Limos & flowers & planning, oh my!

I officially have less than a year to go! I feel like I need to get my act together and finish booking my vendors!

Limos
We started working on limos and hit a few bumps in the road (no pun intended). I have my heart set on using Sir Oliver. They are recommended by our venue plus my cousin recently used them and they were great. However, their party bus is already booked. Plan B was to use 2 stretch Escalades, but when we went to check them out they weren’t as roomy as we expected and wouldn’t be comfortable for our parents. Finally - I think - we’ve decided on using a shuttle bus and a vintage Caddy. Sir Oliver’s shuttle bus is surprisingly nice (leather seats and wood floor) and.. well.. I just love the Caddy. This plan is even $1,000 less than Plan B so I guess the bumps in the road were worthwhile! So far Sir Oliver’s staff has been very patient with me so it’s made me like them even more.

DIY Flowers
My next assignment is flowers. I want very simple centerpieces with bottles, jars and few candles. Since my groom happens to be a bottle collector I already have nearly everything I need so I started to consider doing the arrangements myself. My main concern was getting everything to the venue and setting it up (since the florist usually takes care of that). Thankfully, my day of coordinator and her assistant will be taking care of everything. I just have to have at all arranged and ready to go. I bought a bouquet of flowers this past weekend to do a trial run to officially convince myself that it’s do-able (and it is!) SO – now I just have to find a florist for bouquets, boutonnieres and a few arrangements for the ceremony.

Have any of you done (or considered doing) your own centerpieces? If so, where did you get your flowers?

Thanks for reading my babble!

I am going to be doing my own centerpieces. I plan to buy succulent plants off of Etsy (I've seen quite a few shops with some pretty good deals) and put them in white or silver pails on the table. Plus, my centerpieces will become the wedding favor as well :)

I plan to buy a lot from Etsy, including lots of little details (tiny wood hearts on the table, a frame for an idea I have for my escort card table)

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Posted by okellies

I am going to be doing my own centerpieces. I plan to buy succulent plants off of Etsy (I've seen quite a few shops with some pretty good deals) and put them in white or silver pails on the table. Plus, my centerpieces will become the wedding favor as well :)

I plan to buy a lot from Etsy, including lots of little details (tiny wood hearts on the table, a frame for an idea I have for my escort card table)

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Great idea! Gotta love Etsy. I’m sure I’ll end up making a number of purchases from there. I’ve heard Save On Crafts is good too (not handmade stuff, just cheap DIY supplies).

Are you having a florist do bouquets or anything else?

I plan to do a florist for the bouquets and boutonnieres. Things may change, but people think I'm crazy already to be doing my own centerpieces. I don't think people get how DIY I am lol!

Save On Crafts is great too. So is Zazzle, and someone mentioned Blooms and Branches. Honestly, the Dollar Tree has a few things that I might buy.

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Posted by pfef17

I know you said you plan on DIY'ing your centerpieces, but I'm also getting married at West Sayville and just booked Flowers by Liz. She runs her business out of her house and actually grows most of the flowers she uses in her huge backyard garden. Her prices are also extremely reasonable and she actually came in at about 1/2 of what we budgeted. I thought I was going to have to DIY mine too! She was totally fine with me supplying bottles, vases, etc. and then gave us an even lower price. Worth considering if you don't want to be making flower arrangements the night before your wedding. Just a thought!

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Good to know! I will definitely check her out. Thanks :)

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Posted by kedjmay2015

Wow you have so much done! I am getting married the same day as you (yay) but only put the deposit for our venue down. But I do think we are meeting with the caterer and having our save the date photos done this week =)

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Thank you! I think I am definitely ahead of schedule so don't worry :) Just make sure you start thinking about the vendors that are the most important to you and get them booked soon - since it is a holiday weekend. The photographer & venue were most important to me so we booked those first.

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Posted by katiephoto

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Posted by pfef17

I know you said you plan on DIY'ing your centerpieces, but I'm also getting married at West Sayville and just booked Flowers by Liz. She runs her business out of her house and actually grows most of the flowers she uses in her huge backyard garden. Her prices are also extremely reasonable and she actually came in at about 1/2 of what we budgeted. I thought I was going to have to DIY mine too! She was totally fine with me supplying bottles, vases, etc. and then gave us an even lower price. Worth considering if you don't want to be making flower arrangements the night before your wedding. Just a thought!

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Good to know! I will definitely check her out. Thanks :)

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When you recommended Flower by Liz to me I didn’t realize that you were same person I had chatted with about West Sayville!

I just wanted to thank you for recommending her. She is great! She totally worked with my budget. I am still going to do the centerpiece arrangements myself, but she is going to supply the flowers. This way I don’t have to worry about what looks good together or what quantities I need. I am going to get the flowers 2 days before, which should be perfect and keep things from getting hectic.

Thanks again!