Floral Burnout Part 3

I last left you when I received a proposal of $7,000!!! My heart still stops and I begin drooling on myself a little when I hear that number....I could feed almost 120 people for that price!

So my aunt tells me, "go to so and so on 30, they are amazing and did my bouquet." (she was just married the end of December) So i schedule a meeting on February 12, because they wouldn't be swamped with Valentine's Day orders or anything! (hint of sarcasm...I do a lot of it, be warned!) My aunt says she will meet me up there, they both do work for her shop, and I willingly drag my mom along.

Again, photos in hand, spirit a little broken, I drive the whole 5 minutes it takes to get there. To my surprise, I have driven by this place a million times. It shares the same parking lot with my and Kev's favorite place for lunch! As soon as I walk in I knew I made the right choice. The inside is all rustic out, (that may not make sense but it does to me!) wood beams, cute little wooden carvings, even a sweet deer head on the wall. It was like the sign I was looking for! Then he has gorgeous flowers everywhere and...hydrangeas and baby's breath everywhere!

Bob, the owner, brought us upstairs to talk. I told him that we didn't/couldn't spend a lot, it just wasn't in the budget anymore, and that we wanted to spend from $1,500-$2,000. I was expecting him to wince at the low number, instead he asked me to tell him the look and flowers I was interested in. I repeated my memorized line, "I want fluffy and romantic, I love hydrangeas, I know peonies aren't available and was thinking maybe a garden rose or another variety. As long as they aren't regular roses...I hate regular roses. And I don't want a conformed look, I like the messy, garden look much better."

He starts telling me not to go with garden roses because they can cost $5-$10 a stem, and there are better ways to send my money. He tells me about a snowy jewel rose, it has more of a peony look and is cheaper than a garden rose. Not only does he tell me about it, he goes in the back to his computer and prints me out 3 pages of snowy jewel roses!

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I was sold from that point forward. Bob did everything I expected a florist to do, he gave me suggestions, gave me prices, told me his professional opinion on what would look best, and even brought out flowers to show me how it would look.

We decided on having the girls carry 3 or 4 stems of white hydrangea, I love how fluffy it is! They will be wrapped with some white satin.

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My flowers will be a combination of hydrangeas, around 9 white snowy jewel roses, and some purple chaenorrhium thrown in for some purple. (At least I think that's the flower he said, it's something small and purple)

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For my awesome flower girl, since she isn't allowed to throw petals like my original plan, and I didn't want her to have a pomander/flower wand, I had to think. I had gotten a basket from good will that I planned on spray painting white, and didn't want to stray from that idea. *Lightbulb* Why not put a stem of hydrangea in the basket and she can carry it? I know, I surprise myself sometimes with my genius!

Like this, but more awesome!
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We are going with my original inspiration photo, and having the dads and grandfathers have ranunculus boutonnieres.

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Kev and the groomsmen don't need flower boutonnieres because they will be wearing the fish fly bouts I made for them.

The mothers both expressed that they wanted wristlets, and the grandmothers will be rocking out boutonnieres as well. As far as what flowers we aren't positive yet.

As for the centerpieces, they will be a combination of short and tall with square vases. They will be similar to my bouquet with hydrangeas, snowy white roses, maybe some pom poms, and some purple accents. The taller ones will be a mix of hydrangeas and baby's breath (we had baby's breath on the back burner if other flowers ended up being too expensive).

Besides having two baskets at the church, we also wanted to have two memorial baskets. Our original thoughts were to have one on my side representing my Poppie that passed when I was in middle school, and one on Kev's side to represent his grandmother who passed. We got to thinking, we didn't want to leave anyone out. So my side will be a combination of my dad's dad (who I never met because he died when my dad was in his teens) and then my poppie (my dad's step dad, who was the only grandfather I knew on that side). Kev's will be his grandmother and his dad's parents (who died when Kev was a baby). I expressed my concern on how to do this to Bob, he had the genius idea of doing hydrangeas with two purple roses in it on my side and three purple roses in Kevin's. That way each rose would represent a person. Genius! Did I mention I loved Bob?

Bob is in Florida right now on vacation, but when he gets back he is even doing centerpiece mockups for me so I can see if I like it or not and go from there.

So if anyone is looking for a florist in the Upstate/Capital Region area, I would totally suggest Bob and his team at White Cottage Gardens in Amsterdam, NY. I love them!

See....happy ending!

Oh and as if to justify my hydrangea decision...look at the centerpiece picture that was featured on Style Me Pretty yesterday!

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