flowers: ACHIEVED! and GORGEOUS!

You know what cheers up your day and stops pre-wedding freakouts in their tracks? Getting a big ol' box full of beautiful flowers in the mail!
These were done by my amazing, new favorite cousin Missy. Missy is a super person. She did the flowers for both her sisters' weddings, and when my mom suggested that maybe she could do it for ours too, man, was I ever sold. Oh, and she's also flying in on Sunday to help me with all the last minute wedding barf I'm gonna have to do. Bonus: she and my mom are like besties. So we'll have a lot of fun together.
I sent her a big box a few months ago with my mock up bouquet in it, some inspiration sheets, and some extra ribbon. If you don't remember what my bouquet used to look like, here's a reminder:
And here it is, fleshed out (sorry about the shitty lighting...it's been a rainy ugly mess around here the last few days)
She added more feathers and put in some of those spikey dijon-colored flowers to tie it in with the bridesmaids bouquets, the bouquets which make me cry sometimes because I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH
During the same trip where I made my bouquet, we found these...weird...floral sticks at Hobby Lobby, and we thought they'd make pretty arm bouquets for the girls. Here's the inspiration picture:
(pretty, but doesn't go with our color scheme)
And here are all my attempts to properly capture their lovliness, having no one at home to help me:
I suppose if you look in the top picture it gives an okay idea about what they look like whole. My photography skills were just not working their magic yesterday.
The boys bouts were a little more difficult, since I didn't really have any inspiration. I sent her this inspiration page (I made one of these for all the flowers, but this one needed the most explanation since there was no explanation)
Basically, I like bouts with a non-flower element somewhere on them. I thought since I had feathers in my bouquet, they could tie into the bouts somewhere too, or maybe sticks, because of the girls. I was very vague and non-committal to my bout vision, thank god Missy is talented or who KNOWS what we could've ended up with.
Bout box.
The standard bout. Simple flower with twirly stick thingy and a few feathers. When Missy comes she wants to wrap the stems in ribbon to make them a little more cohesive.
Here is Greg's bout. It is fancier since he is the most important. It's about the same as the others, it just has two flowers and another kind of feather.

The corsages are still up in the air, since Missy wanted to actually see my mom's dress first, so we'll be making those next week. After my totally upsetting day yesterday, this box totally picked me up.

UPDATE: also, this appears to be the talent family...my mom just called and another one of my cousins, Luke, and his (now wife!*) Paige used to freelance as reception decorators down in Texas. Sooooo we are exploiting that tie as well.


*they eloped to Vegas, the sneaky butts. Or, more likely, the genius butts.

bon voyage, mon joli fleurs

Today I'm preparing to send supplies to my AMAZING cousin who will be doing all our flowers for this wedding. She is incredibly crafty, and did the flowers for her own wedding and the weddings of her two sisters. She's also coming a week before the ceremony to help gut pumpkins and make cookies...but mostly to hang out with my mom, who is like her best friend. They're super cute together, just you wait.
So in a little while she'll be getting a big ol' box full of ribbon we bought with after season clearanceSome inspiration sheets I whipped up in photoshopExtra leaves, baby's breath, and feathers (just in case her area stores are missing some of the ingredients) and the rough draft of the bouquet that my mom, sis and I whipped up when I went home for Super Wedding Weekend, which is starting to look a little haggard after a few months of hanging out and being batted around by the cat:
I'm a little sad to see them go. I'm shocked to realize that I'm going to miss them.

"WAIT, did she just say she was sending flowers through the mail?
And that they had been around for months? But that would mean...they would have to be...she wouldn't use....FAKE FLOWERS?"
Okay, let's just get something out in the open.
Are you sitting down? Probably, since this is the internet and you are probably on a computer.
Okay: I am using fake flowers for my wedding.
(ooooh, gasp, gag, I know right?)
I am a big ol' faker, and I have no problem with this. I did not think it would be an issue but I guess this is a huge wedding faux pas. I have learned that this is "unacceptible" because it seems to be the only part of my wedding people are willing to argue with me about. There are some things, like our wedding date and our choice of menu, which people consider "non-traditional," but they usually just say something like "Ohh...that's interesting." They have never come out and told me I shouldn't do something.

But apparently something about fake flowers make even the most polite people feel the need to tell me that I will ruin my entire life if I don't drop some serious dime on fresh blooms. Well, most people don't go that far, but perhaps many of you may have made an involuntary scrunchy face at the very idea when you read it, and people have told me that they think it's a "huge mistake." Really? Having artificial flowers will somehow make my wedding less magical? How does that work?
The fact of the matter is, I don't care about flowers. Not really. I want pretty flowers to be a part of my wedding, sure, and I want a bouquet that will compliment my bodacious dress, but this is a wedding on a budget. If I spent the amount of money on flowers that is expected, I would have to leave folks off the guest list. Their presence is more important to me than something that will wilt and die by the end of the night. Also, as we have established, Greg and I are both awkward people and I would crush a living flower with my elbow, foot or butt looooong before reaching the ceremony location. I think I would regret that. I don't think I am able to regret renunculas, dahlias, and feathers in perfect wedding colors that will take most of the abuse that I will be giving out, and for less than I spend at target in a given week.And see how pretty? So pretty. And that's just me and my fam playing around in a craft store. Imagine what the magical hand of experience will be able to do.
So what do you think? Are you a little disgusted by plastic flowers? Are real flowers worth the price? Or do you agree that every once and a while it's okay to fake it?