The perfect green

When I was choosing the colour scheme for the wedding, I wasn't quite sure where to start.

How I'd imagined my bridesmaids - sort of...

Before we'd set a date, I was thinking it might be a spring wedding. If it had been, I was envisioning bouquets of wildflowers for me and the bridesmaids to carry, and the bridesmaids wearing dresses all of the same sort of style in different pale pastel colours.

Once we set our date, however, the pastel idea didn't seem like it would work as well, and there would certainly be very few wildflowers around in November!

Our colour scheme, but not our dresses!

One of my favourite colours is green, and I particulary like the nice rich Christmassy green of holly leaves. On various websites I've seen it described as hunter green and forest green. I decided to try to get bridesmaid dresses in this colour, and because it's a Christmassy colour it will be nice for that time of year.

When I told darling beardy man I was thinking about colours he jokingly said I could co-ordinate with the Morris Minor pick-up truck he's just finished restoring. We're planning on leaving the wedding in the pick up, and it had sort of crossed my mind that it was the same colour, but I'd not thought about it in those terms!

Darling beardy man's "other woman"

I think he was a bit surprised and pleased after the bridesmaid dress shopping trip when I told him that yes, we will actually we co-ordinating with the pick-up!

While the main colour is green, that has potential to be a bit bland if that's the only colour aside from the ivory of my dress, so I've picked an accent colour as well that's just as dark and rich as the green, and that will be picked up in the flowers and in the little bridesmaids' dresses.

A better flower option

After the shock of florists' pricings of bridal bouquets I thought I'd look into other places to get flowers from.

One of the first places I looked at was Marks & Spencer, which does some lovely bouquets that can be delivered. The range is lovely and the prices aren't too bad. Some of my favourites were:

Fairtrade Rose & Alstroemeria Bouquet, Serene Bouquet, Classic White Roses Bouquet and Autograph Avalanche Roses, all £35

Setting The Scene Bouquet in white, £45, Centre Stage Bouquet, £50,  Setting The Scene Arrangement in white, £35

All of the above are available from Marks & Spencer's website.

Of course, the large bouquets would be too big for me to carry, but they could be split down into smaller bouquets for me and my bridgesmaids and tied up with ribbon to match the colour scheme. When you compare one bouquet for £75 to four for £35, it's obvious which the better option is!

After I'd done my reasearch, and feeling a lot more positive about flowers, I popped to the supermarket for some bits and pieces, and what should I see when I walked through the door but some beautiful bouquets.

Various bouquets from Sainsbury's, ranging from £3 to £12.50

I've mentioned before that I don't mind what flowers I have, so now I'm thinking that perhaps going to the supermarket the day before and getting some really nice flowers from there would be the best option. Sister-in-law has done bits of flower arranging before and has offered to help create bouquets if I'd like her to, and this does seem like a much better option than paying extortionate amounts for something that will only last a week.

How expensive are flowers?!

My sister-in-law offered to help with any bits of research I wanted doing for the wedding - venues, hair stylists, and so on. So I decided to take advantage of her offer and ask her to find out what sort of flowers will be in season (and so comparatively cheap) in November.

I'm really not too fussed about the type of flowers I have in a bouquet. When I was first thinking about the wedding, before we had a date, I was imagining a spring wedding and thinking a wildflower bouquet would be nice. I'm not really into the very formal arrangements, and I wanted something simple but pretty, and fitting in with the colour scheme which is mostly dark green. That, I thought, would make it simple because any flowers would go with the colour scheme!

Sister-in-law came back with a list of flowers which would be in season - (top row) narcissus, bouvardia, (bottom row) agapanthus and september, which I believe is a type of aster.

Because she went to a florist to make enquiries, she thought it would be rude not to get a quote as well. The reply - £75. When she told me I was flabberghasted (which is a fabulous word that's not used often enough). I couldn't believe that a simple bunch of flowers would cost so much. It reinforced something that darling beardy man (aka fiancé) has been saying all along - as soon as you mention the word 'wedding', whoever you're talking to will double the price at least.

So having discovered how shockingly overpriced the flowers are, I'm not seriously considering doing them myself.