How do your flowers grow?

Remember that time a million years ago when I promised you a post about our bouquets?

Well, all I can say is this has been a crazy week at our office, and a have a bunch of huge deadlines today and Monday. As if planning a wedding wasn’t a full-time job already.

But today, it turns out, is actually a quite fortuitous day for me to tell you about my wedding flowers, because I was just assigned as The Knot’s flowers editor. (Can I get a what-WHAT?) (I’m so sorry.) That basically means I’m the staff go-to for all things flora.

It may seem kind of funny since I said that my own wedding flowers weren’t a priority for me, but the flower images are actually my favorite part to edit when I’m reviewing Real Weddings in our gallery. It’s probably staring at all of those gorgeous petals that, in the end, made me up the ante with my own blooms.

I think I’ve posted about three different flower looks since starting this blog. (Hey, it’s a bride’s prerogative to change her mind.) My main priority was getting something pretty on a budget, and for the most part, I had been acquiescing to the budget side of that a lot more than the pretty.

I still think these baby’s breath bouquets are lovely, and I still think I could have done my flowers myself (I’m craft, darn it!), but a couple of conversations I had right before I put in my flowers order changed my tune.

First, I decided I had to have dahlias for my bouquet. My favorite flower used to be tulips, but in the course of looking at all those aforementioned wedding flower photos, I fell head over heels for these fluffy, springy blooms.

I mentioned this to my sister-in-law (the one doing my hair and makeup who also happens to know a lot about flower arrangement), and she warned me that dahlias are a soft flower that can be difficult to work with if you’re not a professional.

Ok, so there went the DIY idea. The last thing I want to be worried about on my wedding day is the lump of soggy stems I’ve just destroyed, leaving me with nothing to carry down the aisle.

My future mother-in-law, Chris, went with me to the florist while the fiancé was out of town because she wanted to get us a ceremony arrangement. We went to Flowers by Phil, The Levittown Florist, which is a different florist than the one providing my centerpieces. Flowers by Phil’s prices are better, and one of the fiance’s cousins had used them for her wedding with great success.

Anyway, I showed them some pictures of what I liked, explained my plan for the baby’s breath bridesmaid bouquets and the ceremony arrangement, they quoted us an extremely reasonable price, and we left so I could discuss with the fiancé before signing anything.

Cue the second conversation that changed my mind: The next day, Chris and I were talking about the bouquets and how even though the flowers themselves die in a few hours, the pictures (and the effect flowers have on the pictures) will last forever.

So later that day, I called the florist and asked how much the budget would change to swap in dahlias for my girls. And you know what? It wasn’t too much of a difference.

Here’s the gist of what we’re getting:

My bouquet will be a mix of blush and ivory dahlias like this:

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With dusty miller around the flowers similar to this:

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The girls will carry basically the same thing, but a little smaller and with ivory flowers.

And after I confirmed the order and hung up the phone, I was suddenly SO EXCITED about my wedding flowers. And isn’t that how a girl should feel about her wedding flowers?