I’m in the midst of the “busy” wedding season. I put busy in
quotes because I am very busy on
account of having a few weddings rapid firing at the start of the weekends. But
really the busy quotes have less to do with the wedding day and more to do with
the frenzy that takes place beforehand. The four days prior to a wedding are
the busiest. These days involve the gathering of all materials needed, from the
big obvious ones like flowers and vases down to tiny little items likes zip-ties
and straight pins. You need to gather these items a few days in advance to make
sure you have time to go out searching for anything you may not have. You also
must use this time to make sure contracts are signed and payments are made. I’ll
also read through the 31 emails the bride and I have exchanged to make sure I
haven’t forgotten any details or last minute requests for some sprigs of
greenery to tuck into her up-do.
Three days beforehand, you go pick up the flowers. This is
no easy feat. I know I mentioned the potentially colorblind worker over a the
flower wholesaler - in a addition to this challenge is the sheer bulk of
business the wholesaler is experiencing at this time. A few weekends ago I
ordered six garlands for a wedding. First the garlands’ flight got cancelled.
The next day they missed their flight and the third day, it forgot to seat
itself on the FedEx truck. While it appears to be a very irresponsible clump of
garland it’s actually due to human error and these trouble-making humans cause
me stress and money (and anger that’s possibly directed at the wrong people). My garland came in Saturday morning just
three hours before my setup time. That, my friends, is very very scary.
But where was I? Oh yes, three days beforehand, you pick up
the responsible flowers that made it though security with the efficiency of Mr.
Chris Union (belt off- shoes in hand) and boarded their plane with time to
spare. Sometime those flowers haven’t opened yet and sometimes they are so open
and beautiful that there no crappin’ way it will make it three days until the
wedding. That’s scary and disappointing but you bring them home and plop them
into a bucket of water and do a rain-dance tribal chant to cast good juju over
them and hope they’ll stick around and/or be present on the big day.
Two days before the wedding you must make your flower arrangements.
This is messy and time consuming and because I have flower supplies in my
house, Dad’s office, and Mom and Dad’s house, I have to drive all over town
gathering things and something always gets left in the wrong place. Two
weekends ago every room downstairs in Mom’s tidy home had a different floral
operation taking place on every surface. Boutonnieres in the living room,
wreaths in the playroom, and a wild bouquet in the kitchen, etc. When the arrangements
are made you must now worry that the flowers will emit a deadly combination of
stem gases and stalk liquids and so strangle and kill each other overnight.
This happens only about 25% of the time but it’s quite a detrimental and
typically irreversible catastrophe. Having a floral cooler can bump this percentage
down to an 8% chance of mass destruction but I do not own one of those at this time.
Dad attempted to recreate the effects of a floral cooler by placing an AC unit
in the window of his office bathroom. We loaded all my florals and greeneries
into the bathroom, put that AC on full blast, and left for the night. When we
came back the next morning it was a delightful 70 degrees in there and Dad was
very disappointed. My plants however were just fine and made it intact to the
big day.
The day of the wedding is a desperate scramble where I
become anxious and bark at my volunteer helpers. I’ve snapped at Mom on a few
occasions that I regret deeply. She is a wonderful helper, if not distractible
and unsure of her own greatness. For example, she made some beautiful greenery
crowns with me but didn’t believe they were worthwhile until crown number
twelve or so and then she became boastful of her handiwork. Sweet Mama has been
a vital asset to this operation though I’m afraid for people to find me
unprofessional for bring my Mom with me so I introduce her as follows: “… and
this is my muscle, Nancy. She’ll be helping me out today. “
Mom likes this and it makes people laugh. On setup day, if you’ve
properly gathered things, you will have all the tools and bits that you need.
Problems you can’t prepare for usually involve other vendors getting in your
way or setting up their speakers where you were told to put an arrangement or
having string lights hung before you’ve had a chance to shimmy up into the ceiling
to hang your own decorative crap. Sometimes it’s windy and the expensive drapes
you ordered to swag delicately from a pergola are engulfed with wind and they
whip and billow and rip themselves on nails before settling down in a bunch on
a beam that was not meant to be covered. And lastly, I’m quite certain I heard
a groom let one rip while I pinned on his boutonniere.
So it’s a busy time you see but also there are emails from
other brides who’s weddings are in a month or seven months and you just don’t
have time to respond to them all. You must argue with them about pricing while simultaneously steering them away from their decor ideas that will actually make the wedding look more like a clan rally. So while I don’t have a wedding every
weekend, I just can’t quite keep up.
Here's a bouquet I made for a photoshoot that's wound up in some magazine somewhere. Isn't that exciting?
