Bouquet of sun gold cymbidium orchids, pincushion protea, sea holly, sky blue delphinium, green tea roses and bear grass, created by Precious Petals, Huntingdon Valley. Photograph by Ryan Lavine.

To me, one of the more challenging aspects of putting this wedding together has been selecting the flowers. And we’re not even putting floral arrangements on tables — we’re going to have seascapes with candles — so I only needed bouquets, one boutonniere (only Tim is wearing a jacket) and some flowers to help decorate the ceremony location.

I had an idea of the look and feel I wanted — looser, more natural, less formal — to go with the beach wedding, but I was not highly opinionated on the exact flowers I liked (though there were a few types I absolutely do not like). To complicate matters, my bridesmaids are wearing a light aqua color that I absolutely love, but finding flowers that go nicely without being too bright or too washed out has been tough.
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On Jennifer's floral wish list: a plum-centered calla lily bouquet.

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I had found choosing the flowers to be the hardest part so far in our long list of wedding planning tasks.

I might have to go back on that statement. Now, I think that when you find the right vendors, you are comfortable — and maybe that was the real reason behind my struggle in the first go-round with flower selection. That initial florist just wasn’t the right fit.
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Up until we arrived at our first appointment with a florist, flowers seemed like a small detail; a decision easily made on the fly. We arrived a few minutes early. The woman with whom we were meeting, Denise, asked us to bring anything we’ve seen in magazines or online that we liked and might want to mimic for the wedding. “This is going to be the easy part,� I thought. So we went armed with only the swatch of the wine-hued bridesmaids dresses as a jumping off point.

Denise met us and subsequently presented to us a library of floral arrangements. I am usually bad when it comes to making estimates of any kind, but I venture to guess that we looked at more than 600 variations of centerpieces and bouquets and boutonnieres, oh my. Easy decision? I think not.
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Photograph by Brett Thomas. Bouquet by Moda Botanica, Philadelphia.

This past week, my mom and I set off on an important mission: Find a florist! We have been in touch with a few in the area, and wanted to meet with one in person to make sure she had the right floral vision for my Big Day.

The majority of my research for deciding on my floral selections for the Big Day has been going through an endless pile of wedding magazines and ripping out pictures I like and putting them in a pile. I have been on the hunt for fun uses of color and different ways to display the flowers throughout the reception. I feel that our ceremony at the Villanova Chapel and our reception at Greystone Hall will be very classic, so I want to use the flowers in a different and modern way to decorate. I want the flowers to pop and be a little different from your typical bouquets on the reception tables. So far, I believe the florist we might be working with has an exciting vision and I am pleased with her ideas!
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