DIY Monday: Wedding Planning

Another friend has asked me to help with their wedding, but this time they need help with more than just the flowers. I thought I'd use the DIY space to lay out some of the things you need to think about with DIY wedding planning.

I find when I'm planning that it helps to visualize the ceremony and reception to help you think through the process. Since I'm not doing the actual ceremony, I don't have to think about those details. I'm left with the actual reception site.

After you've secured your date and determined your reception site, you might be lucky enough to have someone at the site to help you coordinate. If you're doing this in a back yard or random building lobby, however, you might not have that critical help. If that's the case, I might be able to help you think through a couple things.

First, visualize yourself walking through the reception. What do you see?

I'd start with tables. Are there tables available? How many will you need? How will you decorate them? Will you need to rent china and silverware? How about linens? Chairs?

Start by determining the number of people you think will be at the reception. I've never been to a wedding reception in which all the people invited show up, but I've heard of receptions that had people show up uninvited. Plan on a lesser number of people than you invite (I used 80%) and finalize that number when you've received your replies. Any vendor I've ever worked with has been accommodating with respect to planning and numbers.

Map out the number of guests that can sit at a table - ask the rental company to help you with this. There are different sizes of tables that can seat a different number of people. Ask them to help you determine what size and how many you'll need. The number of chairs will follow from this decision.

Then, think about what those tables will look like. What color tablecloth will you use? What about glasses, plates and silverware? One place setting - including dinner and dessert plate for a simple wedding. Salt and pepper shakers? At least one per table. Do you want a runner or overskirt? Some brides like to layer their tables to add color. Often brides like to coordinate the wedding colors with the reception decorations - including the flowers on the tables.

Make sure you've left room for food tables if you're doing a buffet. Food tables look better if you have a flower arrangement on them. And if you're doing the food yourself, you'll need to rent chafing dishes to serve the food.

Don't forget a table for the cake. You'll also need a knife to cut and serve as well as dessert plates and forks specially for the cake service.

You might want to decorate the reception site. That could include table decorations or flowers. It might also include favors at each place setting. What about votive candles? Think about whether you want place cards for your guests. Will you have a DJ or live music? Do you want space for dancing? How about someone to stand with your gifts if people bring gifts to the reception site?

These are some of the questions you should consider when planning a reception. Next week, I'll talk about another aspect of planning a wedding - the flowers.

Working Tuesday: Wedding flowers

Every once in a while, for people I know and love, I do a bride's wedding flowers. I'd imagine my love of flowers started with clumps of flowers, pulled from my parent's yard. Mama would search for just the right "vase" - that could be anything from a fruit jar to a tiny pitcher that belonged to my great-grandmother - so she could put my makeshift bouquet in her kitchen window. I always wanted to arrange those little violets or hyacinths or hydrangea or peonies or daffodils (whatever was in the yard that season) so they'd be beautiful for Mama.

Mama was also a great role model. I can't really tell you the number of times we drove out into the country to pick wildflowers for someone's wedding. And then there was the butterfly weed. We'd drive down the interstate, someone would spot the bright orange clump of flowers and shout, "BUTTERFLY WEED!" Mama would quickly pull over to the side and, when traffic cleared, BACK UP (scared the you know what out of me) to get back to the spot we'd seen. I learned early to look way ahead so we'd not have to do much backing. Then again, we still tease Mama that she drives better backward than forward - especially when there's butterfly weed to be had.

We'd gather buckets of those flowers, take them back to the church, and just as we did when I was a kid we'd find the perfect container for that particular bride to arrange her wedding flowers. The riot of color from those wild blooms was always glorious to see. And I learned over the years the best time to pick those flowers, how to handle them to keep them alive longer and how to arrange flowers by watching and then helping Mama.

Living in an urban area, I can't use wildflowers in my arrangements. I have to rely on wholesalers for my bounty. My favorite time, however, is the moment the boxes arrive and I pull out bunch after bunch of beautiful flowers. This weekend was no exception. And in the end, from that mass of flowers, I was able to create these little beauties. I love.

DIY Monday: DIY Wedding Flowers

I guess as you get older, your friends get older too. Does that happen to you? Apparently with my friends, the older they've gotten, the more responsible they've become for covering their own wedding costs. Because of that, many of my friends have asked for help in creating largely DIY weddings on a budget. What? You too? Well maybe this will help you.

One such friend had a very tight budget for flowers and asked me for help doing flowers for her fall wedding. I wanted them to be fantastic, but I only had about $100 to do her arrangement, bridesmaid's bouquets, numerous corsages and boutonnieres as well as table decorations. I had to get creative.

This was the best kind of wedding in my opinion. A group of friends got together to create a fantastic wedding day at a local coffee shop's basement that doubles as an urban church on Saturday nights. A couple friends "catered" the food and took care of the table coverings. Another friend made the cake. Yet another did the photographs. And I worked on the flowers. It may not have been the Willard, but it was a beautiful, delicious day of celebration.

As for the flowers, I chose mums. It was fall, they were in abundance and the groom was Korean. I was lucky in that my mother had just brought a bunch of bittersweet she'd cut from her yard, so I had that in abundance to fill in the gaps. I knew I wouldn't be able to use hundreds of cut stems - the budget wouldn't allow it. Instead I reserved the cut stems mainly for the bridesmaid's bouquets, using grasses from my yard as greenery. I then used the leftover cut flowers to accent the rest of the arrangements. I found some lovely ribbon in vibrant green at Wal Mart to wrap the bouquets, which doubled as table decorations for the reception.

I used potted mums (on sale if I could find them) to make the corsages and boutonnieres. In order to create a more modern design and to make them "pop" a bit, I wrapped the finished stems in copper wire and left a spring of copper wire at the end. I splurged on larger potted mums for the table decorations, carving out a large pumpkin for the main arrangement and putting the pot directly in the pumpkin to hide the plastic pot. I then stuck some of the stems into the potted mum to break up the color and add texture. We sprinkled bittersweet and gourds along the tables and around the food for color. As for the cake topper, I hollowed out a miniature pumpkin and added stems cut from potted plants.

The bride's bouquet was special. She wanted roses and so we used old-fashioned spray roses that opened as the day progressed. I tied her arrangement with more wire-edged ribbon and her arrangement was used on the cake table as decoration after the ceremony.

The result was lovely. The bride was thrilled. And the best part? We stayed in the $100 budget and had some of the most gorgeous arrangements I've ever had the pleasure of doing. Perfect.