mums in a mini van. My best pal Cat and I had some fun in greenhouse land.

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Here’s where the mums went. I used them to perfectly mark the aisle! I loved the little daisy style in white with just a subtle yellow center. A sweet and perfect path for our early fall wedding. We had a short ceremony so we chose to forgo chair rental and anchored the front with 2 vintage benches for family and special guests.

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FERNS! I could NOT wait to see this vision in real life! A dozen giant ferns were hung from the beams of the venue. We also used fern leaves as table runners. What a lovely lodge building with giant wrap around porch, beautiful natural park setting, wildflowers, and all the things you need at a crazy good price might I add! Johnson Park is really a great spot! I just love these ferns and what they did to the room, some orange lanterns hung in between, some lights, and voila, magical! AND super thanks to amazing and awesome friends for doing a slam dunk job at setting up our wedding. It was hard to not be a part of the setup as I’m just so used to dreaming up the vision and then physically making or setting it up. I did do plan-o-grams to make it as easy and clear as possible and they really knocked it out of the park! Thank you friends!

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Another view looking up, so pretty! I just can’t live without color, plants, and green, these FERNS! More on the blog soon- we’ve got more decor, food, details, and the dress to cover still!

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