An Unexpected Opportunity To Create

A month ago, my niece Rebecca, better known as Opera Diva, came to me with an unexpected opportunity to create. (and if you click her link, you will see another unexpected opportunity I was given to create. . .check out the garden. . . it's the first  time I've been asked to make a garden indoors!)

Her sister-in-law was getting married and she wanted to surprise her with fresh flowers for the wedding party.

Did I know how to do that, and if I did, did I want to?

The wedding was in three days. . .

Seriously??? You want to give me the opportunity to play with flowers you paid for and make something pretty?

I am so in!

Luckily this was not the first time I have done wedding flowers. My sister Lisa and I were given the chance to be assistants for Rebecca's mom Tamara, (our sister) when she took on flowers for a cousin's wedding.

Tamara and her husband are in the whole greenhouse trade so she able to buy flowers at the flower auction and we beautified violin cases and music stands as well as making bouquets and the like.

While I do not have access to an auction, I am able to buy at the wholesale florists, so Rebecca and I made a quick trip over to scope out what we might use. Thankfully they had the blue hydrangeas the bride had wanted in her bouquet. For the rest we just choose what we thought would look good and crossed our fingers and hoped that we would have enough stuff to make everything.

Fresh corsages, boutonnieres and bouquets must be made as close to the wedding as possible, so the night before we filled my workroom with flowers and ribbon and got to work. . .

*You are going to have to excuse the quality of these pictures as the lighting in here at night  is. not. good.

** Faces have been obscured to protect the identity of the innocent. . . Who would kill me if I allowed  unflattering pictures of them out on the 'web'. . . you'll notice there are no pictures of me anywhere in this post. . .

As you might be able to see, a fabulous time was had by all. . .

I have to admit, if I could do this one over, I would make the eucalyptus seed stems shorter. . . . sigh. .  live and learn.

 And, because my pictures turned out so poorly, I am going for broke here and I'm 'borrowing' an official picture Rebecca posted on her Facebook page.

 If you are looking for a talented, fun photographer. . .

Jan did Jesse's grad pictures. The grads had a great time, crossing a very busy road all decked out in their finest, heading for the river and more  interesting locations. . .   and the pictures were amazing. (And yes I know that  this has nothing to do with my post. I just couldn't resist giving Jan a plug and posting a few grad pics. . .)

Don't you love it when you get the opportunity to create?