Parisian Botanical Garden Wedding
Goodness, we have so much love for this wedding. Thanks to its classic color palette and beautiful decor, it could easily have come out of any season of the year! Divine Light Photography captured the entire day, while Flowers & Flowers designed gorgeous bouquets and boutonnieres and the bride tackled all the reception flowers on her own.
From the bride, Juliana: We wanted our wedding to be soft and romantic. We wanted guests to feel as if they stepped foot into an intimate secret garden party styled wedding. We wanted to have some soft tones like blush while still having some pops of color like raspberry and other berry tones; colors that you would typically find in a garden! We definitely wanted to stand out and be a little different.
Flower recipe: The bouquet was done by a florist and I believe he used dahlias, astilbe, eucalyptus, spray roses and lisianthus. For our centerpieces we used dahlias, spray roses, garden roses, astilbe, eucalyptus, anemone, stock, dusty miller, and celosia to name a few.
There were quite a few DIY projects! The invitations were hand painted by my dad who is an incredible person! He is a French painter/artist who suffered a massive stroke. He lost his ability to speak but is still able to paint wonderful art. So he painted the invitations, table names (Places in Paris), the seating chart, ceremony sign, jelly jar signs, etc. He did the paintings and then John and I laid it out ourselves in Adobe Illustrator. We also collected milk glass vases and the pink French depression wine glasses, and we made our own mercury glass vases. The flowers were also DIY. We ordered and picked them up from a flower market in the South Bronx and had a close family friend help assemble them! I also painted our chair signs and our bike sign. John and I made the jellies with his aunt that we gave to guests as their gift. We also made a quilt sign and our Aunt will be sewing us our wedding quilt that everyone signed.
Any advice for couples planning their weddings now? Don’t rush to pick vendors too quickly! We really did our research on each vendor and we were confident they would do a great job. Also, if you think you can do the flowers all on your own, you can’t. Make sure you have family and friends on deck to help assemble and transport to your venue! If you have a clear vision of what you want, make sure to express that with images. You can never be too detailed!
Wedding Music:
Bridal Party Processional: “Only Time,” Enya
Bride’s Processional: Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Recessional: “Bittersweet Symphony,” The Verve; “Firework,” Katy Perry
First Dance: “You Are the Best Thing,” Ray Lamontagne
Father/Daughter Dance: “The Way You Look Tonight,” Frank Sinatra
Mother/Son Dance: “In My Life,” The Beatles
Last Dance: “Closing Time,” Semisonic