Flower inspiration

So, with the wedding rapidly approaching (185 days!), my coordinator Mary put me in contact with a few florists in Los Angeles. My mom, Mary and I met with Jennifer from Fiore Designs and Lisa from Ixora Floral Studios a few weeks ago when I was in California. Both Jennifer and Lisa were really warm and creative. Basically they both had me show them inspiration photos and describe my dream/idea flowers for the wedding, ceremony, bouquets, etc. and then they gave me their input and design ideas. From there, they will send me price quotes and we can cut back on my dream to fit my budget. Of course, now I'm sort of giddy thinking about my ideal flowers for the wedding and anxiously awaiting my quotes.

Basically I have a love for manzanita branches (see example of the orange colored branches with green orchids below), fluffy/romantic flowers like peony's, teacup roses, dahlias, etc but I also love the modern design of orchids, lotus buds, succulents and bamboo. Surprisingly all those things sort of work together.

Here are some of my inspiration photos:

Bouquets

I have been debating fan bouquets, but here are some other bouquets that I absolutely love.

This orchid bouquet was done by Fiore. So pretty and simple.


I absolutely love peony's and teacup roses


I think rananculus and peony's


Centerpieces:
For centerpieces, I want some trees with flowers and hanging candles along with low varied height centerpieces.

Love the orange manzanita branches with the orchid bunches



Not quite what I'm going for, but I like the single flowers and crystals

A baby version of a centerpiece
I love how big and full dahlias are

Love these lotus buds with the dahlias and bamboo
I like the succulents with the calla Lilly's and roses. Not a huge fan of the ivory flowers in here - I think they are too stark but overall I like this for a low centerpiece
I love how the orchids are spraying and sort of look like branches. Very dramatic

Different heights of flowers in bamboo I think look cool and could be inexpensive for the cocktail hour too?

More dahlias
If we do decide to do a few long/rectangular tables - I am in love with this sort of creeping tree and flower look.

Ceremony

To line the aisle for the ceremony I was thinking of getting large copper or dark wood bowls and floating dahlias or plumeria in them

I also love the idea of floating plumeria but they are hard to find in August
For the ceremony, I knew I wanted to have lots of hanging lines of jasmine or orchids. I also know I want a more open simple structure that is circular. The lines of orchids would be similar to this amazing table scape below. I haven't been able to really find any pictures I'm obsessed with until I stumbled upon Michelle Rago. She is nothing short of amazing and probably is insanely expensive. If I had a million dollars to spend on just my wedding, I'd use her in a heartbeat. Anyways, the pictures below are of a wedding she did at Breakers hotel was gorgeous! It had the most beautiful mandap/chuppa-like structure with all the carving it makes it look almost Moroccan.

I LOVE these orchid trees. We wanted to do some type of archway leading into the aisle and I think something like this would be perfect.

Cocktails

We also have to do some kind of decor for the cocktail hour. Since I'd prefer to really wow everyone for the reception, I'm thinking about doing something sort of simple like this. I'm not sure my mom was a fan of using fruit in a centerpiece but I think they look modern and have a little asian culture to them with the jasmine flowers. Thoughts?

Boutonniere

I don't have many boutonniere ideas. But here are two that I thought were cool and different. One of the florists suggested using succulents and I think it looks great and masculine. Not sure how they'll work with Indian outfits though?

I think these stephanotis flower's would look great with indian outfits though. I like the copper detailing a lot.

Bridesmaids fans?!

So, I stumbled across Olivia Oberlin from my daily persual of various wedding blogs (wedding bee, stylemepretty, something old something new...) and I fell in love. Her fans are absolutlely GORGEOUS and I am sure incredibly expensive. Then I thought, it would be so cool to carry one of these fans walking down the asile. I think it would be really unique and beautiful to have all the bridesmaids carry fans that have a string of hanging orchids coming off the handle. Also, we are leaving small straw fans on the chairs for the guests to shield their eyes from the sun, so it might be a cute little theme?

I would also love to carry a really beautiful fan with hanging flowers, but I'm not sure my mom will let me. She's obsessed with flowers and the bridal bouquet I think is a big deal for her. Thoughts?

Olivia Oberlin Fans:

Beautiful decorated wood fan from A Cool Breeze:
Or we could go with Sandalwood. Something simple that I could decorate more if we wanted....

A potential Bridal fan? Maybe I could get one made to match my sari....

Shockingly hard to find pictures of strands of orchids. This is the best I could find for now. Ignore all the lanterns and you kind of get the idea

in love, part 2

I can't stop thinking about those gorgeous shoes (see below). I've found a few more today but I can't shake my love for those red Christian Louboutin's as well as the white ones. I'm seriously debating getting those gold dot Manolo's because I think I could wear them for both ceremonies, they are more affordable and they are really freakin cute. I saw them in a consignment shop in black this weekend and they are adorable up close.

Its a college reunion this weekend, so I'm hoping we can be super girly and spend the day at Neiman Marcus and Saks drooling over these shoes and seeing if I can even kind of justify them. You only get married once right? (I know dangerous logic)

So, here are a few more beautiful shoes I've found today.

Giuseppe Zanotti shoes that come in dyable white satin. I don't think I'd dye them though. Very pretty and classic. $545

Fifi shoes that are also in dyable white or ivory satin. Never heard of the designer which may be why they are a steal (compared to the ones I've listed) at $220 Damn sexy Christian Louboutin's! These are undeniably gorgeous and also insanely expensive at $910.
More seriously amazing Christian Louboutin's - these ones breaking the bank at over $1K!!!

Amazing Brian Atwood shoes. I LOVED LOVED LOVED his winter collection of shoes but his new collection is leaving a little to be desired in terms of wedding shoes. Also now I can't find his old collection anywhere online. sigh. These are Trina D'Orsay pumps are the only ones I like right now.

I've discovered that Kate Spade has a line of shoes specifically for weddings. The two following pictures are of Kate Spade shoes named "lover". They are a reasonable $275. Only problem is that they are white so I probably couldn't wear them with both outfits (but they are dyable again). At least with these I might be able to afford both white and metallic shoes.

These are the Kate Spade "Gwen" and are also $275. Same issues/benefits as the lover shoe.
To end I thought I'd shoe these freaking adorable pictures of kids shoes! Seriously, anything in miniature baby size is adorable. I am in love with these ballet shoes from Designer's Touch Kids on Zappos and I think would be so incredibly sweet with their little lengas. They are $47.95 a pair and come in infant to toddler size. The price is not bad compared to the freakin Dolce & Gabana shoes I saw on there for kids for $126. Who in the world would spend that much on baby shoes that they will wear maybe once?
Cute Reef sandals from Zappos shoes with a totally different California casual vibe. My nieces are so girly though that I think they'd love the ballet shoes above better. These however are half the price at $26

i'm in love...

after slaving over our insane guest list (yes, there are over 500 people currently on there!), i wanted to do something for the wedding that was fun. oh shoes. i love shoes. i have far too many. and as most of you know, i also have terrible feet that are incredibly wide and always hurting. so, although i want to wear amazing shoes for the wedding, i need shoes that aren't going to make my feet look even wider. i'm not so concerned with the pain aspect since in my day-to-day life i wear 3-4in heels that kill my feet. its worth it to not look so short and stumpy.

and here are the many shoes i'm lusting over. so many are over the $600 range its kind of ridiculous.

Christian Louboutin $745 of super strapy gold shoes. not sure how my feet would look in these bad boys:

More Christian Louboutin and in my opinon amazing wedding shoes! white and metallic and high and stacked and that dreamy red sole. only downfall is that they are almost $900!
Manolo Blahnik - I think these are really beautiful, fun with the dot print and they would match my reception outfit really well. $665

More Manolo Blahnik that are also $665 and really pretty but again not sure how they'd look on my fat feet
Linea Paolo - not crazy about these but they are $100 so much more affordable and still pretty
Giuseppe Zanotti sandals - pretty and not too high but still $650
Valentino also really high,metallic and sexy but with a cute bow:) and a not so cute $600 price tag I love shoes, but I loooooooovve red shoes. I think it would be fun to a have a punch of color on my feet on the wedding day. Plus red would match my reception outfit. Too weird?


Stewart Weitzman - Super glamorous and loud but I still think they are kind of cool. Still $600 though...

Manolo's again but this time in red. I really love these and they are just slightly less at $565

Christian Louboutin shoes that i absolutely must have one day. These are amazing and I am literally drooling right now. Why must they be almost $900 :(



I figure that at some point during the night I might want flats soooo

Stewart Weitzman sparkly jelly flats - thats right jelly shoes a la 3rd grade. how cool! $145 for them though, not so sure. they do seem cheap compared to my dream cl's above

Haviana crystal thong sandals - who knew Haviana's could be $190! pretty cute but i'd find a cheaper version somewhere else before i bought rubber shoes for that much. :)

Okay thats it for now. I'm sure they'll be more cause this is so much more fun that excel spreadsheets. :)

My Bridal Party

So I've been avoiding the issue of deciding my final bridal party and then also telling all my friends who was and wasn't in the party. I know thats kind of silly because eventually everyone will know and honestly I think its probably better to let your friends know so they don't find out from someone else. I have something special planned for each of my girls I didn't choose but that will just take some time. I know that its a sensitive subject and its seriously a process that I've been riddled with guilt about. This has also been incredibly tough mostly because I really and seriously have some of the best girlfriends in the entire world and I love and respect each of them so much. I know that sounds cheesy, but its really true. I wish I could have had all of my girlfriends in my bridal party.

I chose to have a small bridal party because he didn't have that many groomsman and I didn't want the wedding party to get too outrageously large. I made the decision to try and pick a few people from each phase of my life (high school, college, and grad school). This in no way means that I don’t value each of my friendships with you girls and I hope no one would take offense to my choices. I want all of you to be involved in the wedding and realize that you are incredibly important people to me.