Wedding Flowers: Dahlia Love

Rather than hiring a florist, I went to a local flower farm.  I never really considered using a florist because I thought it would really stretch my budget, and I also thought that making my own flowers would be a ton of fun.  Guess what?  It was so much fun!  For a long time, I thought I was going to buy my flowers from one of the many websites offering wholesale flowers.  But then, I realized that the flowers I liked on the website were Dahlias - and - they were shipping from California!  What?  Well, since I lived in California, I figured, why not save myself some shipping costs and go get my dahlias straight from the source.  After some thorough google searching, I stumbled upon Aztec Dahlia Farm located in Petaluma.  Goldmine.  This place was dahlia nirvana - hundreds of Dahlias, just waiting to be a part of your wedding.

Aztec Dahlias

About a month prior to the wedding, I went out to check out the farm.  I didn't really have a plan in mind, just a central color theme.  I walked up and down the rows in their enormous flower garden and wrote down the name of the flowers that I liked, and crossed my fingers hoping that they would all look great together.

On the Thursday morning before our wedding, I picked them up from the farm and loaded them into the Outback.  My car was packed!  It was about a 3 and a half hour drive to Lake Tahoe from Petaluma and I was terrified that the flowers would wilt by the time I arrived.  As soon as I arrived in the cabin, I put them in the coolest room that I could find in the cabin:  the downstairs laundry room.  We seperated the flowers into more buckets to give them some space, and fed each of the buckets a aspirin tablet to ward off disease.  

My car is packed to the brim!

On Friday morning, we invited some close family friends over to help us make the table arrangements.  We were a group of about 5 women, including my two sisters-in-law, and a few of my mom's friends.  We started on the table arrangements about 10 am and were finished by lunchtime.  It was a blast!  We used a variety a pinks and purples, some deep reds and some oranges.  For those dahlia lovers out there, here's the names: Boogie Nites, Hollyhill Purely Purple, Sea Encantadorita, Dandie Alexa, Alloway Candy, Sea Cascabel, Jean Emerson, Marry Me, Mary's Jomanda, Thomas Edison, and Ms. Kennedy.

Before: just a bunch of empty vases

We put them in milk glass vases and added some sprigs of pine since my mom said they need some green, and since we were in the Sierras after all. 

After:  so gorgeous! No wilting here!

We made our own bouquets too.  The bridesmaid bouquets consisted of about 5 stems of Thomas Edison bound with flower tape and wrapped in a white satin ribbon.  Super easy.  My bouquet was a combination of the Mary Me, Jean Emerson, and possibly another flower (I can't remember now).  We made these on Saturday morning while we were getting our hair and makeup done.  It probably took an hour max.

Bridesmaids making their bouquets.

Seeing my bouquet for the first time!  So gorgeous!

Now, for what you really want to know.  How much did I spend?  A whopping $550.  That included enough flowers for my bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, table arrangements for 12 tables, flowers for the cake table, and flowers for the ceremony arch.