**Juls1981***

eebrant

Hi! Thanks so much for responding about my DIY flower question.  I'm considering doing tall red aranda orchids (see below for inspiration) and my shorter arrangements will be different sizes vases (just shorter) one vase of the orchids, and one of roses.  I'll be doing about the same amount as you 6 bouquets (all just hand-tied roses) and about 25 centerpieces.  Could you tell me what your schedule was to get everything done, how long it took, and how many people you had helping?  I have this thought in my head that as long as we prepare them correctly thursday night (cutting the stems the proper length, etc.) that it will simply be a matter of putting the stems in the vases on Friday evening. (I really don't want to even think about any of this come Saturday).  Since there won't be any actual "arranging" of multiple variations of flowers and rather just placing 'X' amount of stems in the vases with water, I'm thinking this will be pretty easy and my fam and I can get everything set up on Friday.  I also did a trial run to do the hand tied rose bouquets over the weekend and one took me less than 30 minutes to do.  Am I thinking this is going to be too simple?  Please give me a reality check if I need it   I would LOVE to see some of your pics!  My email is ebethbrant@yahoo.com.Sorry this was kinda long...TIA & Happy Friday

eebrant

I forgot to show my "inspiration....

juls1981

Love the inspiration!  Ok heres details- very long! Ok so the flowers will be delivered Thursday am before 10am and you must have someone there to receive them and immediately start cutting them and putting them in water.  I had just flown back wed night and had to spend thurs getting our marriage licensce and last minute errands so luckily my uncle, aunt and mom had offered to help. It did take them a few hours to do that- but we also had probably 100 hydrangeas and I had no idea that would be like cutting little trees! They have very thicky woodsy stems.We also had no idea what we were doing with the arrangements at the time so we didn't cut them down to the size we actually needed... if you know in advace and can figure out one arrangement immediately then you can cut them the right size the first time.  Plus we couldn't cut the hydrangeas too short b/c then they wouldn't fit in the buckets b/c of the large heads. Needed shorter buckets to cut downt to right size. Apparently the looked a little sad when they got them but by the time I got home that afternoon they looked great.  Make sure you have alot of clean buckets and ice.  We just did it in my dad's basement and it was pretty warm out so we added ice every now and again to make sure that they didn't open up too much too soon.  My uncle had offered to help and had told me he had done arrangements at his interior design job... found out after the wedding he was bluffing but figured it would help us stress less!  So he had talked me into doing them with leaves lining the inside of the vases with leaves and doing floral foam (did thursday probably took 2 hrs for the 2 of us)... which was good to add volume... originally I had just planned on putting them into vases like your pics.  That was probably one of the most time consuming part but it was easy to arrange in them once that was done.  The bouquets really were easy like you said- probably only took and hour or so total... we wrapped them with ribbon the day of while we were waiting.  B/c we hadn't planned in advance we had to spend some time thurs figuring out how many flowers we could use for each arrangement and then did 2 different variations.  We originally planned on assembling them at the hall but I made a decision at like 11 am friday that we needed to put all the flowers but the hydrangeas and manzanita in and transport them that way- that worked out best b/c it would have been crazy to do it there- they would not have been happy with the mess!  With 2 people cutting stems to the lengths we needed and 2 people arranging and one runner- water, garbage etc (plus some people had ADD) it probably took us 2-3 hrs to finish and pack up we were moving fast at that point. We put some in the empty buckets or cardboard boxes with newspaper between.  And then we had more people at the hall to 6 or so( i had to run to the hotel to shower for the rehearsal!) to add manzanita, crystals, hydrangeas and put on tables. We also had extra flowers and vases so they assembled quite a few extras for the cocktail tables etc.  Approximately 1hr.   Plan more people than you will need b/c some will flake on you or not be as focused!! Also with the flowers- you may need to be a little flexible; i had wanted ranunculous but they called me like 2 days b4 and said they wouldn't be able to do so i had to pick something different.  That would be my only concern about the tall orchid arrangements as if something came up you might not find a good substitute. (I think this can happen sometimes with florists too)  My uncle had talked me out of orchids which I had been absolutely set on b/c he thought they would be too delicate.  So I found much cheaper silicone preserved orchids which we glued to the manzanita with a hot glue gun so I still had a little of the look.  Also you may need alot of bunches to do what you are looking for; or they may need wired which is why i didn't end up doing something similar... you may want to order a few stems in advance of the aranda orchids from a florist or somthing to see how they would work... or order curly willow or something else to mix in to help save costs but give you the volume.  I originally wasn't going to even order roses but they were probably the most bang for the buck.  Orchids can be $$- the photo you have looks like might have quite a few stems; you could always do 1 stem of cybidium under water in tall cyclindar or something with the roses. Also make sure you think about transportation!  B/c of the volume of the hydrangeas we needed much more space then we expected and luckily were able to borrow someones car- it took basically 2 suv's.  Our location was an hour away so we couldn't do multiple trips.  Also see if your venue will let you drop off the night before- our tables were set up at the time of our rehearsal so we were able to put them on the table right before that.  I was glad b/c did not want to think of that the day off. Because you are looking at doing tall vases Good luck and let me know if you have any other ??'sAlso sent you a couple pics

juls1981

Wow that was way longer than I thought! haha