Outdoor Wedding

With the March issue of The Stanton Magazine launching this past Wednesday, my most recent wedding obsessions had to be put on the back burner. Luckily, however, I've finally had a chance to go looking for inspiration. Today I found this amazing idea for outdoor wedding decor. As some of you may know, Marc and I are hoping for an outdoor wedding (venue TBD) in May of 2012. To accent the natural environment, I'm hoping to get my hands on some of the phenomenally unique hanging light fixtures pictured below.

The hunt to find them begins now....

My Little Flower Girl

As you may have noticed, I've been in a "dressy" mood lately. In keeping with that trend, I found the most luxurious flower girl dress today. I've included a snapshot of the dress and a photo of my cute little niece, Aubrey, who will be donning it in full fabulosity. She'll be nearly 4 years old, if we marry in May of 2012. The dress, made by Pegeen- Designers of Fine Children's Wear, is peony pink with a bisque silk sash. Its also accented by a Cinderella bow and two trailing roses- so gorgeous. 

Love this little girl!
 Here she is drying her recently painted nails :)
And no, she isn't wearing lip gloss.
She is going to make a beautiful flower girl. 

Obsession: Fiori The Flower Studio

For some girls its the dress, for others its the location, but for some reason for me, its been all about the flowers.I finally got my chance to visit the delightful Fiori Flower Studio on Saturday.

After months of swooning over his work, I can officially say that I am obsessed with this vendor.

As with my other appointments, the consultation began with a discussion of my vision for the wedding. Of course, my common blog themes such as crystals, lavender, and pewter came up but as I reached for my iPad, to show him exactly what I meant, I found that it had overheated and it would take about fifteen minutes to cool off enough to be able to show him My Wedding Obsessions. In the meantime, we talked about outdoor weddings and the beautiful Pecan Farm Wedding I had seen online. To my excitement, it turned out that he was also the flower vendor for that same lovely ceremony I had written about.

Apart from our conversation, what I liked most about this vendor was his willingness & excitement to design something unique to our wedding. With other flower shops I visited, the fact that I didn't know the exact flowers I loved and that I "was open" to seeing different designs seemed to perplex vendors more than ignite their creative juices. I loved that he called himself a "floral designer" and that he even offered to create samples and modify them until we found the perfect fit.

I'll be seeing him again at the Kiss FM Love Affair & Bridal Expo this weekend, where he just may have some ideas for me to take a look at. In the meantime, I would say that his cottage-like studio nestled next to the Magic Pan on Doniphan is definitely worth a visit.

My Flower Hunt

After much delay, I have finally made an appointment with my dream florists, Fiori Flowers.

We'll see how everything goes in person after meeting/loving them at the Bridal Show in January and drooling over their pretty floral designs featured on their blog in the month since. Here are a few of my latest floral inspirations that I can't wait to share with them.

Color Board- Pewter

Pewter- A soft dark grey with a dull finish.

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

Over the past few weeks I've had the chance to check out two local flower shops- Angie's Flowers & Debbie's Bloomer's. Visiting the shops may have seemed a little premature, seeing as how we still don't have a official date for our wedding, but I still wanted to get a rough estimate of how much I would need to set aside for our floral budget.

In addition to getting a feel for cost, I also wanted to meet the vendors to see who I like & who I feel that I can trust with "our big day." While both vendors I have met so far were extremely nice, I was shocked by the news that one quoted me at almost double the price of the other. I'll leave which one ended up being the pricier option up for guessing...

At the end of the day, I don't know if I will end up choosing either of these florists because I still haven't gone to visit Fiori Flowers, with whom, you may recall, I fell in love with at the Bridal Show.

As long as we're on the topic of flowers, though, I've been thinking that I would love to have a purple colored bouquet. I've been looking around and the photos pictured above are a few of my favorite choices so far. Any early favorites?