Wedding central - the flowers for the tables...

Ah well.... the flowers are half done. For those of you who missed this, I am doing the decorations for my friend's daughter's wedding reception on Saturday. Yesterday, I showed you the kitchen with 20 pots of real live ivy scattered around. This is the same idea I used for Andrew's wedding, and it worked so well, it has been used again and again. Weddings do not have to cost the earth.

I had the 20 tin bucket thingies (from Ikea), and I put a piece of wet oasis for fresh flowers in the base of each, and then around the ivy to wedge it in. The ivy is untangled, so it winds its way across the round tables. Then I add some artificial silk flowers to each pot. Lilies, sweetpeas and carnations. They are very life-like and look so real that people sniff them to see if they have a scent! They will all be kept and used again and again. The lilies have been used about 5 times already.
I have looped ribbon and wired it too, so that went in next. A couple for each pot. I also wired a single large crystal bead, and wound the wire round a pen so it makes a spiral, and each pot has about 2-3 of these in too.
These are some of the long wired strings of beads which will be wound around and through the ivy when we get to the hall. If I do it now, it all gets caught together when we transport them there. The candles on the tables pick up the crystal beads and they sparkle in the dark and look wonderful. The light catching them is beautiful. Each pot will have about 3 strings of beads in the ivy. The actual pot will also have beads wound around it when they are on the table.

This is getting to the point where I can't do anything more until Friday when the fresh gypsophila arrives. Every pot will have sprigs of fresh flowers in as well.

That plastic bag in the front of so many of the photos is full of individually wrapped strings of wired beads. They have to be kept separate or they all get hopelessly tangled. These are the ones with thinner wire, so they are more flexible. I have no idea why I did not move it to take the photos.

So this is what my kitchen looks like as I write. No. There is nowhere to eat on the table at the moment. But it is just for a few more days, and then they will be gone. They look lovely. Well, everyone who has seen them says they do, and I am happy with them so far. It is amazing what the addition of gypsophila does to the arrangements. As they are now, they look fine. I hope the bride is happy.

And after the wedding, we will strip down all the arrangements, wrap the wired beads again, pack the flowers , buckets and ribbons into boxes to go into the loft, use the ivy in the gardens, dry the gypsophila, and throw away nothing. And each arrangement cost under £5 to make. See? It can be done. I will post photos of the hall after the wedding.

So it is all quiet and peaceful around here. It should be. It is 3 something am. Do not ask. I have been to bed and now I am up again. I may sleep better on the couch. This is not quite what I anticipated for the summer of 2008.