We grew our own wedding flowers for two reasons: 1) It was a hugely generous and sentimental gift from D's parents, who grew hundreds of Irises on their property for the wedding. 2) We had a $5,000 budget that could have easily been spent on flowers alone. In the end, we spent $100 on two small bouquets and three boutonnieres, using our home grown Irises for the rest.

In hindsight, I am always on the look out for flower and centerpiece alternatives. Not just for money-saving reasons, but also for the sheer creativity of shirking tradition and finding ways to uniquely express oneself.

1. Bottles of Wine

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Baby's breath has made a strong comeback, and instead of using it soley as filler, brides are creating sweet romantic bouquets with nothing but baby's breath. I personally love the combination of the rough texture of baby's breath and the tiny white flowers. It's at once a rugged and delicate looking bloom.

Image from Sedona Bride via The Brides Cafe

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Janet P. Frye, CFP of The Enchanted Florist

By way of continuing our flower theme for WNC wedding wisdom, I caught up with Janet P. Frye of The Enchanted Florist and asked her to discuss wedding flower trends for Asheville and western North Carolina brides, Janet's response should come as no surprise, Pantone's color of the year for 2010 is turquoise.. She's seeing turquoise and guava as big wedding color trends, and "lots of little" as a textural trend in bouquets and centerpieces. However, Janet has some lovely advice for thinking through how wedding flower trends fit into the big picture of planning your wedding.

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DIY Brides: Pick Your Own Local Organic Flowers

This week's Western North Carolina Wedding Wisdom post is a continuation of my interview with Katie Grear of Lady Luck Flower Farm. DIY Brides can pick their own organically grown wedding flowers on Katie's Farm.

I had such a good time meeting Katie, and getting to know her story. She made her flower-growing start growing Hydroponic Snapdragons. As she said last week, "I loved dealing with flowers and I loved bringing flowers to town, but I wasn't in love with the hydoponic greenhouse and [the chemicals] that went into that." So Katie stared Lady Luck Flower Farm, and started growing in season, organic flowers.

In this video, Katie talks about what DIY brides can expect from their U-Pick experience.

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Lady Luck Flower Farm's U-Pick Flowers in Western North Carolina

(Note: This is NOT a sponsored post)

Image from Lady Luck Flower Farm

I love the idea of U-pick flowers. As a consummate DIY Bride, it seems so sweet to lovingly harvest my own wedding flowers. What a wonderful way to spend a day before the wedding. Now granted, it's not for everyone. Some bride's cringe at the idea of spending time anywhere but the spa before their wedding day, but not me! I think handpicking flowers for bouquets and centerpieces strengthens the tie between the bride and her guests. For my own DIY wedding, I cherished the time I spend with my family, preparing cakes, favors, flowers, and decor for our guests. Our wedding felt like such a communality endeavor. So when both Jodi Rhoden AND Janet Frye mentioned that Katie had a U-Pick flower farm right here in western North Carolina, I jumped at the opportunity to meet her.

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