my hero, therussian

my flowers came today. yippee!! i could talk about them, but lets just look at pretty pictures.

bridesmaid bouquet as delivered

curli-cue stick thingies added and stems tied with brown ribbon

they are currently in mason jars to keep them upright so they don't get smashed.
they will be displayed in a similar fashion at the reception

my bouquet, champagne and ivory

back of stems

front of stems, with grandma's cameo. ribbon tails are about 12in.

there are two corsages, one ivory and one champagne for the moms
the champagne one is almost identical. a bit large but very pretty.
they are tied on with wide chocolate-y brown ribbon
(don't mind mr. z's man hands doing the modeling)

the roses are the handiwork of therussian, on etsy. she was a delight to work with, super helpful and almost as excited about my flowers as i was. if anyone wanders here in the search for alternative bouquets, i would definitely recommend her.

there's another photography post in the works with even more confusing aperture stuff. i know it seems complex but i promise, once we get through it all and you see how it all comes together, its totally worth the confusion. hopefully i get that up in the next day or two.

Something old...

when i was at my grandma's over thanksgiving, somehow we had come upon the topic of cameos. i always remember her wearing them in some form when we were younger. she had rings and earrings and necklaces, you name it. and i've always liked them. they make me think of elegance, of a time of big swishing skirts, and gentlemanly courting, and all things pride and prejudice-y for some reason. anyway, i don't know if i asked to borrow one for the wedding or how it came up, but she ended up giving me two. actually she gave me one and is letting me borrow the other because i couldn't decide on which one i liked better. she did qualify that with the statement that if i forgot to return it, then she guessed she just let me have both. i picked this one...


she said it was given to her by a boyfriend (prior to my grandfather i assume) which makes it worthy of its position as something old. she later showed me her engagement ring, which was also a cameo. it is slated to go to my mom at some point and would have been PERFECT for the something old, especially since it was actually from my grandpa. but i thought that would have been far too cheeky to ask for that. the plan is to have the stems of my bouquet wrapped in dark brown ribbon and then having the brooch pinned to it.

and speaking of my bouquet, i have committed to going with the fabric roses. i'm sure that i will continue to waffle back and forth on this decision, but i decided that i really liked them and to just go for it. mr. z was sweet enough to allow me to drag him to the stitching post this evening and i actually found several fabrics that i really liked.


from left to right there is a sort of rusty orange silk, a champagne silk, an ivory material of some sort, a burnt red silk, and a brown faux suede. they were kind of expensive but its not like i was buying huge quantities so it wasn't too bad. i contemplated for a long time whether or not the red and orange colors were too close (but too far apart) to look good together but i think with the other colors mixed in, it should be fine. i think we will mix something else in with the roses but i haven't decided what yet. maybe some curly twig type things or something along those lines.