She had decided, a while ago, to go with silk flowers for the bouquets (with one exception, Mother Nature permitting), the boutonnieres and the corsages. What we ended up doing, after perusing all of the local silk flower offerings, was ordering bouquets online, and then cutting them apart and separating into their individual components. When we did that, we found that our six bouquets actually had enough pieces to make six bouquets (five bridesmaids plus one bride), eleven boutonnieres and seven wrist corsages! Boy, did we feel like we hit the frugal jackpot with that! Originally we'd thought we would have to either buy more silk flowers for all the boutonnieres and corsages, or go with real ones ordered ready-made from a florist at extra cost. But when we looked at our piles of blooms, buds, compound flowers, greenery, and what we dubbed 'texture thingies', it became evident that with some creativity, we had more than enough ingredients for lovely bouquets and all our 'worn' flower needs too.
Over the course of several hours, plus a pair of tin snips--for cutting through the wire stems, a hot glue gun, some ribbon, some elastic lace, a few needles and thread, we concocted beautiful wedding flowers.
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A variety of boutonnieres.
Each category of man (groom, fathers, grandfathers, groomsmen, ushers) has a different style
Wrist corsages.
Again, different styles for different women.
Once we had all the corsages, etc, made, we put them into labeled Ziploc bags for ease of transporting, and to keep them sorted by intended owner (groomsmen, groom, grandparents A, grandparents B, etc). Hopefully being packaged this way will make it easier getting them to the right people at the church on wedding day.
I also made a flower crown for K3, who will be the flower girl. All it took was a $3 sprig of fake dogwood blossoms from Walmart, scotch tape, and ribbon.
Flower girl adornment.
Another crafty and frugal project this past weekend was to make candied violets to decorate the wedding cake with. Now, the whole issue of wedding cake was kind of a negative thing for quite a while, as the venue where DD1 and Honorary Son's reception is being held does not allow you to bring in any outside food or drink. It all must be obtained through them, or from a licensed facility such as a bakery, etc. Which meant that I was not going to be able to make a wedding cake this time around (I made DS1 and K2's wedding cake in 2015). The thought of paying through the nose for buying a wedding cake someone else had made did not sit well with DD1, or, honestly, with DH or I. Luckily, we were able to come up with a solution that everyone liked: have an ice cream buffet in place of serving cake to the guests.
Neither DD1 nor Honorary Son are huge cake fans anyway, so when they asked their venue about foregoing cake and having ice cream served instead, I jumped on that idea. pointing out that if they had just a small token cake for the traditional cake cutting (and feeding to each other), the only people consuming cake would be the bride and groom. We asked if they could then bring in that token cake from anywhere. As in NOT a health department approved commercial bakery. In other words, the Wedding Cake would be just to look at, and for the bride and groom to cut into while the photographer took pictures, and they and only they would eat a small slice. No guests would be allowed to so much as lick the icing, let alone put cake into their mouths.
Surprisingly, the venue totally went for that idea. And so we planned that just a very small cake would be made in my kitchen and put on display at the reception.
Now, even a small, token cake needs to look nice. And being small, there wasn't going to be much room to get fancy with frosting swirls or colored frosting roses and such. So, I asked DD1 what she thought about using candied violets to dress up her cake (and also hide any frosting imperfections). I believed that the wild violets should be in bloom in time for her wedding, plus purple is her favorite color.
She loved the idea. And that is how I found myself snipping the first violet blooms of the year this past Saturday.
A handful of violets.
36, to be exact.
They were then painted carefully with whipped egg white, and coated in granulated sugar. Easy peasy.
Candied violets!
Once sugared, I spread them on a small baking sheet covered in wax paper, and let them dry at room temperature for 48 hours. Tucked into an airtight container, they are now ready to go on the cake the morning of the wedding, when it gets its final coat of frosting.
Candied violets after 24 hours of drying.
Other than finishing the hem on my dress (it needed shortening), I now wait for Mother Nature's cooperation to make the final crafted item for DD1's big day. We have a silk bouquet for her (and for tossing), but she really wants to carry a large bouquet of real lilacs, her favorite flower. I do believe her wish will come to pass; the buds on my lilac bushes are growing by leaps and bounds and look like they will open just in time for the wedding. I have pruning shears and ribbon ready, with plans to cut branches of lilacs right before I travel up north on the day of rehearsal. On the morning of the wedding, I will trim and tie (with ribbon) the branches into a bouquet for DD1 to carry down the aisle.
Lilac buds today.
I think they will be open at the end of the week.
The wedding will be 200 miles north of here, in the same church where DH & I got married, DH's parents got married, his maternal grandparents got married, and that his maternal great-grandfather helped build from field stone
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