The Wedding and Flowers

The wedding is over and life is getting back to normal. It was a wonderful occassion. Everyone looked beautiful, the food was terrific, and there were friends to enjoy conversation with.

So, here are pictures of all the fun. Thursday I went over to my friend Laura's house to get started. Together we spray-painted all these hydrangeas a lovely pink color!

Federal Express delivered "The Box" and we carefully unpacked all the flowers, re-cut them, and stowed them in buckets of fortified water.

Friday morning, after tea of course, we started in.

Laura's sister Kathy (who, I discovered, is a reader of this blog!) came to help. Together we spent the morning wiring and wrapping flowers to assemble the 13 boutonnieres and 4 corsages. (Special thanks to Laura's daughter Megan who stayed close to the phone and answered any question!)

After our much-needed lunch break we started in on the bridesmaids' bouquets. I just loved their colors!

Laura worked on the most important piece of all -- Stephanie's bouquet! It was just beautiful!

With minutes to go until Kathy and I had to leave, we raced right into the final three arrangements for the front of the church.

Miraculously we finished just in time (leaving poor Laura to worry about the huge mess):

The next day we set off for the wedding.

Here is an overview of the wedding. You can't see much, but you can get an idea of what things looked like:
Stephanie and Jeremy looked wonderful! Stephanie's dress (sewn by one of her bridesmaids) was gorgeous, and the flowers complemented it just right!
I loved the bridesmaids' bouquets against their dresses:

And the boutonnieres held up very well!

It was a very happy occassion!

Stephanie's mom did the cake! Isn't that amazing!

And then we were all sent home with giant home-made cookies tied up in little bags. Lovely memories!

So, now I'm anxious to do more flowers. :) It really was fun. I guess I'll have my chance in 4 weeks when Stephanie's brother gets married and Emily does the flowers for that wedding.

In the mean time I'll be working to get my children properly outfitted for the next two weddings. We had a shoe crisis just minutes before we were to leave. Rachel had only flip-flops and couldn't find any of her 4 pairs, David had only sandals, James had nothing to wear with his dress outfit. We managed to find a good-looking pair in the closet but with no laces. Brown wool did the trick! Fortunately, Andrew had real dress shoes to go with his black suit jacket that he wears with navy trousers which are two sizes too big (the shoes hold the trousers up). He confided in me, "Mom, people will think I'm a mini-preacher." Smile.