Most brides can agree that when it comes to wedding planning, the florals are such an important decision! The color palette and types of flowers decide a large part of the design and theme of your wedding, so choosing the right ones takes a lot of care and planning. Of course, this means choosing the right florist for you! Finding someone who understands your vision and can create it on your budget is key, and I was so glad to find Petaloso for our big day.
Lori of Petaloso and I had worked together in Charleston before, and when I was looking for vendors to use for the wedding, I wanted to choose people I already had a connection with if possible. She had styled the florals for many photoshoots I had been in or my photographer had photographed, so I had seen her work first-hand and gotten to know her as a person. I knew she would be a great choice for me! She is known in Charleston for her creativity and unique eye (I have described her to many as a visionary) so I knew she would create something beautiful for the big day.
Brent was not like most grooms in that he actually did help a lot with the wedding planning, but we also split up certain portions of the planning based on what our strengths were. You’ll see that this blog post is going to come from my perspective, while others will have more of his input. The flowers meant a lot more to me, so I was the one doing the planning for them!
The Ceremony
The ceremony flowers were something I thought a lot about. I wanted our guests to be greeted with the whimsical and romantic theme of the wedding right away, which started with the ceremony. I showed Lori a few photos I found on Pinterest to give her an idea of what I was looking for, but gave her total creativity after that. What she came up with was BREATHTAKING!
With the perfect combination of our colors (blues, whites, cranberry, and mauve) she created a beautiful organic aisle for us with delphinium, roses, and greenery. It was a show-stopping start to the wedding and I was so in love. Originally, we planned on having the ceremony on the lawn in front of the main house at the venue, but it rained all that morning so we thought it would be less risky to have it under a tent by the water and away from the mud (oh well, nothing ever goes exactly as you plan for weddings!). Having these gorgeous flowers definitely made up for the change from grass to gravel! After the ceremony, our planner also had the idea to move some of the flowers in front of the band stand to get more use out of them!
The Reception
When it came to the reception decor and florals, I also had a pretty hands-off approach. I do not have the talent of choosing the little details that bring a whole wedding concept together and knew that it would be in better hands with Lori of Petaloso and my planner, Cayleigh Hopkins of The Petal Report.
We chose to fully design the head table with place settings, chargers, napkins, glassware, and silverware (which was gold, in our case) and to keep the remaining guest tables more simple since we chose to do stations instead of a sit down dinner. Cayleigh helped us put it all together and I love the way it turned out.
For the decor and florals, I knew I wanted a lot of soft and romantic candlelight down the head table with simple and short flowers and greenery but with an installation hanging above the table. Lori had the idea of painting some greenery blue and creating cloud-like shapes with them. For each guest table, we mixed it up with some small vases of different types of flowers and gold and copper candle votives with pale blue velvet table runners that my mom gifted us! I printed the table numbers from a shop on Etsy, and the table number frames were a borrowed gift from my bridesmaid Cynthia that she used at her wedding!
Also, I was really proud of one DIY project that I had for the wedding-the place cards! With the help of another bridesmaid, Sarah, we used magnolia leaves (from a tree outside my apartment hah!) and did a gold wax ‘B” stamp to create the cards. It was NOT an easy task, but the end result turned out really cute, I think. We then had our calligrapher, Jessie of JSR Handmade, write out the names on each card in gold ink.
The Bouquets and Boutonnieres
Of course, the bouquets and boutonnieres are some of the most important florals that you’ll choose, and I also loved how these turned out. I told Lori I wanted something organic for the bouquets, no perfect little balls of flowers, and she definitely brought my vision to life. They were whimsical and sweet, and also tied in with the florals down the aisle and in the reception tent. The colors all complimented each other and were perfect for our winter wedding.
For the men, I didn’t have many ideas since boutonnieres are not at all my area of expertise, so I let Lori run with it! The only idea I had was that I wanted Brent’s to be a little different so he would stand out, so his was horizontal across his pocket. I thought the guys all looked very dashing with them!
Thank y’all so much for reading! If you have any questions at all, please write me a comment! I know that wedding planning can be a little overwhelming at times, and my advice to any future brides is this: #1 Stay true to your vision, and show your vendors lots of inspiration pictures so you can easily communicate what you’re looking for, #2 If you don’t know about something, put it in the hands of the experts! It’s their job to bring your ideas to life!
For more details about our wedding, you can check out my post on the bridesmaids and groomsman looks or my bridals!
