Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Flower Inspiration, Part I

Lately, whenever I find myself in need of a dissertation break, I've been surfing flower photos online and rethinking my initial flower inspiration. Recall that this is the bridesmaids' dress:
Image from JCrew.com

The J. Crew navy is extremely dark, and my initial impulse was to counter the darkness of the dresses by going ultra-bright with the flowers -- fuschia gerbera daisies, bright yellow, lots of purple, and touches of blue and lime green.



Images from theknot.com, projectwedding.com, and brides.com

But I'm having trouble convincing myself that these striking, modern shades are right for our wedding. To start, I can see these flowers looking stunning in an art gallery, on a beach, or in a really chic hotel, but our ceremony and reception venue is a historic mansion, and somehow these flowers feel like a mismatch with the more vintage-y stuff we've chosen for the rest of the wedding (in particular, my pearl-embroidered lace dress). Furthermore, Econo Boy has been politely noncommittal on the subject of the flowers, but I could see a bit of a nervous "lime green? really?" expression on his face when I showed him that first bouquet.

I'm not about to chuck my fuschias and dark purples in favor of baby pink and white, but I do think our flowers need to be tweaked a bit. So can I find flower inspiration that feels more like our venue and more like us, without sacrificing my love for bright colors? On Thursday, I'll show you what else I've dug up!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love those bouquets! I see what you're saying, but I think in many ways that colour doesn't have to be the issue, it can be the choice of flowers. For example, I have recently become obsessed (obsessed!) with dahlias, which can be SUPER colourful but definitely go way better with a vintagey-mansion feel. Maybe think about which colourful flowers would go more? I could see anemones really working for you too?

Bride in Exile said...

accordionsandlace, I think you're exactly right -- that a change in texture, rather than color, would probably make a huge difference. All of these bouquets are pretty structured, but something softer and with more volume, like dahlias, would look more vintagey. (Now, I'm off to Google "dahlia bouquets" ...)