Bride Blogger Amanda

Our wedding will be pretty simple where flowers are concerned. I will have a bridal and toss bouquet, my bridesmaids will have their bouquets, the men will have boutonnieres, and the parents and helpers will have boutonnieres and corsages as well. Because we will not have a ton of flowers everywhere, I knew the flowers we had needed to pack a punch – both in person and in photos.

We knew exactly where we wanted to go – Mulhall’s. Yes, the landscaping place. If you weren’t aware, Mulhall’s actually has quite a large floral department, and Frank Piccolo, the floral designer, is really an expert. He was so nice to work with and had great ideas to augment what we came to him with as far as our initial concepts. I definitely suggest looking through pictures, magazines and blogs like the Nebraska WeddingDay blog and having some idea of what colors you would like as a place to start.

There are so many flowers to choose from, it can be overwhelming, so having a jumping-off point will definitely get you started on the right foot. Frank also let us know that we could change our minds on anything up until a few weeks before the wedding. Now, we don’t anticipate changing things, but knowing we have the flexibility to tweak and add things definitely makes us feel better! On top of that, he was able to come up with designs and ideas that fell right within our budget and that we know will be fabulous!

Our color scheme for the wedding is plum and black, which we thought would be great for fall. As I said before, I wanted the flowers to pack a punch visually, and the picture here serves as my inspiration color and texture-wise – plum and mango calla lilies. The cool thing is it's pretty similar to NWD's newest cover (see images at right)! I really liked the idea of incorporating orange into the bouquets in addition to the deep purples to pop against both my diamond white dress and the bridesmaids’ plum floor-length dresses. Calla lilies can be a bit pricey though, so the girls’ bouquets will be variations on this color theme with different flowers, like orange roses, plum callas and orange Asiatic lilies. The other boutonnieres and corsages will be roses and callas. We’ll also include Asiatic lilies on the cake. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out!