Alas, No Church of Elvis

Posted by Cynical Sarah on August 28, 2006

It suddenly dawned on me this past week that I’m only about two months away from my wedding day, and I still have a pretty good list of things that need to be done. As usual, all my good intentions of getting things done early so I wouldn’t have to stress about them are falling by the wayside.

I could use the excuse that I started working full-time again, so I just don’t have the time I thought I would to get things done. But even that rings hollow since I had about nine months since we got engaged to plan and take care of things early.

Now I’m hitting panic mode as I still desperately want to get things settled and accounted for early, so when the week of the wedding gets here, I’ll be able to enjoy the company of everyone who’s coming out for it.

This past week I picked up the pace on a few details, one of which was the all-important flowers. I put in a little extra time at work this week so I could take off early Thursday and head to a florist. I really had no idea what exactly I wanted beyond a count of everything I needed from bouquets to corsages to table arrangements.

I’m not sure if that makes me the florist’s worst nightmare or a dream come true. I walked in, flipped through a photo album to get an idea of the work that she does and eventually settled in to talk to her about what I wanted and how much of everything and talk price. But, I really had no vision of what I wanted for flowers. “Our” flowers are orchids since that’s what the hubby usually gets me, so I knew we wanted orchids as the dominant flower, but beyond that I was lost.

What do you pair with orchids? What color should we go with? How big does the bouquet need to be, and the bridesmaid bouquets?

I hadn’t even thought about any of those types of details. My brain was pretty much just stuck on the numbers – 1 bridal bouquet, 3 bridesmaid bouquets, 1 groom buttonier, boutonniere, 3 for the groomsmen, stuff for parents, a head table arrangement, and so on and so forth.

Perhaps I’m just a bad bride because I don’t have a vision for the flowers. My “dream” wedding involved Las Vegas and Elvis as the minister; I’ve never thought about what color of flowers to get. At least the florist was very patient and helpful. Our colors are silver and dark green, and who knew that orchids actually come in a shade of green too? Score one for us.

I pretty much just let her tell me what she would do based on the flowers we wanted and everything we needed. I’ll have to trust her expertise in the matter because I still don’t have much of a clue what we’re getting for flowers beyond that it will all have orchids.

There was no quick example to show me what she was thinking, no sketched out vision of what she wanted to do, and no complaints from me as we wrapped up our conversation about if there was any particular flour I didn’t want used and what it was going to cost me.

In a way, I wish all the planning could go like that. I’ll tell you a basic idea of what I want, you tell me how you can make it happen for the lowest price possible. And if I could do it all over the phone or through email, even better.

Of course, then I’d probably end up with a puffy clown dress, bright pink flowers, and a fruitcake wedding cake all because I just want to say “Whatever you think is best” and leave it at that.

- Sarah L. Polson

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Tags: flowers, humor, wedding

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