Truly Wedding Blog

Your mother wants lilacs. Your fiance’s mother wants calla lilies. Aunt Rose wants, well, obviously. You and your fiancé want to be able to afford a honeymoon. First thing to do (well, second, after scanning your neighbors’ gardens for easily pilfered plants) is tell your family that, unless they’re prepared to foot the bill, it’s time to step away from the potting soil. They’ll probably understand. If they don’t, promise whatever will make them shut their opinionated pie holes, and go on strewing the church pews with Venus Flytraps. If your family makes a fuss on the big day, tell them it’s the florist’s fault. If the florist is in attendance, offer her a bottle of tequila from behind the bar and tell her to start running.

One way to score blooms without ruinous credit card bills is to hit a nursery. You can often get small plastic pots of daisies, mini roses or greenery for a few dollars each. Pop them into bargain pottery or swathe the pots in fabric and voila! Centerpieces. If that feels too …unadorned, feel free to pick up an issue of Martha Stewart Living. Just don’t let Martha make you question your worth as an oxygen-consuming human if you don’t harvest your own flowers from wee organic seedlings.

Don’t be afraid to recruit creative siblings or friends. Give them a budget and send them to the farmer’s market for scads of stems and let them arrange until their fingers turn green. Instruct them not to use the word “wedding” as anything associated with the W-word will automatically triple the price. And don’t let baby cousin Kim and her goth aesthetic anywhere near your flowers, no matter how artistic her soul. You don’t want to walk down an aisle where all the flowers are drooping under black spray paint.

I’m sure we all remember the days when silk flowers looked like they were made from paper napkins and green wire. There’s no way you would choose such a hideous alternative over the real thing! But floral imitations have really come a long way from their less-than-ideal design from the 1960’s and have since become serious contenders for big events like weddings.

Anyone advising you to choose silk flowers over real for your big day is sure to mention cost as a major factor, but surely cost isn’t everything? There are certainly pros to choosing faux flora over the real deal, but making your selection based off of just one detail really could turn out to be something you regret.

So read up brides-to be! Below is some information you might want to consider before committing to real flowers or replicas:

The Real Deal:

• Floral selection may or may not be in season: On the downside, if you’re planning on getting married anytime other than spring or early summer, you’re likely to spend quite a bit more money on your floral selections. However, as with any purchase, if you happen to be in the right place and are ordering for the right time of year, there’s a chance that you’ll happen upon a fantastic deal. Sometimes it’s all just a matter of luck!
• Traditional: What little girl doesn’t imagine walking towards her groom while fresh petals are lightly tossed to the ground? Everyone knows that flowers have meaning tied to them: red roses mean love, while white indicates purity. The question that lies with the individual, however, is how much of that tradition lies with the flowers being real. You want your big day to be perfect, and if fake flowers are going to make your wedding less than the fairy-tale day you imagined, it might be worth the extra cost to put your mind at ease.
• Can be pressed or dried: Though one of the stronger arguments for choosing fake flowers is that your arrangements will last forever, there are several ways of preserving real flora from your wedding. Some brides might actually prefer to press one or more flowers, a technique that makes them easier to keep in a photo album or scrapbook. Your other options are to dry your bouquet or even take it to a floral preservation specialist.
• Fresh Scent: The first thing you do when you see a beautiful arrangement is lean forward and breathe in the freshness. That’s what flowers are known for: not just to look pretty, but to smell pretty too. Fake flowers might imitate the look of real flowers remarkably, but they certainly can’t duplicate the scent.

Faux flora:

• Less expensive: The biggest reason most brides even begin considering fake flowers for their wedding is because of the considerably higher cost of real flowers. In fact, depending on the size and types of arrangements you choose, flowers can end up costing as much as, or even more than your wedding dress! I bet you didn’t think of it that way! By selecting silk flowers over fresh flora, wedding costs can be decreased by hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.
• Unscented: This is the one thing you can’t change about real flowers. There are unscented real flowers out there, but why limit your options when you could simply select fine silk flowers instead? You might have any number of reasons you don’t want your flowers to smell: allergies, other medical conditions, or even because you simply dislike the scent, but if you’re looking for flowers that will be seen and not smelled, you should probably go with an artificial option.
• Can be prearranged: Who hasn’t heard the horror stories of weddings where the florist doesn’t show up, or when carnation arrangements arrive instead of the carefully selected lilies and orchids? One of the greatest benefits to selecting silk flowers is that you can order the arrangements to be prepared before the wedding day for your review. If the florist hasn’t followed your directions, and there’s some sort of floral crisis, you’ll have time to correct it instead of just dealing.
• Arrangements will last forever: Many weddings are complicated events, sometimes with receptions taking place at a later time or date, or even in a different location. Is it really logical to order flowers for each and every time and place you’re going to be doing something wedding related? If you’re going to want bouquets and floral arrangements for your bridal portraits, wedding, and reception all on different days, your best bet might be to stick with silk.

So that’s it. If there’s a certain reason one option resonates over the others, that makes your decision all the easier. But if you’re still having a hard time deciding which option is best, consider asking others for their input.

Just make sure your selection is going to make you happy on the big day. You don’t want to be red nosed and sneezy because you were too stubborn to switch from real flowers to fake. Then again, you probably don’t want to sacrifice your picture perfect wedding day to save a few dollars. Like everything else you’ve got going for the big day, picking the perfect flowers is ultimately all about you!

All around the world, people are “going green” in attempt to live their lives while respecting and protecting the environment.

The trend has carried over into wedding planning. And though many brides can’t imagine having an exclusively green wedding, complete with a hemp dress, there are many green elements that you can incorporate into your wedding planning.

Save The Trees
Work with a printing company that uses recycled paper and soy-based ink for wedding invitations, programs, menus and place cards.

Let There Be Light
Conserve electricity by scheduling your wedding into the daytime and using more natural light. Outdoor evening weddings can also be beautiful, utilizing plenty of candlelight. Be sure to choose a photographer that specializes in low-light photography!

Beautiful Blooms
Select flower arrangements or flowering plants that are locally grown. After the wedding, donate the arrangements to local hospitals or other care facilities.

Eat, Drink and Be Married
Incorporate locally grown organic foods, coffee and wine when planning your reception menu. You can also offer seafood options that are not depleted or endangered. Meatless hor d’oeuvres can also be delicious.

Paper or Plastic?
Neither. At your reception, use cloth napkins instead of paper. Work with a catering company that does not use plastic water bottles or, at the very least, recycles.

Getting There in Style
When choosing your wedding transportation, consider arriving at the church in a horse-drawn carriage. Not only is it extremely romantic, you won’t be using any fuel. When departing after the reception, select a hybrid vehicle rather than a gas-guzzling limousine or sports car.

Well, we’ve shown you the world’s longest wedding dress and the world’s most expensive wedding cake. I guess the time has come for the world’s most expensive wedding bouquet!

This Vietnamese creation is made of 90 gemstones, 9 diamonds, and 1 star-shaped ruby. The glittering bouquet has made its way into the Vietnamese Guinness Book of Records for the most expensive collection of gemstones and flowers. How much you ask? It comes in at $125,000 USD. Okay, so its not $20 million dollars like the wedding cake, but it sure is a lot prettier. The bouquet is displayed on the 6th floor of the Ruby Plaza, one of Viet Nam’s largest trade centers.

My wedding bouquet cost around $100.00. But as most of you know, its not about what it cost, but about how it made me feel.

When you’re holding a beautiful, fresh, color-coordinated flower bouquet, walking down the aisle in front of 100 or more family and friends, the last thing that comes to mind is “Wow, I should have spent more on this”.