i was inspired by this curly willow setup... and wanted to incorporate my beloved paper lanterns.... and my genius idea was to have a tall cylinder vase of curly willow with 3 white paper lanterns, and to paint the table number onto one of the lanterns. genius right? right!
Mr. Ramen and i were convinced we were going to do curly willow... until meeting with our now florist who suggested Victorian birch - which we promptly fell in love with...
until i introduced Mr. Ramen to the wonderful world of manzanita. i never in a million years had ever seriously considered manzanita - because however lovely it is, i'm not a frou-frou kind of girl (and let's face it - all the dripping flowers and hanging candles do have that fancy foofy look...) AND i also don't have $50-75 x 17 to rent some nekkid branches. i had initially fallen in love with the twisted organic look of the branches, but gave up on it in the name of practicality.
some frou-fer-y manzanitas... lovely, but VERY not us.
some examples of non-froufy manzanitas!!! verrrrrry us!
while researching various options to purchase birch branches (ranging from nettleton hollow, to forays into the SF and LA flower markets) i learned that manzanita could actually be affordable. ***GASP*** no. i am not lying to you. You can get some nice lookin' branches for ~ $7 at the LA flower market (about 12-16")
i found a bride on project wedding who actually was selling manzanita from her brother's property really cheap. unfortunately, i wasn't able to get in contact with her, so i quickly looked into other avenues. such as where i could go in arizona and cut down some branches. after i learned this was most likely highly illegal, i began to search for used manzanita online. and on Craigslist LA, i found a guy in the Antelope Valley area who had some manzanita trees on his property and wanted to help out brides....
Saul is THE BEST! he was totally willing to work with us, we got to pick out EXACTLY the size and shape of the branches that we wanted, and he even threw in an extra one "just in case". We spent less than $200 buying 17 centerpieces (all around 36"+), 1 medium sized (~ 40") tree for our escort card table, and 2 rather large (48"+) trees (to be used to decorate the alter and later beside our sweetheart table). and a bonus branch or 2. after trimming the larger trees, we could probably muster up 2 extra centerpieces. i know - awesome right???? yes, i died a million happy little deaths of joy.
i found a bride on project wedding who actually was selling manzanita from her brother's property really cheap. unfortunately, i wasn't able to get in contact with her, so i quickly looked into other avenues. such as where i could go in arizona and cut down some branches. after i learned this was most likely highly illegal, i began to search for used manzanita online. and on Craigslist LA, i found a guy in the Antelope Valley area who had some manzanita trees on his property and wanted to help out brides....
Saul is THE BEST! he was totally willing to work with us, we got to pick out EXACTLY the size and shape of the branches that we wanted, and he even threw in an extra one "just in case". We spent less than $200 buying 17 centerpieces (all around 36"+), 1 medium sized (~ 40") tree for our escort card table, and 2 rather large (48"+) trees (to be used to decorate the alter and later beside our sweetheart table). and a bonus branch or 2. after trimming the larger trees, we could probably muster up 2 extra centerpieces. i know - awesome right???? yes, i died a million happy little deaths of joy.
the back of the minivan FILLED... before we even had loaded my stuff to bring back home!
the only major issues were transportation and storage - fiance and i somehow stuffed all the trees and branches into my parents' minivan (WITH a ton of my things) when i moved all of my school stuff out of my apt in SoCal, into storage or back to AZ. we kept the branches in my parents' house and garage until we were ready to get them ready to be centerpieces.
my living room filled with wedding things... i think my dad wanted to kill me after 2 1/2 months of this...
So keep in mind we are expecting about 350 guests.... so this means 35 tables. so what about the other 18? come back for episode 3! (hey, all the best things come in trilogies right?)
did you have any "surprise happy endings" in your planning journey?
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