I  have started to get word that the Save the Date have started to arrive so now I can finally share the design!

The front:

And the back:

Details:

We used Vista Print’s postcard service to make our own Save the Date cards. I’ve had a lot of fun looking at professionally designed ones, but we really couldn’t justify the cost for something that won’t even make it to the wedding day.  We could have skipped them entirely because they aren’t very common in Britain but  I wasn’t THAT successful in squashing that little voice in my head!

Since they were “homemade” and relatively cheap (seriously, the stamps cost more) the pressure was off and I wanted to have a bit of fun with them.  Sheep are quintessentially Scottish and I love to knit so I was really happy to find a cute free clipart image for the front of the card.  The background view is actually from the venue! Isn’t it gorgeous? We won’t be getting married outside (you can’t risk that in Scotland) but what a backdrop!

I am so in love with the back of the postcard if I do say so myself.  It came out exactly how I pictured it in my head and has just a hint of the vintage whimsy that I’d like to incorporate into the wedding.

Speaking of flowers, I’m very excited to show you these pictures today. My friend Elise has her own florist business and she sent me pictures from a recent wedding she just did and they are beyooootiful.

We had thought about having Elise do our own wedding flowers because she is very talented and so obviously passionate about her work but she is based in South England and the logistics of doing a Scotland wedding were a bit beyond us.  But it’s ok, we’ve retained her as  a trusted consultant on floral matters and more importantly, she can just have a good time as a guest!

So this wedding was a couple of weeks ago and the bride basically wanted a shower of roses, and boy did she get it. In spades.

Beautiful pink pomander.  Although it’s perfectly round I like that there’s still some variety of texture in the roses and the leaves were kept which makes it look a bit more organic and romantic.

Hi, did anyone order a romantic centerpiece?  I just love how it looks like she’s just plopped a garden on this candelabra. Sooo pretty and natural looking.  And I’m usually not a fan of thistles, but she’s beautifully incorporated them here.

Le. Swoon.  I have to get the name of those huge pink roses because I swore they were peonies but you can’t get them this time of year (which means I can’t get them for my wedding, *tears*) but dang, don’t they look like a good substitute?

Le. Swoon. You can almost smell them.

If you’re having a wedding in the South of England and looking for a seriously talented florist you gotta check Elise out.  She’s working on getting her website up but this is her email address and I’m going to get some more pictures soon!

Tags: bouquet, centerpiece, England, pomander, romantic, roses

The last time we went up to Scotland a couple of weeks ago, Craig and I made appointments to see a few florists.  See here for the type of things I have in mind in terms of style.

We actually saw 4 florists , 3 of them on the same day. Craig was such a trooper giving in lots of input and his parents were so nice and drove us all over the place.

For me, it was really between two florists.

The first florist company was Cherry Blossom.  It was quite a coincidence because we were in Glasgow for a wedding on the Saturday and we met them at the wedding venue we were at on the Sunday because they were doing the flowers there that day!  I really appreciated them squeezing us in (don’t worry they still had plenty of time for the wedding) and Laura and Jayne spent a lot of time really getting to know us and what we were looking for. They also had a TON of pictures to show us, which helped give us ideas.  And because they were setting up for a wedding I got to take a peek at some real bouquets and buttonholes they made and they were GORGEOUS!  Pretty darn close to what I am looking for.

The other company is Mary’s Flowers, in Ayr.  The wedding florist is Susan and she was also really great at the consultation.  We actually met her in her “studio” at the store and the great thing about that was that she was able to just pull out some sample flowers during our discussion to help show how things look together.

After about a week of debating in the end we decided to go with…

Cherry Blossom!

It was a really close decision. Both were so professional and knowledgeable.  They both took a lot of time to understand what kind of style we wanted and make helpful suggestions. In the end, we decided to go with Cherry Blossom because I just felt they just understood what I’m going for just a little better than Susan.  Seriously, it was close!  But my friend Elise who is also a florist (more on that soon!) advises that this connection is really the important thing because they need to be able to interpret my ideas into reality.

And because I like posts to have pictures, here are some example flower/foliage that I am totally loving (hopefully this isn’t giving too much away, I mean they still have to make the bouquets):

Purple Lisianthus

Viburnum berries

Wax flowers

“Cool water” roses

Lime Hypericum berries

Tags: ayr, cherry blossom, florists, glasgow

Holy jeebus it’s so obvious that they made this just to torture brides to be:

Carnaval Nodo Satin d’Orsay pumps from the incredible Christian Louboutin.

From Saks. (Thanks, Angie. Thanks a lot)

Tags: blue, love

Sometimes people talk about how they can’t get their partners to become more involved with the wedding planning.  I’m going to be unbearable and say that Craig’s actually been really hands on and happy to pitch in.

The trick seems to be to play to his strengths.  I hear he’s a pretty good project manager, so what do we do?

We bust out the post-it notes:

And the white board:

And unleash the PM within:

Hey, I don’t think we ever said we were cool.  But dang if we’re not going to pull this wedding off on time and on budget!

B.W. stands for Before Wedding

Tags: geek, planning