This Day In Crafty History . . .

Since this is an artsy-crafty blog, and since tomorrow is my second anniversary with my awesome husband, I thought I would post a few of the crafty things I made for our wedding. Easily the biggest (and some would say craziest) undertaking was doing the bouquets and such. About 11 pm the night before my wedding I started assembling them and wasn't finished until like 3 in the morning. I probably could've done them earlier, but I am a big procrastinator.

I ordered all of the flowers from Costco's website and had them delivered the Thursday before the big Saturday. I ordered about $300 worth of hydrangea, orange roses and daisies. I ended up only using about half of them.

They were delivered in perfect condition. Seriously. All but one single daisy was in mint condition.

I had a binder of magazine clippings for inspiration. Then, when I ordered the flowers, I just sketched out what I wanted the bouquets to look like. When arranging flowers, remember that odd numbers of blooms always look best. Each of the bridemaids' bouques had 3 hydrangea, 5 orange roses and about 5 (I think!) daises.

I got these butterfly pins from Macy's and I attached them to a long, stiff wire and incorporated them into the bouquets. I love the way these ended up. The photographer really caught the beauty of the jewelry. I also added orange dupioni silk around the stems.

My bouquet was pretty special. I used the pink daisies from Costco, but those lovely pink peonies (my all-time favorite flowers) were cut from a bush in my parents' yard. This made my bouquet extra sentimental. They were the exact color of the bridesmaids' dresses and in full bloom the day before the wedding, when I cut them. I added a dragonfly pin to my bouquet, and also a really long, beautiful silk ribbon tied around the base of the flowers. The ribbon hung down a few feet and looked awesome in the pictures.

For about $350 in flowers, pins, ribbons and silk, I was able to create 5 bouquets, several nosegays for the moms and grandmothers, 10 or more boutonnieres, aisle decorations, a flower girl's basket and still had half the flowers left! I would totally do this again, and I highly recommend it. It would've been a lot less stressful if I had done them earlier!

Later on this week I'll show the EXTREMELY labor-intensive centerpieces and a few other special touches. For now, I'll link to the the lovely Rebecca Thuss, who was style director for Martha Stewart Weddings, and provided loads of inspiration for my wedding two years ago through that awesome publication. I think I may have linked to her before, but she's worth a second look.

As for me, I have a whole day of picnic-ing, movie going and museum visits planned for tomorrow!