Erica & Alvaro

I had the privilege to be both Erica and Alvaro's Florist as well as Day of Coordinator. Erica came to me with one big challenge. She said and I quote, "I am not a flower person." So what do you do to still incorporate flowers into a wedding when a bride is only having flowers in her wedding because her mama asked her to? You hardly use flowers at all! In the fashion of Grace Kelly, Erica held an old family bible with a small alternative bouquet of a few red roses and blackberries-thats right, berries tied onto the front of this special family treasure. Erica's wedding was full of branches and berries and I fell in love with the idea of working with non traditional floral elements! Erica's bridesmaids wore simple floral combs and the groomsmen and Alvaro wore boutonnières of blackberries.

With more than half of the guest Chilean natives, Erica and Alvaro's wedding was full of music, laughter and lots of broken English. My absolute favorite touch to their wedding was their guest book. Erica and Alvaro met in Chile while Erica was studying the language and completing her schooling. As guest entered the venue they were welcomed by a sign that read "Love needs no translation." Guest were asked to choose a word in the Spanish/English dictionary that they felt best represented the bride and groom, circle it, and share warm wishes and loving thoughts to the couple. I love it when a bride and groom share their story with the guest in such a personal way and it was such an honor to get to work with this special couple.

Oh and one last thing! I am NOT and I repeat, am NOT a crier, but this sweet note Erica brought me to tears-happy tears of course!

Erica said... Jordan at Flora Blume designs was a completely integral part of my big day! I came to her a few months before with an “I-hate-flowers-and-am-only-here-cause-my-mom-wants-flowers” attitude, and after giving her the overall vibe I was going for (classic/anti-barn anything) she totally went with it and designed some amazing stuff! My favorite thing she made for me was my mini-bouquet that included what I believe were un-ripe raspberries, which sounds weird, but they were gorgeous, and added the perfect anti-boquet “I-hate-flowers” touch to the small amount of red roses I held that were tied on top of the family Bible I chose carry a la Grace Kelly on her wedding day. Beyond her flower power skills, I also hired Jordan for day-of coordination services, and seriously, it was the best decision I could have made in the whole planning process. I honestly don’t remember seeing her that much the entire evening, (besides me asking her every now and then to go get me more cake, water, food, etc. from the back, which sounds silly, but it was awesome and much appreciated cause I didn’t just ask once—a girl has gotta have her dancing fuel!! — and Jordan always showed up within like a minute—magic!)… but I think that’s kind of the whole point of getting a day-of coordinator: if they are doing their job well, you won’t really see them much at all, but they are always there if you need anything. If there were any issues I honestly never heard about them because Jordan was on top of everything, allowing me to enjoy the hard work I had put in before hand planning everything. Jordan and Flora Blume did an amazing job and I would hire her again in a second if I could do it again!