The Bride's Bouquet and Wedding Party Florals

The bridal bouquet included roses, succulents, seeded eucalyptus, black berries,
rosemary sprigs, brunia silver pods, small pinecones, feathers, and mini antlers.

One of the many hats I wore for this wedding was that of floral designer. I've never had any real training in floral design, but I know enough about fresh flowers and other materials to be able to do a few things.

We actually went to see a professional floral designer for a bid - but when the bride kept saying "winter white" and soft green (complete with photo examples) and she kept showing us red arrangements, I knew that I might need to step in and take charge of the flowers too.

It was fine with me in the end, because I do like to be in control of all design details, if possible!

The bride's gown was a very unique shade and we noticed right away that many cream roses didn't look good against the fabric. So on my first trip to the floral trade center I had a fabric swatch to shop with.

We found a pink tinged rose called white majolica that looked perfect with the dress. I even made a sample bouquet for the last dress fitting, just to be sure.

The bouquet was hand-tied with ribbon. What a fun bride - she was a dream to work with. 

We created the bouquet on the morning of the wedding and many of the roses opened more than I would have preferred,  but it didn't really matter - it turned out so nice and exceeded my expectations. I think I really lucked out!

A friend of the bride gave her a locket with a photo of her grandmother and
we attached it to the side of the bouquet that faced the bride. She could glance down at it
and feel that her grandmother was with her on this special day.
Photo by Leesa King

The groom's boutonnière included a white majolica rose, a succulent, and seeded eucalyptus. 

Using the same materials, each boutonnière was created a bit different for the seven groomsmen. Two of the bride's aunts arrived in time to help me with the florals on the morning of the wedding. 

They were tied with burlap ribbon and twine.

The bridesmaid's carried lanterns instead of bouquets. We adorned them with 

burlap ribbon, roses, pinecones, pine sprigs, and seeded eucalyptus. We used flameless tea lights so there was no worry about the flame going out as they walked down the pathway.

The maid-of-honor carried a bigger lantern,
but it had the same flowers as the six other lanterns the bridesmaid's held.

The entire wedding party.  Beautiful.

All photos by John Robert Woods Photography in Orange County, CA unless otherwise noted.

Sewing The Bridal Headpiece

The wait is over (and it was worth the wait) for receiving the professional photographs of the early December wedding of  Mike & Lindsey. John Robert Woods did an amazing job shooting the wedding and now I have a lot of new blog material to cover.

The beautiful bride wearing her custom made headpiece
John Robert Woods Photography

I'm starting with one of the last DIY projects we worked on. We created the bride's headpiece and the maid-of-honor's sash just two nights before the wedding. 

The bride's gown had many beautiful flowers made from silk.
John Robert Woods Photography

When we saw the sash below at Jinnys Bridal Center we knew we wanted to use it somehow. The first time they brought it out was to show the maid-of-honor who had brought her dress to try on while the bride was in her gown. It looked amazing with her dress. The bride really liked it too, but her dress had enough details with all of the beautiful flowers. On the next visit to the bridal shop, they brought it out again for us to see. This time the bride was interested again - she wanted to wear it in her hair.  It had too much going on for a headpiece alone, and we decided it could serve double-duty as a sash for the maid-of-honor, with the largest flower removed to use for the bridal headpiece.

The photo we snapped of the sash to "think about it."
We couldn't forget it and the bride purchased it on her next visit.

Here's a photo from the Enzoani website. It's called the Diana Belt.
The sash ribbon is the same color in this pic, but some of the other details may
have a slightly different color way.

The bride ordered black "birdcage" netting online for her headpiece and she had a long black satin ribbon. We went to work.

John Robert Woods Photography

This was an expensive sash, so I was a little worried to begin to  tear  take it apart. But I did, very gently, remove the largest flower and some of the extra silk fabric from the sash. I stitched it onto the black ribbon, along with the netting, and after a few adjustments we had a gorgeous and very unique, one-of-a-kind headpiece.

John Robert Woods Photography

One day while shopping for wedding items, the bride's mother and I found a big rust colored flower pin at a consignment shop in Fallbrook and thought it might work for the sash. I bought the stones for the middle of the flower at the craft store. A few stitches later and the sash was reborn into another unique one-of-a-kind accessory.

The sash really turned a beautiful dress into a stunning gown for the maid-of-honor.  All the girls looked amazing in their own dress selections. I love the look of dresses that are coordinated, but not matching.
John Robert Woods Photography

Beautiful . . .
John Robert Woods Photography

One of the reasons the rusty color worked for the sash was because we were using vintage amber-colored bottles as part of the table decorations. We also used pinecones, feathers and pods that brought the color to the tables. And, of course, the sash already had a rusty-slightly brownish-green color velvet sash. Haha, I can't think of a better way to describe the color of that ribbon, even if it is not very designer-like of me.

The Sweetheart Table
John Robert Woods Photography