No, that wasn't what I wished for when I was young Bel, but after my wedding, I thought I should probably have said that when I was growing up. Coming here, I have learnt to appreciate flowers especially after staying with Marketa. She would come back after work with a bunch of pretty flowers she picked up from the supermarket on her way home. She loved decorating our place with fresh flowers. (Once she bought a huge bouquet of lilies which when opened, gave off a really strong smell. So much so that I couldn't sit too long in our living room cos my nose was sensitive to it.)
Here, when you mention the word "wedding", the price of everything would sky rocket. I guess it's the same everywhere. Gabby mentioned to me we could do the flowers ourselves to save some money and she did her own flowers too for her wedding 3 years ago. She mentioned this wholesale flower market near Vauxhall and said we need to be there about 6am to get the flowers the day before and we could tie the bouquets ourselves. Sounds fun to me, and the thought of saving some money was welcoming. I even went ribbon shopping a few weeks ago.
K drove us to the market bright and early at 530am on Friday morning. We met Gabby at Vauxhall and started flower shopping whilst K slept in the car. We were carried away looking at the rows and rows of flowers and the many stalls. I knew roughly what sort of flowers I wanted as I have done ample research. I shortlisted the following two:
Unfortunately anemones are not in season and so I could not really go with the second pic.
And for bridesmaids, I have shortlisted baby's breath:
Back to reality. We picked up flowers along the way and at this particular stall we saw a last bunch of beautiful peonies which I wanted to add as the main flowers in my bouquet. The owner was busy and we told him we would put everything in one bucket and come back later. Guess what (!!) we both completely forgot about it and went to buy the greens instead. We had 2 full boxes of flowers and happily told K to drive us back.
Back home it was 9am and we thought we would have a quick breakfast before starting tying the flowers. Gabby gasped loudly and said "Bels we forgot the main flowers!!!" Omgosh I froze and we both looked at K who looked incredulously back at us. He exclaimed "you girls went to get flowers but... forgot the flowers??!" We both felt like kicking ourselves and kept repeating "I can't believe we forgot..." K being the lovely guy that he is, said he would drive us back one more time in hope that the stall hasn't closed by the time we reached. By this time it was the morning rush hour and to drive through Central London is just crazy. We arrived back at 10am and Gabby and I literally jumped out from the car and raced into the market looking for the stall. The owner saw us and we explained in between panting breaths that we were back to pay for our flowers after realising we forgot about them back home and - nothing short of a miracle - our bucket was still there with our choices!!! He was packing up for the day and told us he had no clue whose flowers were they in the bucket. "It's ours!! Can we pay now please?" He looked at us and said "you two could have been blond, my love".
"Hallelujah" was all we could say on the way back in the car.
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| Our purchases |
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| Transformed our living room into a florist shop |
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| Trimming the stems, getting rid of leaves and tying up the bouquets. |
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| Doing my bouquet!! This was the most exciting because Gabby kept asking me if I liked it and if I wanted to add more or remove some flowers |
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| The final product |
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| Moved everything out to our balcony where it was cooler |
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| Another shot of the flowers out in our balcony |
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| Close up of my bouquet which I refuse to throw |
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| Added small pink roses in the bridesmaids bouquets |
We were very pleased with the outcome of all the bouquets and button holes. Gabby is seriously amazing and she specially took the day off to help me with it.
I kept admiring my balcony for the rest of the day and dreamily thought... "maybe I should consider being a florist.. and be surrounded by prettiness everyday..."
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