~ Shades of Green & Blue Succulent & Orchid Wedding ~

Today I am posting the wedding we had Saturday, June 20th. This has been one of the most unique weddings I've designed for as far as the flowers go. The Bride had the idea that she wanted to use succulents in her wedding in the bouquets, so that the Bridal party could then use them afterward as a keepsake & plant them at their homes.

Sounds simple, right?..........not so much!! Finding the correct shade, (bluish, greenish gray) of succulent was not easy. I couldn't find them at any of the local nurseries, so I started searching on the internet. Most of the places I found that carried them were in the UK & the Netherlands. Finally after a couple of tries, I found a nursery in WV that had just what I was looking for. After having fits with my Paypal account (which was the ONLY means of payment) the nursery accepted, I got them ordered & had to have them overnighted to me. Again easy right?....NO...this nursery is in the middle of an extremely rural area & their local post office doesn't do overnight shipping. So they had to drive them over 40 miles to the nearest UPS shipping location to get them shipped. WHEEW!
A lot of stress & some big shipping fees later, I had my succulents at my door step on Tuesday morning. I am a fly by the seat of my pants kinda of gal, but this sort of stress is not how I like to work. On top of the succulent dilemma, I was having all sorts of issues with my green orchids. Some came in bad, some were the wrong color, & some we couldn't even get at all!

But all in all I am extremely pleased with how it all turned out. I guess I will know for sure once I have feedback from the Bride. You see that is another unusual twist to this wedding, I didn't deliver it! They decided to save a bit money, they would pick up the wedding flowers. And by they, I mean, the Father of the Bride! He told me that there was such a high stress level in the house that morning, that he actually volunteered to pick up the flowers!

So all of the details & explanations of how to pin on boutonnieres & how the bouquets were to be held, & how the magnetic corsages worked were explained to him as he nodded & seemed to soak it all in. He assured me that he would relay all the details & it would be fine. This was rather hard for me as I am very detailed oriented & sort of an obsessive control freak when it comes to how bouquets are held & body flowers are worn! I finally had to shut up & just let him leave the flower shop & ............Breathe!

Note: All the Bridesmaids & the flower girl's dresses were black.

Below you will find the photos of my Succulent & orchid wedding:



All the flowers have to be stripped of leaves, thorns & damaged petals before the Magic begins. I like to get all flowers prepped & separated with the proper amount it will take for each bouquet before I start to assemble them. That way when I start the design process, I can just put them together without having to stop & clean flowers.



Another counter with more of the flowers for the Bridesmaid's bouquets. Here you can also see one of the Bridesmaids bouquets that has been assembled. I leave it out on the counter so i can check back at the count of each flower.
Also you can see the fuel for this process....ahh STARBUCKS!! Thanks Val!!



Boutonnieres for all the guys were designed using: green hypericum berries, blue thistle, variegated pittosporum & the centerpiece was a small succulent. The finishing detail was the double face satin lime ribbon wrapped stem, that was held in place with 2 green pearl head pins.



The Groom's boutonniere: It was the same as the other guys, except I added a mini cymbidium orchid & some loops of lily grass.



The corsages for all Mothers, Grandmothers & other ladies were designed using: Green cymbidium orchid, blue hydrangea (silk) & tiny succulents.



The Flower Girl carried a pomander (kissing ball) of green mini cymbidium orchids & blue hydrangea, accented with pool blue & lime double face satin ribbon. This turned out so cute & most who saw it didn't even know it was silk! That is why you MUST use quality silk flowers!!



The Bride's bouquet was designed in a handtied style with 2 shades of green cymbidium orchids, blue hydrangea, green mini hydrangea, 2 shades of green roses, blue thistle, green hanging amaranthus, & succulents. It was accented with lily grass & variegated pittosporum.



These are the Bridesmaids bouquets designed similar to the bride's only smaller with each one being a bit different in the placement of the flowers.



This is the bouquet that was used to toss. It was designed with 3 large succulents, green hanging amaranthus, blue thistle & variegated pittosporum.

All church, reception & cake decorations were done by the Bride & her family. I'm not sure what the did, except that they ordered a spray of green cymbidium orchids that they were using on the cake.