Having to change our wedding plans from large, elaborate wedding to reception-less wedding comes with a lot of sadness and regret. No DJ to give songs to, no bouquet toss, no giant table of cupcakes. But it also comes with some good things- like a smaller florist bill!

My wedding flower inspiration were these babies… spider mums!

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I also want plenty of black and white anemones in my bouquet! I like the way they pop in a modern way.

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I will have some white ranunculus flowers in there for more white texture. It’s also the flower I had used when I got my hair flower made!

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For more black, I had hoped to work in just a few black dahlias. They are insanely beautiful. However, they’ll also be out of season.

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Instead, I’ll have some fiddlehead ferns thrown in there!

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To add more soft texture, my florist suggested lisianthus in white as well.

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My bouquet will remain the same, obviously. We also will keep our attendants the same… they’ll have these orchids for their corsages and bouts.

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For the bridesmaids, I had originally gone with spider mums only.

Our florist had a signature centerpiece, which turned out to be quite affordable. They are floating candles over submerged orchids. I loved the way they look and Brian was HOOKED when he saw them. They are similar to the picture below.

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They were also affordable! So… no wedding reception, I guess that means no centerpieces. Good news is that means we get to have a nice large arrangement done for the front of our church! It will be similar to my bouquet, with larger flowers too, such as Bells of Ireland. I left a lot of that up to our florist… he’s extremely talented!

For more of an impact, I thought about adding some flowers to our spider mum only bridesmaid bouquets. The florist recommended doing other greens in different textures for a high visual effect.

He’ll start with a green hydrangea poof, and put the spider mums into that.

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Then we’ll add some hypericum berries (and we’ll throw some in mine as well, what the heck!) in green too. You can see them below in this gorgeous bouquet.

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So, as my dad used to say, “what’s the damage?” We’ll soon find out. The estimate is being re-worked and sent to us. Our original estimate included 20 of those centerpieces, which were priced at $35 each… saving us $700 already in just centerpieces!

What things went wrong during your wedding planning that you were able to see as positives? What floral choices did you make- did you go in knowing what you wanted, or listen to all your florist’s suggestions? And is there anyone out there besides me who hates roses?!