First, the questions, for anyone who doesn't feel like reading about my weekend :P
1. Does the bride pay for bridesmaids hair and makeup?
2. a. How much are you ladies spending on flowers?
b. For anyone getting married in a church (or who has been to lots of weddings in a church, do people ever forgo flowers for the altar?
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This weekend, FI and I went out to Western Mass, where he is from and where we are getting married. He had some errands to do, so I went to get my haircut at a salon to see if they'd be in the running for my bridal hair. It was a nice place, but their wedding updo's start at $100, and I just want a simple french twist, so that's a bit high to pay (plus, their normal up-do's are $45... hate the "bride" upcharge!!) That's what got me thinking about the cost of BM's hair and makeup too...
After that, we stopped by a florist in town, that FI's family uses pretty frequently, and he was amazing!! We didn't have an appointment, because we just wanted to peek around the shop, but he sat us down and went through all of the flowers we would need and what we envisioned, and gave us a preliminary estimate (saying he'd do delivery and setup for free as a family favor!!). We are planing on using tulips for the most part, and with two altar arrangements (plus all other flowers), he put the price at between $800-$1000, although we were planning on spending $600-$800 (which might be underestimating a bit).
After this meeting, I was pretty excited, but we thought we'd stop by one more place to see if the pricing sounded right. Mind you, we were in Western Mass, which is a pretty quiet area, so we figured dropping in to florists to inquire about wedding flowers would be ok. We went into the next place, that I had heard about at a bridal show, and the woman behind the desk was so rude! When I told her I wanted to ask about wedding flowers she sneered at me and said, "we don't do that without appointments" (there was no one else in the shop). She then asked for our wedding date, and when I told her, she said we were too early anyways (the first florist we went to had our date as the only one available in May 2012), and then basically gave us a business card and ignored us. I totally understand that florists expect appointments to go over a wedding, but when you're just inquiring, they should at least try to be polite! After that, we decided we're going with the first guy, and we don't need to see anyone else. He was so accommodating and friendly, plus with the family connection, we know we can trust him.
Last little wedding check... finally found my cake topper at a store! I knew I wanted a willow tree angel, but most stores don't carry the cake topper, so when I saw it at a Hallmark at the mall, I scooped it up!
