Dahlia Obsessed

I am pretty much obsessed with Dahlias right now. I love the pretty blooms we have in the garden. I have the Lavender Perfection dahlias, which are HUGE, then some yellow ones which are a tad smaller.

Here are a couple that were out in the garden last week:

Aren't these lavender ones gorgeous?

I cut a few over the weekend and actually took a picture to show that these things are bigger than my head! Cray cray!

Since these particular blooms probably won't last until August 15, I figure I may as well cut some off and take them into the house to put in my vases. 

I hope to have a lot more to use for the wedding. I got a ton of extra flowers ordered last night, so since I probably won't have enough of my own for all of the centerpieces, I will have plenty of other blooms to fill the vases.

Dahlias are now up there with peonies and hydrangeas for my favorite flowers. I'm kind of obsessed with huge blooms. Ok, off to work on my wedding planning. :)

Wedding Antiquing and DIYing

Hello friends. I will try to keep this short, because my To-do list is about a mile long and constantly growing. Not only have we been crunching to get all of the last minute things worked out for the wedding, we're also working on getting the house all clean and nice for when we have company over in a week and a half for the bachelor/bachelorette parties. So we're back and forth between wedding stuff and cleaning!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and each one gets busier as we get closer to the Big day. Last weekend I did almost nothing but wedding prep. Friday night I worked on my DIY chalkboards that I originally made for my sister's wedding last summer. I put a whole new spin on them for ours:

Saturday we went to Geneseo to meet with our photographer in the morning, then hit up a couple of antique stores for some last minute vintage decor. I picked up a few new finds at C&S, which I love. And we also found this other store called Antique Asylum [Antiques and Fine Junque]. I loved this place, too!

They had a lot of cool items here. I was seriously debating on getting one of those old antique typewriters - I saw two here. Would have looked so awesome at the wedding, but I knew I already had too much stuff! I got a few vintage-y things here, too.

Check out this booth with all of the clocks...

There were even more on the other side. All you could here was crazy ticking in this booth.

When we got home Saturday, the village Fun Fest was going on, but we had to use our time to work on more wedding DIY adventures. We started on our ceremony backdrop, which will be three french doors standing up behind us. We picked up all of our doors at the Habitat ReStore. The only thing is, the middle one is not actually a door, but was originally a built in cabinet. So it's not exactly the most sturdy. Therefore, it needed support. I helped...ok, watched, Trent cut boards and screw them into the door to frame it out and give it support.

It was hard work supervising, let me tell ya. I had my patio chair to sit on and everything.

He got it pretty much done, and we stood it up. It seemed pretty sturdy. Now all we have to do is attached the two doors on both sides of it with some hinges, and fix some supports onto the back to help stand it up.

After that we have the doors at the front of the aisle to build a frame for (which we also picked up from the ReStore). A little paint and some wood, and we'll have all of our ceremony "props" complete.

More to come for our next wedding adventures!

Flower Garden in Full Bloom

You guys. I have so many colorful flowers growing in the garden right now! All of my zinnias are blooming like crazy. I've started cutting some to enjoy in the house, because I was told they die out mid-season, so you need to keep cutting them so they can grow more blooms. Before I cut them this past weekend though, I took a few more pictures.

There are so many pink ones! These have to be one of the easiest flowers to grow from seeds. So glad that I got a few packets.

My dahlias also just started blooming a week or two ago. I have yellow ones and purple ones right now, with more blooms on the way.

These are the prettiest flowers. You might recognize these two yellow blooms from the vases that I was playing with for the wedding centerpieces.

I also saw this Zinnia bloom the other day and had to get a picture. Look at all of the petals! So gorgeous, and my favorite color!

So proud of my first flower garden. :) I almost don't want to pick them, because the garden is getting so pretty! Come wedding time though, these guys are all going to be on my reception tables!

Reception Centerpieces

Oh, planning a wedding. So fun. Both flower and catering meetings last week got me a little overwhelmed, so I spent the majority of the weekend working on my reception decor. The fun stuff! It was great. It took my mind of of the stressful things.

I was able to finish up my tassel garlands, and I got more planning done for my reception centerpieces. We're growing a lot of our own flowers for the centerpieces, but we'll still need more to fill all of my vases.

The centerpieces will be all assorted milk glass vases, in groups of 3, with mis-match China plates in the center. I made a few arrangements to get an idea of how many flowers I'm going to need.

I cut some flowers from the garden, and used some other little flowers around the yard, like my Dusty Miller, Alyssum, and Black eyed Susans to fill in space. I also used some of my faux hydrangea blooms, since I'll be getting some of those from the florist, too. I didn't have quite enough hydrangeas to fill all of my vases, but it looks like I'll probably be getting lots of them!

I love the bright and colorful, vintage garden look. I have so many varieties of Zinnias out there in the garden, and they are so colorful.

The dahlias might be my favorite, though. I love these flowers! They're so pretty.

It looks like I'm going to need quite a few extra flowers to fill in my vases, but I can't wait to see them all on the table. There will definitely be an abundance of color.

I found that it was pretty easy to arrange them, and the medium-to-large vases probably need about 6-10 flowers, while the smaller bud vases only need 1-2. Now, the hard part is actually figuring out which flowers I need to order and how many of each!

My living room has definitely been taken over by wedding decor. Trent loves it. Ha.

I actually counted all of my white milk glass vases (which are all gathered upstairs), and I have 68. The problem is I think I might need a couple more of the larger ones, since I have too many of the tall bud vases and not enough large ones! I don't think I have a problem in the plate area though...

I have plenty of those! I wish wedding planning was all decor related. It would be pretty fun if that were the case. :)

Exactly ONE MONTH to go! Lord help me!

More...Tassels!

I feel like I've been consumed with wedding plans lately! There's just a month now until the Big Day. Not going to lie, it's getting down to the wire. After a couple of meeting with some vendors last week, I felt a little stressed by this weekend. I've been hit by a cold virus thanks to Trent, so with that and wedding plans, it's been a little stressful. Saturday and Sunday I decided just to stay home and focus on getting things done for the wedding. I decided to get some creativity going, so, ala Will Ferrell and the famous "More Cowbell" SNL scene, the only prescription was more Tassels.

I spent all day Saturday, and Sunday morning making tissue paper tassels for the reception. It was actually kind of therapeutic. I didn't really have to think about the other wedding stuff going on and could just focus on being creative and crafting.

The first garland I made about a month ago was good but I felt like it was a little bare, so I added more tassels. It's the long one you see in the picture below. That one will be above our sweetheart table as kind of a backdrop.

I'm planning on using the other two for the dessert and gift tables to dress them up a little bit. That's the plan for now anyway.

I love them and can't wait to see them hanging in the tent! Check out that earlier post for the tutorial. They're the easiest things ever.

This week I'm still working on final wedding plans and details. I got some more decor related things done on Sunday, which I'll share soon. They're flower related! Of course. :)

About to Talk Flowers

This will be a quick wedding flower related post. Tonight is our second and final meeting with the florist for the wedding. As you may know, I've been attempting to grow some of my own flowers to use at the ceremony and reception as centerpieces in my vases. And I've been sharing with you the wedding flower process every step of the way, from getting inspired back in October, to the beginning stages of planning in November...I even took notes on growing flowers at an organic farming conference class in February, then started growing my own flowers in April. And that was just the start.

Before this I had never grown my own flowers before. I had only planted them already grown into pots. I've learned a lot about flowers along the way, to say the least. From different varieties, to what's easier to grow, what's harder, when the blooming season is for various kinds of flowers. I've kind of become a flower gardener...and I kind of enjoy it.

I wanted to share a quick Before/After of some of the flowers I've grown, because I couldn't believe how tiny these things were looking back.

Remember the Dusty Miller I picked up in little containers and planted into pots? This is what some of these guys looked like when I first planted them:

So little, right? Well, here's what they look like now:

Yes, that yellow pot is the same one from above! So crazy. I'm going to have a lot of accent leaves for my centerpieces. :)

And those Zinnias that are growing out back in the garden have taken off like crazy. Here's a few pictures of what they've been looking like in the last week or so:

And this is where I started:

Little styrofoam cups with seeds! Now my only hope is that they stay blooming and beautiful until the wedding! Of course, I don't have as many varieties of flowers planted as I had hoped, but that's where the florist comes in. We can still make our arrangements and use some of our own flowers, but also get plenty of stems to fill all of my vases.

Excited to meet again tonight and get all of our plans for the flowers confirmed. Every step of the wedding done is a good one! More to come...

Loveseat Love

I'm talking about loveseats today. We don't yet have one of these in our home, but we've definitely thought about it because of the small space we have in our house. Our living room is a slightly smaller size, and we've stuggled with trying to create a comfortable living space in here, because of the limited space. If any of you have an apartment or smaller home, you know what I mean.

Right now, we have a standard sized couch, and one side chair. But we've been looking at different solutions, like a sectional or adding a loveseat, to create more seating. One source I've been drawn to for sofas is One Kings Lane. They have a large selection of loveseats and larger sofas in a variety of styles, and they are all drool-worthy! I've come across them on Pinterest and by searches on the web, just in the search to find the perfect couch for our home.

For a little design fun, I put together a couple of solutions for styling two different loveseats I found on the One Kings Lane website. (For more solutions, check out their Loveseat Guide here)

They are two completely different styles, but I love both of them. The first is a lovely gray, elegant style loveseat; the second is a sand-colored neutral loveseat that is super versatile. All decor sources are listed below each collage.

For my first collage, I styled a room around this elegant Donna Antiqued Gray Loveseat in a modern, open and airy office space. An open space with a nice conversation area that's easy to collaborate on creative ideas, and just makes you want to work on creative (or blogging) projects! Picture bright, sunny windows and hardwoods.

Sources:

Loveseat - One Kings Lane

Floral Print - Joss and Main

Capiz Chandy - Joss and Main

Sunburst Mirror - Z Gallerie

Fluffy Pillow - Z Gallerie

Ghost Chair - All Modern

Area Rug - West Elm

Fiddle Leaf Fig - West Elm

My second collage centers around a more traditional style loveseat, the Dumont Linen Settee, that's super versatile because of its neutral, sand color and classic design. This is the kind of sofa I would love to have in my home. I love neutral furnishings, because you can bring in colorful and eclectic accessories, and the classic furniture provides a great background to style your room. I chose to style a cozy, traditional guest bedroom with seaglass colored accents and natural textures. And, I was able to find a lot of my decorative accents for this one at One Kings Lane. (Yes, they have other decor besides sofas!)

Sources:

Loveseat - One Kings Lane

Table Lamp - One Kings Lane

Drapes - Pottery Barn

Woven Trays - One Kings Lane

Nightstand - One Kings Lane

Sheepskin Runner - One Kings Lane

Pillow - Joss and Main

Sailboat Decor - One Kings Lane

So which is your favorite? I wouldn't mind having both in my home. :) Thanks to One Kings Lane for the inspiration!

A Fun Fourth

Hope everyone had a fun Fourth of July yesterday! We had a good time hanging out with friends, eating food, playing bags, setting off fireworks, and watching them. 

Friday night we hung out across the street for a little while and had a yummy meal at Trent's aunt and uncle's, then we drove out into the country and watched the Orion fireworks from the road. Nothing like avoiding crowds during fireworks festivities!

Last night we went to Sean and Nicole's for their Fourth of July party, where we had an abundance of food and snacks, got to play a round of bags, and watched the Red, White, and Boom fireworks later that night.

Again we avoided the crowds by watching them from the street across the way. There was a lot of talk about this show being bigger and better this year, and we definitely thought it was better than years' past! Multiple fireworks went off at the same time, consistently, while there's usually just one or two at once. And there were a lot of unique red, white and blue ones, and heart-shaped fireworks! It was really cool. We were a little further away this year, but it was definitely the best Red, White and Boom we had seen.

We even let off a couple of wish lanterns. I love those things. I think we'll get a couple of those to let off after the wedding!

Trent and I are at home this morning just being lazy and watching TV. We'll probably head to town later to get groceries and run a couple of errands. And just enjoy the rest of our weekend while it lasts. It went by so fast!