Houston Flower Girls

What's the deal with the flowers, you ask?  Well my cousins are making up 20 beautiful centerpieces for the reception and traveling from Austin with them before the wedding.  I know they will be just stunning!  As far as the bouquets and corsages and boutonnieres, my Mom has made these before and I have watched several youtube videos on the topic, so we are certain that we can tackle this on our own.

So we needed to find a place that would sell us flowers at a reasonable price.  I found this really great wholesale place that isn't far from us called West Side Flower Exchange.  They are wholesale only (no wonder their prices are so good!) so they wont sell to us common folk.  I was referred to Houston Flower Girls by the people at west side when I called.  Well they hooked me up with Mary Ann, and she is just wonderful!  We met with her Friday - her office is inside WSFE- and her concept is totally unique and awesome!

She offers classes on how to make bouquets, flower arrangements, or anything you need - and once you take the class, you can buy what you need from the West Side people.  OR if you don't have time or need for the class, you just have to buy $250 worth of flowers.  Such a neat concept!  We opted to pass on the class for now, but my Mom and I totally want to go back sometime after the wedding and take some flower arranging classes!  Mary Ann was really really nice and cool and helped us compile our order.  We got to go into the giant refrigerator and see every flower they sell, which was helpful when you aren't a florist and don't know every flower out there.

Source

After seeing all the different flowers they had, we decided on pale pink peonies (my favorite, so of course!), white roses, and freesia (which smells fantastic!) for mine and the gals bouquets.  I think for the boutonnieres we are going to do freesia and roses.  We also got a boatload of babies breath for this idea we are doing for the church pews, and some white orchids that my Mom plans to string together to hang from a tree in the entry, which I don't know what that is about and just learned of this idea when we were there.  

We had the funniest conversation about corsages.  Mary Ann and my Mom both connected over their anti-corsage ideas.  I am in agreement and don't care that much about corsages, I just want everyone to be happy.  But wrist corsages are pretty but sort of seem more appropriate for a gal going to the prom.  Pin-on corsages get smashed when you hug people, they make your dress hang or pull weird in some situations, and a lot of times fancy dress fabric does not lend well to things being pinned on it.  My Mom's dress has a really pretty neckline and she didn't want flowers to deter from it's prettiness.  Understandable!  So we think for the Moms and Grandmas, we are just going to make a mini bunch of flowers for them to carry when they walk down the aisle at church, then they can set them down and be done with it.  Everybody wins!  Our total order ended up being right at $250 dollars, which was perfect!

Peonies

Freesia

Roses

White Orchids