"He can call me Flower, if he wants to."

On Saturday I met my florist Angela Sadler at Metro Wholesale Flowers in Nashville.

But first, I have to comment on a re-occurring trend. I am finding great humor in my vendors. Why? Because all of them give me tiny little jabs at being so "detail oriented." It's such a polite way of calling me high maintenance. It's really OK though, I don't mind. I mean, when I pay for something expensive I want to know what I'm getting. If I don't understand, it needs to be explained to my dumb ass so that I can just sit back and let you do your job. Otherwise, I'll micromanage the hell out of you and trust me (or trust The Candyman), no one wants that. No one.

Anyway, when I met with Angela, it went really well and fairly quickly. I had an idea of what I wanted, but I really needed to see it in order to get the whole picture in my head. Y'all know that my colors are chocolate brown, ivory and accents of sandalwood (or, Bridal Beige). I want the focus to be on ivory flowers that are statement grabbers, but not expensive. I think we will be able to accomplish this really well, based on how Saturday went.

I used to work as a buyer for FTD, so I know a thing or two about flowers. I know how much they cost (generally), how much florists charge for labor and definitely how much containers cost! It's one of the reasons I chose Angela as my florist. Her prices were really fair, she works out of a space in a wholesale mart so has zippo overhead, and I really liked her designs and thought process. It really was a no brainer. She doesn't appear to mind that I know all this stuff either. I think it might make some florists a little uneasy, perhaps.

I was most worried about the bud vases. I wasn't sure how they were going to look, but Angela loved them as did one of the whole sale florist guys! We chose a few different kinds of flowers that are going to be in the bud vases, in my bouquet and a part of the church flowers.

Ivory Hydrangea - tables and chapel!

White Freesia that will be for the wrist corsages for the ladies. We're going to mix this with an Escimo rose or two because I don't believe in spray roses on corsages (hello, prom!).

It's a sea of Stock! It smells so yummy! We'll use this in some of the bud vases and chapel decor.

I LOVE these FOOTBALL MUMS! They look almost like peonies. They are huge and take up lots of space and are super-inexpensive. These suckers were bigger than my fist!

These two are what we'll use for the boutonnieres. Tiny ivory button mums and fern curls. We'll use a fern curl or two in my bouquet too. Aren't they creepy and groovy?

This is a filler flower called Snow on the Mountain. Just a hint of color to keep things from looking too monotone.

On top of these flowers, we'll be adding a few garden roses and white Gerberas with black centers to my bouquet, a few roses to the chapel decor (for balance) and green filler of Italian Ruscus. We decided not to do the coffee bean idea. With the small bud vases, it would have been way too busy. I still think it's a great idea though!

I'm hoping all of this helps the budget a little bit! My plan was to cut back on flowers (not on quantity, but on type) and cake and we've done that to a degree, just not as much as I'd hoped! For those of you just married and about to be married, where did you cut back? Was it planned, or at the last minute because you went over budget elsewhere?