Oh, what a dream this wedding was.
It was so full of life and love and family.
When Laurel initially reached out to me way back when, I didn't realize how many connections we had. My mom actually provided her sister with buckets of flowers yearsss ago for her DIY wedding. I had no idea until an exploration session of "getting to know my bride through Instagram feeds." Hey, it's a good way to get to know her without asking a bazillion questions.
Her brother actually reached out for florals last year, but I hadn't fully stepped into my floral design shoes yet. They were left to put together their own florals, which turned out absolutely beautifully. His bride ended up being a coworker of an old beloved roommate of mine!
Yet another connection was a different sister who I met at a craft fair in Knoxville
and fell in love with her paper goods and creative design. (Go check out Root and Branch Paper if you have not already!)
At our second meeting, our first one was unceremoniously ruined by a fender-bender, I was immediately endeared. Andrew, the groom, boldly walked up to me and introduced himself as... Laurel, his bride. He smiled at me and said "I don't know why I did that." We all laughed. (Sorry Andrew if you're reading this and
forgot that happened.) The bride's mom pointed out my floral planner and told Laurel that her sister needed to design something like it for her shop... and I started putting the pieces together of all of the connections we had! If that wasn't enough, Andrew is a very talented DJ and musician and Laurel is equally creative in her daily life and has an eye for design. What a lovely family overflowing with creativity!
Laurel's vision was so full of color. Candles, bridesmaid dresses, vessels, groomsmen ties. BE-yond perfect. I went upstairs to deliver personals and had an absolute fit of joy seeing the beautiful bridesmaids all in their floral dresses! I could not have imagined a more appropriate backdrop for the spring flower bouquets.
I brought in huge crepe myrtle branches for the ceremony backdrop and boy was it perfect. Of course, I could NOT have pulled that off without help. Winston, your knowledge of knots made this dramatic branch install happen!
Laurel's bouquet was one of my favorites I have ever designed. I got to use ranunculus and butterfly ranunculus, which was a dream in itself. It also included sweet peas, foxglove, nigella, larkspur, and peonies. I added some deep purple clematis onsite and it absolutely put the bouquet over the top for me! Laurel wanted a trailing deep blue ribbon and it was drop-dead gorgeous. Doesn't she look stunning in that dress?
We made the CUTEST reel for this wedding day! Here's the link if you want to check out some of the behind-the-scenes magic (and you definitely do!)
All flowers used for this wedding were grown at Napping Cat Flower Farm. 100% locally grown! NO floral foam was used. The vessels were either my own or provided by the bride. And the real kicker... when I went to break down the next day, not a single stem was left for me to take home and compost. They took every single flower! Isn't that amazing? This is what a sustainable wedding is all about.
This beautiful wedding was captured by Kelsey Shea Photo. All above images are hers!