Freeking Charming

A while ago, I posted about finding a unique way to memorialize my cousin Mark at our wedding.  I decided to create bouquet charms using the logo for Freekware, Mark's clothing company.  To me, Freekware symbolizes positivity and love, themes that we definitely want incorporated into our wedding day!

I recently sat down with my glass pendant kit by Annie Howes and put together my bouquet charms.

Ah, a personalized note and some candy.  Love me some Etsy sellers!

One of the greatest things about Annie Howes' kits is that she includes tutorials on her website.  I printed out some Freekware logos and followed the tutorial step by step.

First, I covered the textured side of the glass tile with glaze, which was included in the kit.

I flipped the tile over and pressed down firmly to eliminate air bubbles.  Then, I waited for them to dry.

Once dry, I used crafting scissors and cuticle trimmers to separate each tile.  I applied a coat of glaze to the back of the charm.  Then, I attached the hardware onto the tile with the included glue.

Then, I had my finished product!

{all personal photos}

I have to say, this was probably my favorite DIY project thus far.  It was so nice to think about each of my bridesmaids walking down the aisle with this charm attached to their bouquets.  The sentiment behind it was in my mind during the entire time I was making the charms, and that left a smile on my face.

Are you making something to memorialize loved ones at your wedding?

A Surprise for The Ladies

Sorry to do this to y'all so early in a post, but I can't ruin a surprise!

I was researching Southern wedding traditions when I came across the "cake pull."  In this tradition, tiny charms are inserted inside different layers of the wedding cake.  The charms are attached to ribbons, which fan out from inside the cake.  The bride chooses other women (usually her bridesmaids) to pull the ribbons out.  Each woman is left with a ribbon attached to a tiny charm, which represents some kind of cute fortune.

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I had never heard of this tradition before, but I loved it.  It got people involved, and it incorporated that element of whimsy that I've grown to love so much.  The only problem was that we're doing cupcakes.  Then, I remembered the fortune bouquet that Mrs. Flamingo and Mrs. Husky had blogged about!

Source: Martha Stewart Weddings

Imagine you're a single lady.  You gather around the bride with the other single ladies hoping to catch the bride's bouquet.  When the bride tosses the blooms up in the air, they magically pull apart to reveal several small bouquets.

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Best of all, each small bouquet has a ribbon attached to it, much like the ribbons in the traditional Southern wedding cake.  The only difference is that the ribbon is not attached to a charm of good fortune.  Instead, each ribbon has a unique fortune written on it.

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I decided to go with this idea, and to make it myself with fabric flowers (tutorial coming soon!).  Instead of fortunes written on the ribbons, I decided to include different quotes about love.  Here are the ones I decided on:

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Mahatma Gandhi

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
Ingrid Bergman

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.
Hans Nouwens

Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
Lisa Hoffman

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Zora Neale Hurston

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.
Zelda Fitzgerald

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Oscar Wilde

Where there is love there is life.

Mahatma Gandhi

What surprises do you have in store for your wedding guests?  Are you taking a non-traditional spin on something more traditional?

The Final Florals

Hive, I've been really psyched about this post.  Flowers used to be totally out of my comfort zone, but then I educated myself by searching through tons and tons of inspiration pictures, and by brainstorming with our florist.  The more knowledgeable I became, the easier it was to choose the right flowers to convey the look I was going for.  If you share my flower personality of romantic and whimsical with a hint of fluffy, I hope you will find the following somewhat educational.

In our case, finalizing the flowers didn't just bring together our style.  It also helped to establish a palette for our wedding.  We had already decided on shamrock green and pool blue, but those two colors are hard to find in flowers.  Sister Lioness also pointed out that those were two "cool" colors.  She thought it would be a good idea to add in an accent color just to brighten things up.  Our florist suggested yellow, and my excitement towards our flowers grew even more.  I love yellow, but with Irish skin and hair, it's not always something I feel I can pull off.  But as an accent to two colors that I know I can pull of?  Sure!  Why the heck not!

Our final palette, courtesy of Color Combos

With that style and palette in mind, we decided on the following:

White Peonies

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Peonies definitely satisfy the "fluffy" criterion.  In fact, they exemplify it.  These things are huge, soft, and sweet.  The downside?  They were actually the most expensive of all the flowers we used...so we didn't end up using a lot of them.  These flowers are most easily available during late spring and early summer.

White Garden Roses

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Garden roses are a bit more offbeat than traditional roses.  They're typically cut and arranged after they've had a chance to bloom a little bit, rather than the tight-knit buds.

White Ranunculus

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I love ranunculus.  Ranunculi?  Ranunculuses?  Anywho.  To me, they look like the quirky cousin of the rose.  Their layers of petals seem to spiral around the center of the bud, creating a sense of whimsy.  The best time of year for them is April or May, so they were perfect for us!  Fun fact: buttercups are members of the ranunculus family.  True story!

Green Hypericum Berries

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Hypericum berries are probably my favorite way to add a touch of color to a mostly-white arrangement.  They're so dainty, but they can add so much contrast.

Blue Thistle

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Okay, this is the part where I start squealing a little bit.  But really, look how cute they are!  They just remind me of "Horton Hears a Who" or something.

Yellow Tea Roses

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Tea roses are similar to the garden roses above, but they're smaller and more delicate.  In yellow, they reminded me of something from "Beauty and the Beast."  (Sorry.  You knew that was going to be in here somewhere.)

Cotton Blooms

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Wanna know the easiest way to save money on flowers?  Don't use flowers!  Seriously though, I've seen so many brides use fabric or paper or brooch bouquets, and it always looks stunning.  One of my new favorite trends is cotton.  It's fluffy and it fills a lot of space.  Best of all, it doesn't matter whether it's real or fake...no one can tell the difference!

Yellow Ranunculus

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I love the pop of color this adds.  I'm especially excited to see it next to the white ranunculus.

Fiddlehead Ferns

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I love this one so much, even the name makes me smile!  I'm so excited to use this on the boutonnieres.  It's whimsy at its finest, in my opinion.

White Hydrangea

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These will only be in our centerpieces, not in the bouquets.  I love hydrangeas, but they are thirsty little devils.  They do not do well outside of a vase for a very long time.  Additionally, they're late-summer/early-fall flowers; so even though you don't need a lot of them to fill space, the fact that they were out of season during our wedding made them too expensive.

Overall, my bouquet will be more colorful than my bridesmaids'.  Most inspiration that I found was the opposite, but I feel like my girls are wearing enough color.  Something simple and mostly white would balance them out nicely.  Conversely, something bright and vivid would contrast well with my dress!

And now, allow me to leave y'all with a few money-saving tips that I picked up during my floral adventures:

1. Buy local. Less travel means less additional expenses.
2. Buy seasonal. If you have your heart set on something that's off-season, that's fine, but I would highly recommend supplementing that feature flower with some complementary seasonal blooms.
3. Size matters. Bigger blooms means fewer blooms!  Sometimes this can look a little funny, but choosing fillers like berries or thistles can help to fill the gaps.
4. Bridesmaids' bouquets don't have to be for the ceremony only.  We're having the girls place them somewhere during the reception.  We haven't decided where yet, but that's one less thing that will need flowers!
5. Mix it up.  My favorite idea that my florist had was to do two different kinds of centerpieces.  Seven tables would have larger centerpieces, and six would have smaller centerpieces.  When looking at the room as a whole, it still looks pretty full.  When looking at it sitting at the table, you don't really notice if your centerpiece is smaller because you're busy eating and talking!  Paying for seven large centerpieces instead of 13 can save you quite a bit.

Flower Personality

We began our florist search just like we did for any other vendor.  We did some googling, we read some reviews, we looked at some websites and blogs.  It was rather mundane.  I just didn't feel too strongly about flowers.  We had so many other priorities when it came to our wedding plans; flowers just weren't one of them.  All of that changed when we actually found our florist, Angie of Birch Blooms.

It all started with a phone call.  After making a list of potential florists, I called Angie to schedule an interview.  I left her a voicemail, to which she promptly responded by email.  The surprising thing about this email was that she commented on my phone number.  "954?" she asked.  "Are you from South Florida?"  A few emails later, and we had figured out that we went to the same high school.  How crazy is that?  Now, maybe it's the baseball fan in me.  Maybe it's the Disney brainwashing.  But I feel like I know a sign when I see it.  I held off on scheduling interviews with the other potential florists, and I started researching flowers so that I would somewhat know what I was talking about at Angie's interview.

She had asked me what my favorite flower was.  As I'd mentioned earlier, it's the tulip.

{personal photo}

I didn't know if the tulip really fit our wedding flower personality.  I love them, but I think I like them better for birthday presents than for decorating our wedding.  So, I started pulling together some inspiration pictures...

Source: Charlie Pappas via On Occasions of Atlanta

Source: 35 Atlanta via On Occasions of Atlanta

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I brought Sister Lioness with me to a local Starbucks for my appointment with Angie (she was in town visiting and had nothing better to do than lend me her artful eye).  When Angie looked through the pictures I had brought, she said, "Sooo it looks to me like you're going for soft, romantic, and whimsical...with a hint of fluffy."

Sister Lioness kicked me under the table.  Her eyes said, "Dude!  It's like she's in your head!"

I responded to Angie with, "Well, the fluffy part hadn't occurred to me...but yes!"

Upon discussing which particular flowers we would be using, we indeed confirmed that my flower personality included "fluffy."  We discussed how much and how little color to include.  We discussed seasonal options, larger blooms, and we examined other possible ways to save money.  The meeting went really well!  When the quote came through a few days later, I was pleased.  Angie definitely got what we were going for, and she managed to stay within our budget.  So what did we end up going with?  Stay tuned!

In Memory of Awesomeness

Unfortunately, Mr. Lion and I have both experienced loss and grief in our lives.  We would both like to include those loved ones in our wedding somehow, so we started exploring some options.  I've seen "In Memory" sections in programs, but that didn't seem personal enough to me.  I've always thought memorial candles are really beautiful, but I still had one reservation.  These options seemed perfectly appropriate for grandparents, great aunts, older adults.  What if one of the people missing from your wedding was someone younger?  It just didn't seem to fit.

I've mentioned before that my cousins and I are close, almost like extended siblings, and my cousin Mark was the big brother to us all.  I grew up worshiping him.  He was hilarious, he was kind, and he was never too cool to play with his little cousins.

Personal photo, circa 1987 (I'm the one in the floaties!)

At one of our favorite places in the world (10 points if you can name it!) in 2003

Mark passed away about five years ago after battling Hodgkin's lymphoma.  I hate to sound cliche, but not a day goes by that I don't miss him.  I knew I had to think of something besides a memorial candle to include Mark in our wedding.  If my grandfather knew that he would be memorialized with a candle, he would think it was nice.  If Mark knew that he would be memorialized with a candle, he would say, "Dude.  Seriously?"  His sister did something unique for him on her wedding day, and I knew I needed to do the same.

One of the things I admired most about Mark was his creativity.  He always had these crazy schemes, but he usually didn't follow through with them.  The one idea he did actually put into action was designing his own clothing company.  It's not exactly in stores (yet), but he did design and print a few items.  The company is called Freekware, and its intention was to celebrate the uniqueness inside each individual through positivity and inspiration.  The logo is supposed to look like a surfer on a wave...also, (according to Mark) it's apparently an "F" on it side.

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The Freekware logo has become a part of the Lioness clan's culture.  It represents so much of what we're all about and, more importantly, it represents someone who was such an important part of our lives.  Every time my cousins and I get together, someone's bound to wear it.  Mark's sisters have since taken over the company, and I can't wait to see what they do with it!  They recently distributed a new line of designs, which each of us threw on immediately:

Yeah, we make matching and coordinated family reunions look cool.

The symbolism behind the Freekware logo made it the perfect tribute.  But how to incorporate it into our wedding?  Allow me to introduce you to the bouquet charm:

 Source: HyStudio via OffBeatBride

It's amazing to me how something so subtle and dainty can come across so powerfully in photos.  I knew I had found my solution.  I found all kinds of bouquet charms on Etsy, but most of them were a little over budget.  Then, I stumbled upon Mrs. Crab Cake's post on bouquet charms, where she discusses the DIY option.  I followed her advice and looked into Etsy seller AnnieHows.  She did not disappoint.

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A DIY kit to make six bouquet charms with your own image...for $14.  For a reasonable price, not only can I represent Freekware (and Mark), my bridesmaids can too!  I can't wait to show y'all the final product.

How have you chosen to remember loved ones who couldn't be with you on your wedding day?

Contain Yourself

One of my favorite trends in wedding decor is the non-floral centerpiece.   Since flowers can really add up, using non-floral centerpieces can be an easy way to save money.  It's also a great way to incorporate your theme, allowing for an opportunity to add a little more personality to your decor.

Source: Martha Stewart

It can also bring a seasonal, or perhaps even regional, element to your decor.  Liiike citrus...be still, my Floridian heart.

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We'll delve further into the contents of the Lion centerpieces in a later post.  Today, I'd like to focus on what contains the centerpiece.  There's nothing wrong with standard glass vases, but let's stick with our theme of creative and cheap and think outside the box a little bit.

One of my favorite clear glass alternatives is milk glass.  It looks crisp and clean, and it provides lovely contrast to brightly colored flowers.

Source: JL Designs via Wedding Chicks

Did you know that you can DIY faux milk glass?  Seriously!  Check out this tutorial from Ruffled Blog:

Another favorite of mine is mercury glass, whose touch of bling makes any decor more romantic and elegant.

Source: Michael and Anna Costa Photography via Style Me Pretty

And again, it's easy to recreate!

Before

After

{Tutorial and photos by My Backyard Eden}

This next one doesn't even require a tutorial, but here's some inspiration nonetheless:

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Tin cans!  That actually fits in pretty nicely with our rehearsal dinner...hmmm...

Still not your cup of tea?  Check out Mrs. D'Orsay's wine bottle centerpiece tutorial or Mrs. Paisley's birch-covered vase tutorial!

What unique centerpiece containers have you run into?  Are you using traditional vases or something different?