Poor Happy Bridesmaid had to carry such an offending bouquet. I don’t understand how a florist can get MY bouquet mostly right but completely mess up the bridesmaid bouquets. Yes, those are rogue daisy leaves left by our florist. You can see more pictures of these bouquets in my beautiful bridesmaids post.
photo by Starks Photography

Every time I think back to our wedding, I think about all the beautiful people and details… then I get to those dang bridesmaid bouquets and I just about want to cry.  Here was our plan: Mr. Knight and I would order/put together all the flowers for the reception (with the help from my AMAZING bridesmaids and day-of-coordinator) and the only thing we were going to order was the bouquets, bouts and corsages from a florist. Saving us some much needed $$$ since Mr. Knight and I were footing the bill for many of these wedding ‘accessory’ items.

A few months before the wedding we dropped by a florist in Ormond Beach near our wedding location. We only had time to visit one location since we lived out of town (2 hours away from our wedding location). We met with the owner, checked out all the beautiful pictures of flowers he had done and then showed him our inspiration (below).

Sweet, romantic and whimsical. Those were our 3 words. What did we get? I cringe every time I think about our bouquets. Cringe with embarrassment and cringe at their heinous weed/store bought/5-year-old craft/ugly-ness.
collage made from: Mtux, David’s Bridal, OnceWed, Project Wedding

He said that he loved my daisy look and thought I should make a big statement by having just daisies. I agreed with him and then we moved forward to bridesmaid bouquets and my bouquet. I was overall happy with our consultation and couldn’t wait to see how all the bouquets looked the night before the wedding.

Fast forward to May 14, the Friday before our wedding. I showed up at our Florist, with my bridesmaids in tow, to check out our bouquets.What did I see? Utter heinousness. From the GOLD ribbon he wrapped MY bouquet with, to the lack-luster bridesmaid bouquets that looked like a package of Winn-Dixie $3 daises were just wrapped in ribbon. Just awful. I was immediately let down. I didn’t really know what to do. I critiqued him, told him what to fix and to add tons more white daisies to my bouquet and my bridesmaid’s bouquets. But those bridesmaid bouquets were just awful and I didn’t know what to do.. and what is even worse is that the florist didn’t even recognize how bad they looked. I mean.. I was basically paying $45 a bouquet for him to drive to Winn-Dixie, purchase a $3 bunch of white daisies and wrap a ribbon around them.

Don’t they look like they just picked those daisies out of a random pasture, or rather WEEDS and bunched them up to make a bouquet? Ahh.. this is such a sore point for me.
Picture taken by one of our wedding guests

I was so busy the day before the wedding, so frazzled, so OVER IT, that I just let the bouquets go. I was just like ‘whatever I can’t handle this right now’ and we left the florist. I’m NEVER like this. I’m that person that has to critique something to the Nth degree. I believe I had just reached a breaking point and I decided… F it… I don’t care (please excuse my profanity!). My bridesmaid’s were pretty silent as they looked at the bouquets in horror. Looking back, I wish they had spoken up to help me (sometimes I try to be ‘nice’ and not tell vendors how I REALLY feel). But if I were my bridesmaid’s I probably wouldn’t have said anything either.

Did I mention the florist forgot to leave me a ‘toss’ bouquet, as outlined in our contract? Details. Details. I ended up throwing my ACTUAL bouquet for the toss. One of my bridesmaid’s offered to give me her bouquet to toss, but I felt bad tossing a bouquet of weeds to our wedding guests.

On a happier note, the reception flowers were AMAZING. I couldn’t have asked for them to be any better! I remember walking into the reception, right before our ceremony, and seeing all the flowers, I just wanted to cry they were so beautiful. Exactly what I wanted in EVERY WAY.

Hello GORGEOUS, cheerful, bright and happy. I loved these arrangements our day-of coordinator put together with the flowers we bought. I nearly cried at how perfect they were.
photo by Starks Photography

Our Guestbook table with the cutest IKEA bud vases ever. Loving the fuchsia and white daisy combo.
photo by Starks Photography

Baby arrangement on the bistro tables during the cocktail hour. These are soo cute.
photo by Starks Photography; you can see what our table centerpieces looked like at the beginning of our wedding video.

We ordered white daisies from Fifty Flowers ,fuchsia gerbera daisies from Sam’s Club, and placed cut up lemons in all the vases. They showed up the Thursday before the wedding, and two of my amazing bridesmaids, Sunny MOH and Seminole Bridesmaid, helped me to cut/hydrate and transport them to our reception site.

3 of the 5 buckets of flowers we had. Sooo gorgeous. And those fuchsia gerbera daisies were beautiful!
photo taken on Mrs Gator’s iPhone

Loading the flowers into Mr. Knight’s truck. The truck was a recent purchase on our part and we are so thankful that we took the plunge and got a new vehicle a few weeks before the wedding. We wouldn’t have been able to transport all our wedding goodies/our honeymoon goodies/gifts/and Gator Kitty without this truck (and my little car).
photo taken on Mrs Gator’s iPhone by Gator Momma

Looking back on our wedding I know, without a doubt, that I could have made our bouquets everything I ever wanted, if I had done them myself. My stomach churns just thinking about how much we paid for those terribly sad looking bouquets. I look back at all my friend’s weddings that I was a bridesmaid in and remember how beautiful my bridesmaid bouquet was. I expected something amazing and I was let down by our florist. If you are looking for a florist in the Ormond Beach, FL/Daytona Beach area, contact me first so I can tell you who NOT to go to. Let me save you the embarrassment!

Our total on reception flowers (not even going to talk about wedding flowers because I despise our florist):

• 23 bunches of Vero White Daisies; Fifty Flowers; $171.19
• 100 Stems of Fuchsia Gerber Daisies, Sam’s Club; $136.58
• Lemons from Publix; $25
• Rectangular Vases from Michael’s $45 (40% coupon)
• Misc blue vases from Target and white IKEA vases; $10

Total for Reception Flowers: $387.77
16 centerpieces and 2 large arrangements; $21.54/per arrangement
Amazingly the price per arrangement above doesn’t even include the many bud vases all over our reception. So ‘technically’ the per arrangement cost is even lower then I calculated! It certainly pays to do your own flowers!

Which I believe to be pretty darn amazing! We paid more on our ceremony flowers from the florist ‘who should not be named’ then for our BEAUTIFUL reception flowers. :-)

Phew… feels so good to get this all out. I’ve had all this pint up anger towards our florist, but I feel soooo much better now! But still… $45/per bouquet for what he showed up with was a little ridic.

Did you have any wedding day regrets? Did you wish you had gone with a different vendor or spoken up about something you didn’t like? Do you give anyone at your wedding/vendor/family member the ‘he who should not be named’ treatment after what they did at your wedding? Please SPILL!

]]> http://gatorbride.com/one-wedding-regret-the-florist-who-should-not-be-named/feed/ 13 http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-hello-beautiful-ladies/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/just-mauied-hello-beautiful-ladies/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:02:46 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=4807 I love my bridesmaids. Not only are they incredibly beautiful (which makes for some excellent pictures), but they are the sweetest gals a girl could have as friends. Not to mention, they look FABULOUS in light blue. Fabulous. I swear I’m not shallow, I just can’t get over how good they all look in those dresses, and hair flowers. Amaze-balls.

Hello hardest picture to pose for EVER. You wouldn’t think so. I was seriously cranking my neck around as hard as I could so I could see the camera, but sooo worth it. I needed at least ONE picture with my little Bride hoodie. :-) BTW, totally rockin’ the southern bump. You know you love it.

Hi Bridal jacket that costs mucho $$ and can only be worn 1 day. I wore the jacket on the plane to Maui hoping they would see we were newlyweds and bump us to 1st class. My plan didn’t work. I understand though. We were competing with the girl CARRYING her wedding dress on the plane, and a couple wearing bride and groom hats (complete with detachable veil). Next time we will be more prepared.

Everyone wearing different silver shoes? Love. Red color of the boards of the little white bridge we were on, in contrast with the girl’s dresses. Also love. This is one of those pictures that older folks look at and ask “Why did the photographers cut all y’all’s heads off? They must not be very good.” Oh quite the contrary, they are soooo good.

Faux laughing like its our JOB. We rock.

Sunny MOH and I possibly laughing at how awkward it is to take a GAZILLION photos.

We’re FIERCE and we know it. Seminole Bridesmaid and I hamin’ it up for the camera.

Gator Bridesmaid and I Gator chomin’, our usual activity when we are around each other. :-)

Happy Bridesmaid and I bein’ sweet.
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, those are the bridesmaid bouquets/weeds our florist delivered to us. Waaaay embarrassing. A full drag-out post on ‘he who should not be named’ is coming soon!

Sporty Bridesmaid and I rockin’ like the true Rock Stars we are.

Definitely a framer! Sweet Bridesmaid and I giving our best ‘whateves’ face. We had run out of poses at this point.

Aren’t we a little more creative in our pictures then the boys were? I always joke to Mr. Knight that his pictures with the boys were sooo creative {sarcasm}. Being the funny guys they are, I figured there would be some goofy ones in there somewhere, but they really ‘held it together’ during their picture session. Us gals, I can’t say we held it together. :-)

This post wouldn’t be complete without a picture of me and the cutest little flower girl ever, my god-daughter KK. Fun (and random) Fact: Little KK and I were born exactly 20 years apart and both our names start with a “K.”

And in case you missed it, this is what’s happened so far:

The ladies lunched
We rehearsed with yummy BBQ
I was hungover while getting our hair did
The boys got full of themselves
I put on that little white dress

And if you haven’t seen our Wedding Video, I can’t talk to you. You MUST see it. Loves it like WOAH.

*All photos by the rockin’ husband and wife team of Starks Photography (Go to their website, the music on it is AMAZING. Loves it.)

Gator Dad and Knight Dad looking swanky at our wedding.
photo by Gator Dad’s best friend, Sam of Sam Dobrow Photography

And with that being said, we received a pretty amazing Wedding gift from Knight Dad, when we returned home to Gainesville. For days/weeks/years Mr. Knight and I have wanted to have a nice front planter, complete with plants (we used to have just dirt), pavers, and pretty-ness, outside the front of our condo. We have envied our neighbors who always have nicely trimmed and manicured plants.

Here’s what our front porch planter used to look like, pre-Wedding gift from Knight Dad:

Yeah… we have dirt… that’s it. A paver or two, a gardenia bush on the fritz, and…. dirt.

This was taken one weekend when Mr. Knight and I were ‘trying’ to make it look nicer. We bought a gardenia bush and some roses… still couldn’t mask the ugly dirt, icky wood border (which we swore to tackle later this summer), and all around ugly-ness. That would be our neighbor’s (in the building next to us) cute little dog, coming over to say hello to Gator Kitty. :-)

And here is our competition… our next door neighbor:

Our next door neighbor has owned her condo for 10 years, so she has had plenty of time to beautify and maintain her planter. Okay, so we have ALOT of competition. You like those nice orange flowers on her doorstep?  Yeah… they are faux flowers that look awesome all the time. I am too chicken to put faux flower on our porch. One day I may give in.

But, when we got home from our honeymoon, we were greeted by a wonderful Wedding gift by Knight Dad that put us many BIG steps in the direction of having a beautiful front entryway:

Apparently, Knight Dad drove to Gainesville the Sunday before we returned from our honeymoon and did all of this for us. He put a ton of work into this, and we are ever so grateful. We were in COMPLETE shock when we pulled up, we had no idea. We just got out of our truck and just stared blankly at our front entryway. We had no idea who had done it and just couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Knight Dad did what we had been wanting to do for months/years but didn’t have the finances/time/energy to do. Now I just have to nurse our roses (in pots on our front doorstep) back to health/life and we will have a beautiful front entry way. :-)

This is by far the most unique Wedding gift I have ever seen/received, and one of the best, for us. We couldn’t be happier. I get to see Knight Dad’s Wedding gift every time I pull up to our little condo. I love it. Plus, he has provided the stepping stone for us to add more character and beauty to our front entryway (which I’m excited to start this summer!). Knight Dad has even said he would give us a plumeria plant to grow. A little taste/smell of Maui? I like! He didn’t just stop at our front entry way, he even added some much needed love to our back porch:

Knight Dad made us a wind chime, with a custom cut ‘K’ for our names, along with planting some pretty flowers for us to enjoy while hanging out on our porch. Can you say, awesome?!

This summer we are thinking of adding a nice big bougainvillea to our front entry plantar (since I killed our baby bougainvillea), and some beautiful angel palms to our back porch area (great shade and wonderful to look at). Seriously excited about the transformation of our cute little condo landscaping. :-)

What is the most unique/unexpected gift you have ever received?

]]> http://gatorbride.com/our-most-surprising-wedding-gift/feed/ 4 http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:03:36 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3971 How about some budget friendly DIY wedding centerpieces, eh?

Before Mr. Knight and I ever went to our florist, we knew we wouldn’t be ordering centerpieces for our tables. We wanted to do them ourselves because we knew the added cost the florist would add for him to do them, would put our budget over the edge. Since our wedding is centered around daisies (my fav!) we are planning a simple and modern centerpiece for our tables.

Last summer, I spent several weeks accumulating 40% coupons for Michael’s and proceeded to purchase 15 rectangular vases for our wedding centerpieces. 8 months later, we finally did a test run of our centerpieces (silly me, I didn’t even use our vases! but… you’ll get the idea).

You like? I LOVE!
Please imagine a rectangular vase… yes I’m a bad bride not using our actual vases. Oh well!

We ended up going with white Vero Daises and fuchsia Gerbera Daisies, with cut lemons in the vase. One thing I should note is that the acid in the lemons actually kill the flowers, so if you are planning on putting lemons in your vases, be sure to make the centerpieces the day of your wedding. The flowers should live through 2-3 days with the lemons in the vase, after that they are pretty much dead {sad face}.

How about another glamour shot of these beautiful daisies?

We originally intended to have all white daisies in our vases, but realized that our tables needed a punch of color. We thought, why not fuchsia? After all, fuchsia has managed to sneak into our invitation suite, our menus, our water bottles, and our programs… why not our centerpieces? And let me tell you, aqua, yellow and fuchsia go fabulous together!

And no wedding DIY is complete without approval by Gator Kitty…

Gator Kitty giving her “sniff of approval.” Love her♥.

And a DIY centerpiece post with out a price run-down would be unheard of… so here’s the details:

• Rectangular Vases from Michael’s $45 for 15 (40% coupon)
• 23 bunches of White Vero Daisies from Fifty Flowers $171.19
• 100 stems of Fuchsia Gerbera Daisies from Sam’s Club $138.58
• Lemons TBA

Total  $354.77*
roughly $23.65 for each centerpiece
*this total includes plenty of extra flowers to fill vases I’ve purchased for the place card table, bar, etc. We will be overflowing with beautiful daisies. :-) Also, the rectangular vases hold more daisies then the vase pictured, so the above price is for the 16-20 daisies/gerberas that the rectangular vases holds, not for the amount of daisies you see in the picture above.

Since I didn’t price the lemons (bad little bride), we are going to say, for figuring the total price, that each lemon is 50 cents. With this figure, and using 1.5 lemons per vase, the total of each centerpiece is $24.40. Which is not bad, in our book!

Sure, there is probably some way we could have done them for less, but overall we are happy with the way they are going to look, and we KNOW for sure that we are getting a better deal DIYing them ourselves then having our florist do them.

Are you planning on DIY your centerpieces? What made you make that decision? Was it price, or something else (the fun of doing it yourself, etc)?

]]> http://gatorbride.com/diy-daisy-wedding-centerpieces/feed/ 2 http://gatorbride.com/recap-miss-gators-bridal-shower-mayhem/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/recap-miss-gators-bridal-shower-mayhem/#comments Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:29:15 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3663 A few weeks ago, okay… more like almost a month ago (I know.. I’ve been a bad little gator!), I had my Bridal Shower (thrown by the lovely Mama Knight). The result? Utter amazingness. *all images taken by Gator Bridesmaid.

When I walked in, I was greeted with this beautiful table arrangement in our wedding colors (aqua & yellow), along with my favorite flower – daisies, a picture of the Mister and I from our Blue Springs Shoot, and some seriously awesome favors from Yankee Candle “wedding day” scented. You might ask, what does “wedding day” scented candles smell like? Amazingness… that’s what! But really, like babies, but I love it. Our house smells amazingly fresh, and I’m saving that huge jar candle to burn in the bridal suite the day of. :-)

Hooray!!!!!

Me with some of my best-ies: Gator Bridesmaid, Sunny MOH, Childhood Best-ie, and Seminole Bridesmaid.

That Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day in Flagler Beach. The sun was shining and the weather was just so gosh darn beautiful. Just perfect.

Mama Knight crowned me with a beautiful daisy crown. She later said she was ‘passing the torch’ to me to take care of her son. I loved this image even more after she said that… cause boy did she pass a big torch on to me. Mr. Knight is quite high maintenance. Just kidding! Love you, my Knight in shining armor!!!! :-)

Sunny MOH and I enjoying the beautiful March weather!

Mama Knight and I digging into some yummy food! Those sandwiches were delicious!

After some socializing and yummy food, it was on to BRIDAL SHOWER GAMES! And as my friends and family know, I LOVE playing bridal games!!!!

Umm… how cute are Seminole Bridesmaid and Sunny MOH in this picture? And practically the same height? They are just too cute, I want to pick them up and put them in my pocket.

I got to choose the models for the “Toilet Paper Wedding Dress” game and I chose Seminole Bridesmaid, Sweet Bridesmaid and Gator Momma.

Team Seminole Bridesmaid doing their thang. I love Seminole Bridesmaid and Sunny MOH’s faces in this picture. Classic.

Team Sweet Bridesmaid at work, crafting their masterpiece!

Team Gator Momma, throughly convinced they will win.

The Result?

I’d like you to meet Chic Bride, White Trash Bride, and Tribal Princess Bride.

The overall winner was Chic Bride, do to the mere fact that her dress stayed together the longest and fully covered her. White Trash Bride, complete with toilet paper cigarette, won Most Creative, and Trial Princess Bride won Most Accessorized Bride, for wearing daisies, bows, gloves, belt, hat/turban thing, and train. I enjoyed watching the whole experience, it was pure hilariousness!

Gator Momma and Me. ♥ her!

Then it was on to opening gifts. If you saw my bridal shower invitation post, you know that all the gifts were themed around the honeymoon, or from our Bed, Bath and Beyond gift registry.

My family friends were incredibly sweet and generous. When I came home after the bridal shower and showed Gator Dad all my goodies, I told him that it felt like it had been my birthday times 10. I just couldn’t believe how amazing my bridesmaids and my family were to me, showering me with love, good times and gifts all weekend long.

Opening some gifts from Sunny MOH. :-)

Totally love my hat from Sunny MOH! Cant wait to wear it on Mr. Knight and I’s honeymoon!!!

What is a vacation without Vera Bradley totes? I tell you, it isn’t a very colorful vacation! Love these from Mama Knight, Sweet Bridesmaid, Western Sistah, and Mema Knight.

My yummy daisy decorated cake! It read “I am Beloved and my Beloved is Mine,” a quote on a ring Mama Knight wears.

Yah, we tore that cake up! So delicious!!!

As a ‘thank you’ gift to my lovely host, Mama Knight, I made her a basket of her favorite drink…. Mexican Coke!!!!

Complete with “Do not touch” tags for each!

Mama Knight loves Coca Cola, she must drink several of them a day. Even when she was sick in the hospital, Little Knight’s girlfriend brought her a case of Coke, that’s how much she loves it. I blame Mama Knight for the Coca Cola addiction I now have. :-) So when I found out that she wasn’t able to find her fav, Mexican Coke (because is contains natural sugar), I ran down to La Tienda (a Mexican restaurant and store here in Gainesville) and bought a few for her. Mr. Knight then took me out to Walmart to pick up the basket and colored paper (thank goodness the Easter stuff was already on the shelves). Add a few tags, here and there… and viola! You have a cute little basket for your hostest with the mostest!

I had an absolutely amazing bridal shower. It was even more then I ever dreamed. The work that all the women in my life did to make it come together means so much to me and I’m so so thankful. It has taken me this long to recap because there just was so much to say, and I wasn’t even able to say it all in this post. :-)

Thank you Mama Knight!

]]> http://gatorbride.com/recap-miss-gators-bridal-shower-mayhem/feed/ 6 http://gatorbride.com/getting-mah-hair-did/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/getting-mah-hair-did/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:12:40 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3665 Armed with some sweet hair inspiration (collected over the course of our engagement… 2 years!) and my Handle & Sprout hair flowers, I headed to my hair trial at the beautiful Veranda Pampering Salon, this past week.

A collection of hair inspiration I showed my wonderful hair stylist, Sabrina.

source
Outside view of the Veranda Pampering Salon. Isn’t is cute? I absolutely LOVE this place. My Grandmother (Gator Dad’s Momma) has been going here for years and loves it, so naturally, I had to try it out! I even got to meet her stylist!

1.5 hours later, and many, many bobby pins later, this is what Sabrina came up with…

I absolutely love it, and think she did a wonderful job combining all my inspiration into 1 look. Naturally, the day of my hair will be flawless (no wisps or pieces of hair out of place). Minor alterations to the look that Sabrina and I have planned is to lower all the curls in the back a bit (more like the first line of images on my inspiration page) and cut more bangs at longer lengths to frame my face better (like the first line of images on my inspiration page). Did I mention that I love my southern ‘bump’ she added? If you don’t know what a southern ‘bump’ is then you need to check out Bumpits, which are basically southern hair ‘bumps’ to the extreme.

Here I am trying to get a front view of my hair around 5pm. Mr. Knight just had to get in the picture and try and antagonize me by using a laser pointer in my camera lens. This is typical Mr. Knight behavior.

I’ve made appointments for all the Mommas and my bridesmaids at the Veranda to have their hair done the day of the wedding. We all are going there together and hanging out while everyone gets their hair done (they have a great waiting room, open to the inter coastal, and it has french doors into the salon, so we can watch each other get our hair done). I’m planning on making (or possibly ordering) trays of fruit, breakfast munchies, etc to have laid out for the girls to snack on, and maybe a game or two to play, to keep everyone busy.

Do you have any special plans for the day of your wedding, with your ladies?

]]> http://gatorbride.com/getting-mah-hair-did/feed/ 13 http://gatorbride.com/miss-gators-easy-diy-daisy-pomanders/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://gatorbride.com/miss-gators-easy-diy-daisy-pomanders/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:05:53 +0000 Mrs Gator http://gatorbride.com/?p=3450

What are ‘pomanders’? Well, when Mr. Knight and I jumped on this crazy ride called ‘our wedding,’ we had no idea. I simply dubbed them ‘daisy balls’ till I could properly pronounce their official name (thanks to some help from Seminole Bridesmaid aka the wedding guru).

image from WeddingBee classifieds

After seeing these daisy pomanders in the WeddingBee classified section for $75 for 10 of them (not including shipping or shepherds hooks to hang them on), I figured I could tackle these myself (and since the listing quickly sold, I had no choice but to make them myself). So, on I went to Wal-mart to purchase 6 green floral foam balls (only 6, not 10, because we are on quite the budget), yellow ribbon, and several bunches of daisies.

These beautiful daisy pomanders are super easy (and really quite fun to put together).

Step-by-Step Instructions: (I apologize I don’t have photos, I made these last May, before my sweet little blog was created)

1. Cut the faux daisy off the bunch at about 1.5″ from the flower
2. Take the flower stem and stick it into the floral foam ball (I originally bought a hot glue gun to glue the daisies into the ball, but found that simply just sticking them into the ball, held them enough)
3. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat until the green of the floral foam ball is no longer seen
4. Then take a strip of ribbon, fold it over into a knot. String a large metal paper clip through the ribbon and stick the paper clip into the floral foam ball.
5. Adjust the daisies until the paper clip is no longer seen.

photos courtesy of Mr. Knight

And… WA-LAH! You have a Daisy Pomander, ready to hang on a cute little shepherds hook, or chair arm.

• faux white daisy bunches $4.50/bunch
• green floral foam ball $2.37/piece
• 40 inch Shepard’s hook $5.97/piece

Total per Daisy Pomander set = $13.28
Grand total for 6 sets = $79.71
all items bought at Wal-Mart

The ad on WeddingBee classifieds charged $7.50 per pomander (no hook), and I made them for about $7.31 each (no hook).  Which I think, isn’t quite bad at all!

Our ceremony decor hanging in our wedding closest. Mr. Knight even installed a light in the closest, so I could better see and organize all our wedding stuff. What a sweety!

These babies are now hanging peacefully (as long as Gator Kitty doesn’t get to them!) in our wedding closet. Yes…. we have a closest mostly devoted to all things wedding. We are very lucky to have this extra storage space to hold our items safe from the grips of Gator Kitty.

Are any of you planning on DIY decor for your ceremony?

Well… weeks went by, school got busy and I quickly forgot about this amazing Gator wedding till one day I got an e-mail from Chan, the bride. She was incredibly sweet and sent me tons of beautiful pictures from her and her husband’s wedding. Her e-mail made my day. I mean… to open your email and have that many Gator wedding pictures in it? What Gator Bride would not be ecstatic? :-)

But first, here is Chan and Tim’s Love Story (as told by the Bride):

In 2006 a mutual friend at UF insisted that Tim and I had to meet. When we did meet we realized that we lived next door to each other–our rooms were 10 feet from each other. So the story goes we met by the dumpster (between our two homes).

To say we are Gator fans is an understatement. During the 2006-2007 football season, Tim and I decided that we should go to every single football game that year, including the out-of-town ones. So minus the national championship game in Arizona, we went to all, including the SEC Championship in Atlanta. Was our first year dating honeymoon-bliss-esque because we were a new couple in love or cause the Gators were champs? Most likely, both ;) The idea of an orange-and-blue came almost naturally to Tim and I. I can honestly say it was a mutual decision. When we would tell people our color scheme, we got a lot of looks–but I was confident we could pull off a contemporary and fun orange-and-aqua-wedding look–and I think we did!

Even picking our date was contingent on the football schedule. When our ideal date (Oct. 3–the byweek) was not available, we settled on September 12, a game we knew would be a blow-out. Our wedding ceremony was at the All Souls’ Catholic Church in Sanford, FL, and our reception was in the beautiful ballroom of Holy Trinity Reception Center in Maitland, FL. The priest opened up the ceremony by giving us the latest score of the UF-Troy game and intertwined our love for the Gators with our love for each other. Haha.  We were introduced at the reception via a friend who dressed on as Mr. Two Bits and came out to the fight song, of course. We also surprised our family/friends with a little two-minute dance number. A friend/guest actually played on the 2006 National Championship team and he had his SEC Champ ring on him–hence the photos of his ring and mine! Finally, our last song of the night was “We Are the Boys from Old Florida.” It was a perfect ending to an absolutely perfect day.

A Mr. Two Bits entrance? AMAZING!

Skip to the 4:38 mark to see Chan and Tim’s Gator Entrance!

The even did the We are the boys of Old FLLLLLOOORRRIIDAAA! at the end of their wedding. How cool is that?

I love every detail from this amazingly Gator Wedding. Thank you, Chan, for sending me all these amazing pictures! All photos are by Lindsey Tropf of Pure Photography.

I absolutely love this photo. So sweet and romantic♥

To see more from Mrs. Cowboy Boot’s wedding visit Tec Petaja’s blog or follower her on Wedding Bee.

Check out more from Jaime and Matt’s wedding over on the Stark’s Photography Blog!

Stay tuned for a post on how we found our photographers and more reasons why they are ‘the Awesome‘ (if you weren’t convinced by the photos above). :-)