Clare & Sven's Wedding

Straight after I drop by Canberra Handmade, I completely forgot about my jewelry and started concentrating on something else. That Friday was a huge day for me as it is the first time in my life I have to organize all of the bridal flowers of a friends wedding.

From Canberra Handmade, Greg's brother Luke drove me to Capital Flowers- THE hub of wholesale flowers near Canberra. I've pre-ordered the flowers so I know what I'm getting and how much I'm spending. I had to make a bridal bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquet, 3 corsages, 2 large arrangement for the church, 8 posies for the church pews, and 7 table centers. I told this to my boss at work and she rolled her eyes and sarcastically said, "Good luck!"

After that I was running around picking up foliages, candles and vases and didn't start doing my work until 3pm. This is what my kitchen look like when I started:

and this is what it looks like 7 hours later...

That's right- I don't have a bin, so the floor will have to do.

The bridal bouquet is definitely the hardest one to make. It wasn't just a lot of pressure but it is very fiddly. I started by spiraling just white roses and freaked out cause I didn't like it at all! So I incorporate some misty and green berries to make the bouquet look round and less pointy. The other half of the problem is wrapping the bouquet with ribbon. It probably took just as long for me to wrap the stems as to make the bouquet- yet when it finishes it look so deceivingly effortless.

Clare and Sven came over to my house around 8pm to drop off some materials. When Clare saw some pussy willows sitting in my crate she suddenly felt very nostalgic about it, so I decided to incorporate some into her bouquet. I decided to make a wreath using the sticks to go under her bouquet- and I think it looks alright.

I kept on working that night and finally had a nap at 1am. Greg woke me up at 2 am and pushed me back into the kitchen. But I was so incredibly tired I couldn't even open my eyes! So I set my phone to ring at 3:40am and went back to bed. Why 3:40? We have a friend, Grace who's arriving from Melbourne by bus who needs to be picked up from the bus station at 4am- so that worked out well. I still can't believe that I really did woke up at 3:40am, had a shower and went back to work. Grace stayed awake with me the whole time. While I was working, we watched 3 movies together to keep us awake and amused- Tangled, Megamind and Narnia.

Just as I finished the final corsage it was already 10am and I had to see Clare at the hairdresser with her bouquet and then to the church to set up the flowers. Clare's dad was there to let us inside. When he saw my work he said to me, "Wow, this is really impressive! How long did it take you to do this? An hour?" I dropped my jaw in disbelief and Grace started giggling. "Aaaa... actually, it took me 15 hours... and I didn't sleep last night." Clare's dad just went, "O! Ok..." and walked away. I gave Grace this 'Did that really happened?!" - look and she just kept on giggling at me. Oh well... I guess some people really just don't get it. I hope he won't faint when I show him all of my flower shopping invoices...

Anyway, so these are my church decorations:

Little posies for the church pews

Large arrangement for the front of the church: 

My wonderful assistants =)

The overall look of the church during service... Ta Raaa...!!! 

This is truly a multicultural wedding. I didn't realize it until we had the bible reading. They read it first in Korean, then in German and finally in English. 

After the ceremony, Greg, Grace and I packed up all the church flowers and transport them to the reception venue. I really like doing that. Why decorate 2 venues separately when you can easily transport all flowers from one place to another and just cut the cost in half? At the reception venue I took over the kitchenette to make 7 table centers. I used low glass bowl to make floating orchids and candle centerpieces. Good thing they are very easy to make and cost effective so I didn't spend much time or money making it. 

Grace also had this great idea of putting red rose petals on the dance floor in the shape of a heart. Minimum materials for maximum result- I love it! Thanks Grace. =)

And this is what the bridal party table look like:

And we took advantage of it by taking this photo ♥

By the way, check out this amazing cake that Sven got as a surprise for Clare. 

... and yes, that is a mini water fountain underneath the cake with purple waterlilies surrounding them. This cake had just made my flowers look so boring in comparison :p 

While setting up, I was running around shoe-less spreading rose petals, lighting candles and what not. When some of the guests had arrive, Grace and I had a toast with a glass of champagne to congratulate ourselves on making it on the other side alive, and there is nothing else to do now but celebrate!!!

I was a bit over tired by this stage and truth be told, I did have a little more champagne than I should. I found myself laughing at everything, and danced to... pretty much everything. I did the macarena, line dance, YMCA, I even led the train for 10 minutes and convinced everyone to jump right behind me... well, everyone except the people on my table who knew and loved me... that includes my Greg, my Grace, and my piano student Tristan and his family. Maybe they know me too well to find me convincing at all...  :p 

Before the party is over I asked the MC to tell everyone not to leave before taking some flowers home- maybe people got confused and some went home without taking any flowers. So I run around the place asking people to take them home and turns out that I don't need to do much begging- most of them were just too shy to take them!

We were one of the last people to leave the place aaaand  pretty much collapsed when I got home. Congratulations once again to Clare and Sven and thanks for trusting me on your big day! Phew... that was a lot of fun!!! ^_^