Wedding Details - Flowers

Oh, flowers. So important to a wedding. They dictate the feel of the wedding, the colour scheme, the smells... I am really looking forward to getting down our thinking process with the flowers. And by "our" I of course mean Mareike and my thinking process. I really don't think that the Hons had much to say about flowers.



My wonderful mother-in-law helping with the flowers



If you look back through the blog, you can see some of the thoughts we had. Mareike did a great summary of all the different bouquets out there and I talked about my love for peonies. Since I was a kid, I had been thinking of what flowers I would want at my wedding and it took me quite a while to decide what I wanted. What made it particularly tough - I am quite partial to spring flowers. Not awesome when you are getting married in September. So, without further ado - here is the story of our wedding flowers. And now "our" is Patrick and I.





Just before I had my only wedding breakdown



The thought process:

I was determined to not spend loads on my flowers, which automatically meant taking what was in season at the time. Therefore: no peonies, no anemones. I also fell in love with a bouquet shape more down the lines of a fresh picked wild flower bouquet and less "clean lined". It was important for us that people felt at home at our wedding and really comfortable so we wanted the flowers to be as natural and unaffected as possible. To save money (and cause I think it is really beautiful) we collected 100 glass jars and used them as vases.

The jars were wrapped in lace, kept in place with double-sided tape

The Florist:



My mom and dad are kinda friends with a florist in Cologne. That's 300km away from Bremen. In a fit of soft wedding brain I decided that it would be a great idea to get our flowers from her. Not only was she going to give us a great price, but it would be good for the relationships and we were sure she would do a great job. We met with her, decided that the easiest thing would be if she gave us bunches of flowers and we put them into the glassses ourselves. She knew I wanted eucalyptus (we even had eucalyptus on our invites) and thistles and other wise was happy with natural flowers in green, white and purple. Three weeks before the wedding, we still had no idea how we were going to get the flowers from Cologne to Bremen. My mom suggested maybe finding a new florist in Bremen. I almost passed out and once I had gathered my brains from the floor said no, it's too late.

A few days before the wedding we still didn't know what we were going to do as flowers so we went to Ikea and bought a bunch of peace lillies that we used as aisle deco and some pretty 'purple-ish' flowers for the stage. After some fiddling, my parents brought the flowers down 4 days before the wedding and the lovely Preuß' brought us the button things for everyone and my bouquet the night before.



So pretty. Thank you, decorators!



The reality:

Oh boy. I am not good at putting flowers in glass jars the night before getting married. It pushed me to the edge. Thankfully, a bunch of lovely ladies came up and offered to help with whatever needed doing and I was more than happy to let them do this for me. Seriously, the edge and I were close friends that night because of these flowers. I was also seriously concerned when the flowers arrived that there wouldn't be enough of them, but it turned out to be the exact right amount. Always trust the professionals, eh? The only real issue was that they forgot to make Mareike's Maid of Honour bouquet so she had to pop off to the flower shop before the wedding with the Groom's button thing and 10€ and ask them to make her a bouquet to match. It ended up being beautiful. We used the petals that fell off the flowers for Aurora to throw and that worked really well as well. All in all, it was awesome. When I arrived at our venue for the evening and saw all the flowers lined up on the tables and the way they quietly made the room ours, I was so thrilled and grateful for everyone who helped.

Garden roses, thistles and other things I don't know the names of.

The flowers were such a huge collaberative effort and I am so grateful to everyone who helped. Another big thank you here!!!

p.s. see Patrick's ginormous button thing? I thought that was Mareike's bouquet! I had already started to take it apart to make it smaller when I was informed by many that as the Groom he needs a big bouquet on his chest. I listened and it is now useful as something for us to laugh about in pictures.





Wedding details - where we put the seating cards.

Finally!!! I finally got the pictures I needed off my dying laptop and can now show some of the projects I and Mareike (and sometimes even Patrick) did for the wedding. I wanted to do this as chronologically as possible (more for my sake than yours - I want to look back on this one day, you know?)

So - here is the first project that I did for our wedding. Now that I think about it, I was working on this pretty much a year ago this month. I did it originally to replace something Mareike took when she moved and liked it so much that I decided to use it in our wedding. I was originally just going to use it as something pretty on the table, but about a week before we got married we still did not have a nice way to show people where they are sitting so this became our seating plan.

I have had this shelf since before we moved from Canada. I painted it with my mom when we still lived there, so I was at the oldest 11 when I did it. It has looked like this ever since:



I am especially fond of the sponge technique

When I first moved to Bremen I sorted this puppy out and put it in our stuff for garage sale. It had been in storage for years, was yellow with sponged on white and really not quite my style. I lacked vision. Needless to say, nobody bought it (shocker!) so it sat in the basement. When Mareike moved out, I needed somewhere to put my keys and things that just always seem to need a ledge to sit on. Mareike had taken her Ikea chalkboard and moved so I had to get creative. I stumbled across this and decided to revamp it. I dusted it off, gave it a wipe down, bought paint and started painting. I didn't sand it cause I didn't have sand paper and I like things done NOW when I decide to do them. So above is what it looked like before. This is what it looked like at the wedding:

Pretty, eh?

I painted it a pale grey-green and covered the back in burlap. I love burlap. I made the little seating cards out of purple card paper that I found at ideeCreativ and wrote on with white pen, the names on the front, the table number on the back. I used round headed brass fasteners to hang the cards on to string that I had hung in the openings by folding down the arms at the back so that the cards could be hooked on. It was a tight squeeze (as you can see by the cards on the table) but I love it.

We have tried not to waste things from the wedding and this would be pretty hard to waste as it was made for my hallway before it was made for the wedding. So here it is now, in all it's messy glory. I think I'm going to try and take off the string now that it's not needed. Then it won't be so messy, you know?

Keeping it real.

So there you go. The first thing I made, not really for the wedding but it served it's purpose well. I love the green with the brown. And I love burlap. And that's all I have to say about that. Except that's not all I have to say about burlap. Plenty more about that to come!

p.s. my friend Chrissi took the 'wedding' picture. Gorgeous. her website is http://www.loeffler-photos.com/ check her out!

Tomorrow.

I've been in a funk recently. Can recently also mean for a really long time? It just sounds better. I find it hard to get on and do things, am much 'happier' (but not really happier) when I am sitting at home doing very little that involves movement. It's not great. Not how I want to live, but it is how I am living most of the time.

One step to change this I decided on before Christmas - for 6 months (so till the end of June, I guess. Or beginning? Patrick would know, I suck at math) I have decided not to be the one to turn on the TV. This includes anything that could be watched except for the odd short YouTube clip that someone posts on Facebook. So far, I have only been weak once, and then only got through half of what I was cheating with before the guilt made me turn it off. There are a few things that help keep this realistic: if I were to get really sick, then I could watch TV, if Patrick wants to watch something, then I can watch with him. This means that it is more of a conscious watching together and not some brainless activity. In order for me to have things that I can do instead, I decided to read a book a week, which so far is also going well.

However, it isn't quite having the effect I wanted. I am still in my funk. (Ok, ok. Let's call a spade a spade. Laziness.) And it is proving extremely hard to master. So. As of tomorrow morning I will be making a renewed effort at getting up earlier so that I can do my sports in the morning, and re-practicing self-discipline. I have a feeling this will be a life-long battle but I am glad I know that it is one that I will win eventually.

So tomorrow I will do the laundry, get church ready, clean the hall and my house, cook delicious food and do Jillian and lots more. One step at a time.

And my motto will be borrowed from Goethe: What is not started today, is never finished tomorrow.

Have I mentioned that I like winning?

Patrick and I got this game for Christmas:

I am always a bit skeptical about new games, never sure if I will like them. I like sticking to what I know, which is why I love Christmas 'just so' and, I think, have never been able to get into Mad Men. But getting games for Christmas is a great way to overcome that, because you can test it out immediately with the whole family. After playing once or twice, I still wasn't sure (and the rules didn't help either, making it really unclear as to how to actually play). We left for home, taking the game with us in it's nifty bag and played a few times just the two of us. I started to love it. Then, after a conversation with the In-Laws, we understood the rules better and then really started to play for reals.

As it is with all games we play, Patrick lures me in by losing at the beginning, making me think that the playing field is even. And by even I mean I get to win. And then, all of a sudden, I never win. Ever. It's so depressing. But I still play, because every once in a blue moon I will win and that keeps me going. Patrick knows that this gets frustrating for me (all the losing, not the winning every once in a while) but seems to get some kind of enjoyment out of my desperation to win. (Seriously, this one game, Manhattan, we have played so many times I cannot even guess but I know that I have won maybe 10 times. If that. So. Depressing. Why do I still even play with him?! [I was just reading this out to Patrick, got to this part and he screamed "What?! What?!" I thought he was going to tell me off for over-exaggerating my losing and that I had won more than that, but instead he helpfully pointed out that I have "won twice if that". Thanks, honey])

So, now you know the backdrop we can get on to the other day. We haven't been playing very much recently because I have been crocheting a blanket for my soon-to-see-the-light-of-day nephew (I actually just spelt that nefew. I like it.) Last Friday I was in the mood to try and win Qwirkle so we played. I lost. I got annoyed. Then I just sensed that I was going to win if I stuck with it and didn't mope around like the 12 year old Sarah used to (or cry because Matt and Grandma Bowles accused me of cheating when I didn't or cause I lost. For some reason that always happened at Grandma Bowles' house). So I challenged Patrick to the next game, confident in my victory, and maybe boasting just a wee bit. And I was really good! I was getting 6, 7, 8 point when he was only getting half that, I was getting Qwirkle after Qwirkle! It was awesome. But then, the inevitable happened. Patrick won. What the heck?! How does he do that?! And by like something stupid like 3 points or something (and to make matters worse I would have lost by more if he hadn't put his piece down in a way that I could get a sympathy Qwirkle in the end).

So... I got angry. And mopey. And maybe I threw a pen at him twice. He just wouldn't stop chuckling! "Ach, Schatz" he says in a loving, don't be stilly voice. "Ich bin so genervt, weil ich schon wieder verloren habe! (I'm so annoyed cause I lost AGAIN)" I said in my mopey annoyed voice. There was a pause where Patrick considered me and I waited for him to say something encouraging. And then came this, with a crooked smile - "Aber schon mit dir selber, ja? (Annoyed with yourself right)" I was gobsmacked. Let out a stunned 'Huf' and then shook my head in amazement at my husband's inability to know when NOT to say the truth, or remind me of the truth. I had expected some kind of "You'll win at some point" or "You're always a winner to me" but for some reason he always chooses the opportunity to make sure my feelings are what they should be and remind me that I have no one but myself to blame for sucking at Qwirkle and therefore can only be annoyed at my own self. Thank you, Patrick.

Boy oh boy. I think it must be something to do with me, though, cause when I told my mom a few weeks ago that I keep losing at the game she bought me for Christmas she responded with "Well, it is a strategy game..."



Crocheting and Qwirkle.

Oh. Earlier this same day: My loving husband poured water on my head while I was trying to relax on the floor by cuddling (after I asked him not to) because he "had made a commitment". It's a good thing he's pretty.

Gawking to Growing

Since the wedding, I have become an avid 'gawker'. While we were planning the wedding, Mareike found www.weddinggawker.com and we instantly became hooked. It developed into being my only real internet source, from whence I garnered all my wedding inspiration. Since being married I have moved on from gawking at weddings to gawking at foods and crafts. Oh boy. I'm sure I will be writing quite a bit about both of those new obsessions hobbies of mine. I have so many tabs open on Opera all the time that the Hons has decided, in order to relieve him of frustration and questions like "can you please close some tabs so that the Internet works faster!", that Opera is mine and Google Chrome is his. Fine by me! I am now free to tab it up all I want! And believe me, I do.

So today I'm going to show you one of the tabs that I have open, just waiting for the right moment (the right weather conditions, planet alignment, ok, just mood) for me to crack on and make.I would love 5 of these in total - 1 for our balcony where there is a blank view-blocker thing just begging for this to hang on it, 1 for our terrace and 3 for the blank wall against which our sitting area in the garden backs. (Whoa! Crazy sentence structure. I blame the german. Not the Germans. The German. Language. Not Patrick.)

Check out this loveliness! (I got all of this off of Design Sponge here)

Seriously.

I have a thing for vertical gardens since watching some of the classic Australian show The Renovators. Google it if you don't know what you were missing. They did this awesome challenge of making vertical gardens and it totally caught my imagination. It may have even started earlier when I read an article in National Geographic about buildings with vertical gardens and then I went to the new Anthropology store in London (where I would buy pretty much anything if I had the money) where they have a full triple height wall covered in living, breathing plants:

I found the picture here: http://weewhiskeywoman.blogspot.com in the archive

The building site across the road is slowly winding down and they have a bunch of these pallets kicking around so I am thinking of sending the Hons over to ask them if we can take a bunch off their hands. I will not ask myself because I am chicken and did not marry Patrick for no reason.

Once the pallets are acquired I will go about the business of following the instructions on the blog I found them on (cover back and bottom with landscape paper, fill with earth, plant with plants of choice, let rest for a few days, place in the vertical wherever appropriate). I would really love to have it look exactly like either of the walls I have posted on here, but who am I kidding. I could never afford that many succulents (unless I start growing them now for planting next year). But I will find something beautiful. Unfortunately veggies are not ideal because of the chemicals that are nesting in the wood, just waiting for some unsuspecting, vegetable-garden loving Canadian-German to come along and unwittingly ingest them in her body. Well not this time, you sneaky pallets.

Aren't they lovely? Do you have space in your life for a vertical garden? Would you go through the extra effort to line it well and then plant it with herbs or the like (ooooh I love that idea! Maybe that will be the terrace one...)

What are your gardening plans this spring?

Marrying the Hons, um wait, didn't you already do that?!

Yes I am married, and have been for, well, almost 6 months now. Any one want to work it out exactly for me? Maths was never a strength of mine. Nor was counting come to think of it. Anyways, I'm getting off topic. Geez, I let this blog slide, eh? Sorry about that. Getting married turned out to be more time consuming than I expected it to be and I am also just very bad at carrying things through. Yet another thing for me to work on - so far in just a few sentences: math and finishing things. I wonder how many will be listed by the time I'm done here tonight? There's a prize for whoever can find the most! Just kidding. There is no prize. Except honour.

So. Anyways. I've decided to restart blogging, and to keep blogging on this particular blog. "But," I hear you ask in confusion, "this blog is called 'Marrying the Hons' and you've already done that. Doesn't that make the blog a bit passé? Shouldn't you just move on?" And that is where you would be wrong.

The other day Patrick and I were listening to a Tim Keller (ooooh we love Tim Keller) talk about marriage where he described sex as the act of renewing the marriage covenant with each other. How beautiful is that image? It also really resonates with me. From the very beginning I have often said that marriage for me is deciding to marry the Hons every day afresh. There haven't been times where that has been hard yet (the other day, ok today, I told someone that every day is Valentine's Day in our house. To which the man responded "You celebrate the beheading of a Christian every day?" ha. ha. No, Sir. We don't. And you just ruined the admittedly slightly sickening romance of my sentiments.) I do know that the times will come where it has to be married. I want to put in the practice now of actively making the choice to marry my husband every day. So that is how I can justify keeping the blog up on this place.

So much to that. What I really really really wanted to do is go through the craftiness I got up to before the wedding for the wedding but my laptop has bitten the dust and refuses to do anything but make me angry so I can't get at the pictures. I will one day though so be ready to read all about how Mareike did a lot of crafting. And I sometimes helped. This is not only for your amusement, but also mine.

So there you have it. Another slightly boring (sorry about that but I am hurrying. Why am I hurrying? No reason really except now my husband is done showering and I want to spend some time with him) "I-stopped-blogging-but-now-I-am-back" justification. I will post something much more thrilling tomorrow, I promise!

... making your speech personal!

These two are the masters of the perfect personalised speech. Not something for everyone but I love it! Patrick and I haven't really talked about things in that much detail yet but I wish we were Apple people so we could steal these guys idea. I love it that much. I am off for the weekend but Mareike is going to be here Sunday evening and Monday and I am looking forward to having my Maid-of-Honour here with me to to do wedding things! Yay! Hope you have an awesome weekend!


Tiffany + Brook • St. Regis, Ca from VisualMasterpiece on Vimeo.