flowers

  • Gator Fashion

    • GIVEAWAY :: Prettylicious Orange & Blue Headband

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    Y’all, I’m so excited! The lovely Tessa of Prettylicious is awesome. Seriously. She contacted me last week after I featured her adorable team color flower headbands as one of my favorite Gator accessories and offered to give away one of her beautiful designs to one of you. How sweet is she?

    Adorable.

    Tessa of Prettylicious is giving away one of these beautiful headbands to one lucky reader. Not a Gator fan? {what?!?!} Any of the headbands in the Prettylicious shop is up for grabs.

    Burnt Orange and White headband, $7

    Set of 2 flower hair pins, $8

    All of Prettylicious‘s headbands are made in a smoke-free and pet-free home, and fit girls age 6 to adult (fun for everyone!). She also makes headbands for toddlers and infants, at request. Don’t see the color combination you want in her shop? She LOVES doing custom orders. :)

    Okay, so now you’re asking “How do I win this Gator-tastic headband?” You have 2 chances to win (holla!):

    1. Visit the Prettylicious shop and comment below on your favorite headband combination.
    2. Follow Gator Bride on twitter and retweet the following: {plz RT} I entered to win an adorable headband from Prettylicious and @themrsgator!!! http://gatorbride.com then comment to let me know it was you!

    *Please no international entries. Contest closes Thursday, January 26th 2012 at midnight. Please only enter once a day.

    Also, use the code GATORBRIDE in the Prettylicious shop to receive 20% off any of her headbands (totally grabbing one for myself!).

    Good luck my sweets and a very special thank you to Tessa for this wonderful giveaway!

    17 Comments
  • Gator Fashion

    • Gator Fridays :: A Few of my Favorite Gator Things

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    Lately I haven’t been able to control my obsession with anything and everything orange/blue/gator/tebow. It’s quickly become out of control. I guess that’s what I get for living in Gainesville, where every Friday is “Gator Friday” (what’s this “casual Friday” you speak of?).

    Pinterest has been the instigator of my Gator obsession, allowing me to save and categorize all my favorite orange and blue items. Here’s a peek into the life of a Gator Girl.

    Gator District, $28.00
    Perfect for Summer and July 4th BBQs… oh and Gator Fridays, of course!

    {heart}him. Just purchased my first broncos tank. TRUTH.
    GQ Magazine

    Orange and Blue flower headband. Adorbs.
    Prettylicious, $7.00

    Gingham + Orange + Blue = FANTASTIC
    The perfect shirt. Period.
    Pennington Bailes, $85.00

    I’d feel so FESTIVE with this. :)
    Ilene’s Gator Store, $14

    Orange and Blue Keds. Ultimate PREP.
    Zazzle; apparently their shoe section is down right now. Darn!

    I feel adorable Valentine’s day clutches may be sewn soon. Either way, this fabric HAS to make an appearance in my life.
    Spoonflower, $18/yd

    Orange scarves are a MUST.
    Target, $14.99

    I wear mine all. the. time. Here’s proof:

    Happy Bridesmaid, Gator Bridesmaid and I at the UF Stadium. LOVE.

    And a trip to the stadium wouldn’t be complete without visiting Timmy:

    Showing Tim Tebow some love. I guess “Tebowing” would have been appropriate at this moment.
    If you’re a Gator and don’t know what Tebowing is. You’re missing out.

    Funny how this post started out with me showcasing my favorite Gator items and ended with me posting pictures from my recent girl’s weekend. It’s easy for me to become sidetracked. Obviously.

    In other news, Mr. Knight and I have been busily working on our 2011 album. Mr. K takes so. many. pictures. that we thought it was a waste to have them all neatly organized on our computer for no one to see. So, we’ve decided (like many others) to make an album every year of all the pictures from that past year. It’s been fun looking back at all we did this year (we started a business, went on some fun trips, I got a new awesome job, filmed 7 weddings, etc.). When you start to look back, you realize that DANG it really has been a busy year. I look forward to sharing the fruits of our efforts with all my bloggy friends (if y’all are still out there! hello?).

    Till then, ciao!
    Oh yeah, I’m Italian now.

     

    5 Comments
  • Ceremony

    • One Wedding Regret – The Florist ‘who should not be named’

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    Okay, so I loved EVERYTHING about our wedding. Well, just about everything except for our darn Florist. He was ‘the suck.’

    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!

    13 Comments
  • DIY

    • DIY Daisy Wedding Centerpieces

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    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)?

    2 Comments
  • flowers

    • Gettin’ Mah Hair Did

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    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?

    13 Comments