This is jojoandhb's Green Wedding!

Well, things are progressing nicely. Two of my bridesmaids do not like the hunter green dress. They are larger girls, and think the shiny green may be unflattering. The fact of the matter is that I don't care what color the bridesmaids dresses are. In fact, I have decided to wear a hunter green dress myself. I know, I know, it's not traditional. I couldn't care less. I'm not getting married to conform with tradition. I'm getting married because I know Scott and I make a great team. We have been together for over 8 years, and we have been through more than most couples getting married today. Despite it all, we are still together, still in love, and still going strong. Marriage is very important to him, and so here we are. He's helping out with everything from choosing linens to choosing chair sashes. Poor guy.
So, the wedding has taken on a Victorian feel organically. I do not like modern wedding dresses. They all look the same to me. Maybe some have more beading or a longer train, but they still all have that same look to them and no character. I LOVE Victorian bustle gowns, and I am going to have one made in hunter green velvet for my fall wedding! YAY! Why not? I'm going to wear a hunter green choker with a cameo on it, and I'm getting tussie mussies for the bridesmaids. I've been on the search for Victorian invites, but no luck. I may order a few Victorian prints, make color copies of them and construct my own invitations. I'm also going to add some cute Victorian touches like decorated sugar cubes, tea cups, and crystals. It's not a theme wedding per say, but it will have Victorian touches that sort of tie everything together. This is my day to express who I am, and this is who I am. I love to dress up, especially in luxurious Medieval, Victorian, and Renaissance clothing. I love the opera and Shakespeare and old fashioned Romance like a Jane Austin book. I have a theatrical side as well. So, why not? I hate when people say that you should do this or that...blah blah blah. If you don't like my idea of a wedding, don't come. More cake for me:)
Scott and I picked table linens. It was between a Damask Stripe and a gold/copper Damask. In the end, the coppery one won out over the stripes. I thought they were too busy. So, the bridesmaid dresses will likely be some sort of champagne color or maybe a light gold if I can get my sister to agree to that color. She wants to wear burgundy, which is not in my color scheme. She's a pain. She wants the wedding to be about her. She even said, "I don't want to upstage the bride." Impossible, Dear sister, impossible.
So, we've made headway, and we're under budget so far!

Having hunter green as my color makes flowers a bit difficult, but I came up with a solution! Calla Lilies! They are mostly green, and they are inexpensive in bulk, easy to tie together, and great looking! I'm planning to use shorter vases so I can also put a ring of fluffy roses around the top of the vase. I'll also put votive candles around the bottom and some rose petals. I found a picture that is really close to what I see in my mind, only my centerpieces will be less busy, not have red roses, and incorporate crystals.
I'll do about 15 callas in each vase and about a dozen roses. I don't want my centerpiece to fill the table like the one in the picture, but this is close to what I have in mind in terms of the vase and the roses. The hall requires all candles to be in glass containers, so I need votive cups. I can't use bare candles, although I like the look.
I also want to incorporate floating candle arrangements on some tables and hang flower balls from the ceiling. I don't want every table to be an exact carbon copy of each other. I want some variety and interest.
Now that I have an overall vision of where I'm going with this wedding, it's getting more fun to plan:)

It wasn't that hard once I stopped trying to do the "right" thing. I was trying to use traditional FALL colors because our wedding is in October. The fact of the matter is that I don't HAVE to adhere to seasonal colors. This is MY wedding, and I can do whatever I want. So, hunter green is my favorite color. My baby blanket was even green! I love almost all shades of green, but I love hunter green. When I called my sister to tell her what color her bridesmaid dress is going to be, she said, "Green?" I said yes, and then I asked her what she thought my color scheme would be, she said, "Green and green?" Does she know me or what? I cannot help myself, I love all things green!! Who needs an accent color? I'm just using hunter green and a nice neutral light brown/tan color. I'm also not doing a theme, but I am incorporating crystals into everything.
For the tables, I have to use round. I wanted banquet tables in a giant U-shape, but the hall doesn't have them, and I don't want to waste money renting them. I'll have to use rounds. That wasn't what I wanted, but oh well. I'll make it work. My plan is to use either the white cloths the hall has and criss cross table runners on top in hunter green or to rent hunter green linens that go to the floor and put a tan/light brown overlay on top to break up all the green. I don't want it to look like St Patty's day in there! The chair covers will be hunter green with the neutral color sashes, and the napkins will be the same neutral color. I found a great website that rents linens for a great price. Floor length linens are $14 per table, and chair covers with the sash are just under $3 each. These prices are less than half of the local rental places.

We found a wedding bouquet that we both like. The colors in it are burgundy, hunter green, and a peachy-orange. It looks a little Christmassy to me, though, and I am not a fan of peach. I love hunter green. Green is my absolute favorite color, and I really want to incorporate it. I'm not sure how green linens with green chair sashes would look. The chairs in the hall are burgundy all ready. Not renting Chivari chairs would save me $500. I could just tie green sashes around the existing chairs, and viola! simple and affordable. I'm just not 100% sure. I was trying so hard to find colors to pair with hunter green. I considered orange, cantaloupe, copper, and various shades of brown. I considered just hunter green and gold, but that looked to Irish. I thought about sage green and hunter green, but sage seems too light. I could add contrasting colors with the roses. My fiance and I both LOVE black bacarra roses. But, he doesn't like the burgundy and gold color scheme that I originally had in mind. So, I am trying to compromise and incorporate different fall colors, but nothing really jumps out at me and screams, "We're the right colors." Can I just pick green, or do I NEED accent colors?
I thought about incorporating fall fruits like pears and apples. I found an awesome cake that is very fall and very beautiful. I could use those colors. I could do hunter green linens and chair covers with orangey colored sashes and napkins. What colors would the bridesmaid dresses be, then? I wouldn't want them to be green also. That's too much. I could do a neutral color like some shade of brown...but I don't really like that. I think brown, though trendy, is just too dark for a wedding. It looks so dead and dreary to me.
Just thinking about it, I could do a nice copper color linen and sashes. Then, the girls could wear hunter green dresses. I'd incorporate the burgundy in the flowers. The linen rental place has a copper iridescent crush tablecloth. I could still rent the chivari chairs in a mahogany finish and tie a copper sash around it. Then, I can still have green dresses and green napkins. The copper would be used strictly for the tables and sashes. It would be an accent only. I'll have to think on it. We did decide to use the candelabras as centerpieces with smaller arrangements and votive candles in between.

I have no idea how to narrow down the centerpieces that I like. There is a part of me that loves the drama of the tall candelabras with a big ball of roses in the middle. My fiance loves candelabras, too. He prefers the crystal ones, and I like gold. The concern is whether or not this type of centerpiece will block the guests' view. I'm thinking candelabras would have to be a minimum of 30 inches tall. I think the candelabra arrangements are striking and have that WOW factor.
Another option is using lots of candles and fewer flowers. It's a good way to save money, and these centerpieces would be simple to make. I'm just not sure they are dramatic enough for me:)
I also like lanterns. I think they are very fall and quite unique. I haven't been to a wedding where lanterns were used, and I think they are quite romantic.
Anther option is groups of roses in shorter vases with tall stemmed candle holders in between. I love this look, but it requires a lot of flowers. I'll be using 72 feet of tables, and I bet it would take hundreds of roses to fill the entire length down the center. I love the ruby red stemmed holders.
I don't like bowls of floating candles. Those are so plain and boring. I do not like just a bowl of flowers in the center of the table. Again, it's just not memorable enough, and I want to sit at my reception, look around and think, "Wow." I want to remember it and have it be something special. This is my only wedding, and my fiance and I will be 4 months shy of our 10-year-anniversary when we finally walk down the aisle. After waiting sooo long, I want something amazing.

Picking a dress is hard for me. I do not like strapless white dresses with bead work and embroidery, but that's what is popular right now. Trying to find something unique is not easy. I found an off-the-shoulder ivory dress with rouching at the bottom. I love it, but my friend thinks the rouching looks haphazard and not purposeful.
Dress #2 is similar, but is strapless. Again, I love the gathering at the bottom, and I really love the alencon lace. This dress is customizable, so I could get it made with a different neckline.
I don't like trains, and I don't like stark white. Ivory or champagne is more my taste. I have plenty of time before I have to buy a dress, but I'm going to keep looking because it's fun.

I'm torn between color schemes. We're having a fall wedding, and I wanted to do red and gold. I also wanted to do a Medieval theme, but my fiance isn't too keen on that. He's more traditional than I am, and I am attempting to compromise. So, I thought we could do a fall theme. I love green. It's my favorite color. My fiance's favorite color is purple. I HATE purple for weddings. It looks so birthday party to me. He doesn't like the red. He thinks red roses are kind of plain and ordinary. I can agree to an extent. Red roses are quite popular.
I'm considering either hunter green and a coppery orange or sage green and burgundy or red and chocolate brown. I'm not sure which one I like just yet.
I found some pumpkin centerpieces which I really like. I'd do hunter green linens and the orange roses. Instead of the yellow ones, I'd use a deep red like the black magic roses.
I also found a picture of a fall bouquet with deep red and orange flowers. I like it, but I'm not sure those colors would look right with hunter green linens.
I also found a great pic of a wedding table with brown linen and green napkins. It's really pretty. I'm using rectangular tables in a giant U shape, not round ones, so I'm not sure the look would translate.