The Funeral I Didn't Want To Do

I was honored and thankful to be able to help in some small way, but I never wanted to have the do the flowers for my friend's husband. The funeral was last Friday and it was one of the best funerals I have ever been to in my life!! It was amazing!! Here are two of the things I made for it:

Funerals are so much better!

My dear friend passed away a couple months ago. Doing the flowers for her funeral was a great reminder of why I prefer doing funeral flowers rather than wedding flowers. Here are my top 10 reasons why doing funeral flowers is better than wedding flowers:

10. BIG pieces - not a million little corsages and bouts. Other than the bouts and corsages for family and pall bearers, it's all big stuff.

9. No time for being picky or changing your mind. Sharron's family called me about 9pm on Wednesday night. I picked up the flowers Thursday and built that day and the next. Drove them down Friday for the viewing that night and funeral the next day.

8. People are open to my ideas. They generally haven't spent a bunch of time planning every detail of the flowers (like they do with a wedding), and even if they have given it some thought I can usually give some creative input. Sharron's was a great mixture of stuff the family wanted and ideas I was able to bring to the table.

Her hubby wanted this arrangement of 44 long-stemmed red roses with standard greenery and baby's breath (her favorite arrangement) to recognize their 44 years of marrige.

Her daughter wanted this all white with greenery arrangement. She had seen a picture of something similar and fell in love with it.

With a white casket with pink interior, I was able to recommend different flowers that come in all different shades of pink for the casket saddle.

7. You get to use the flowers as an outlet to honor the person. Wedding flowers are rarely personalized. In fact, the only time I think I've ever personalized wedding flowers was for my cousin. Thank heaven she was NOT your typical bride!!

6. Because all people are different, the creative possibilities are endless! No cookie cutter arrangements (ie. Floating flowers in a bowl. Ugh! I am so over that!!)

Sharron was always saying "Bummer," so some of her grand kids called her "Bumma". The older ones called her the more text-friendly "Gma". So I made this wreath that says "Bumma" on top...


...and "Gma" down inside the heart...

The gerber daisies represented her grandchildren - all white for the grand sons, white with pink centers for the grand daughters. Then after the whole thing was over they each took "their" gerber daisy out and took it with them as a little keepsake.

5. You get to use your skill to comfort people who stand in need of comfort. And isn't that one of the best reasons we're here?

4. The family can preserve the flowers afterward to create mementos of their loved one to keep forever. You can preserve them intact and make shadowboxes with pictures and other keepsakes. You can disassemble the flowers and press them to use on bookmarks or other such items.

3. You get to constantly incorporate new ideas as you meet new people with new personalities.

2. People are so traumatized over their loss that they are thrilled with whatever you make! No bridezillas greeting you at the door picking over everything you've made!!

1. When someone I love passes, or someone that I love loses someone they love, I can do the flowers as a service to them to show my love and appreciation for them. When my cousin died I learned that in a time of trial everyone just needs to do whatever it is they can do. And if we all do that, then all the bases are covered. Everyone has something different to offer. So as long as we all give of ourselves, then everything works out.

What to do with your "Free Time"

Often when a wedding is just a few weeks away I will ask people what they are doing to prepare. Usually they tell me, "There is nothing left to do. We're just waiting for the wedding day to get here." I would encourage people to utilize that time to double- and triple-check everything. Call the caterer, the florist, the decorator, etc. and double-check that they have the right date, delivery time, etc. So much anxiety the day before and the day of your wedding could be avoided by double-checking these things. Don't just let that time waste and then panic the 48-hours leading up to your wedding. Utilize it to the fullest and let that anxiety wash away with each successful phone call.

Happy planning!

In My Humble Opinion...

The following are some miscellaneous thoughts of mine regarding wedding planning. They aren't meant to offend anyone, they are just my opinions. Here they are...in no particular order.

• Return Address Labels - I don't like when couples send a wedding invitation with a return address label that makes it look like they already live together/are married. You know what I mean? When it's listed with their names as _____ & ______ _____________ and then their address. I don't think that's right. You can insert a card with your new address after you are married in the invitation so that people have it and can mail cards directly to you, or you could always just save those labels for your thank you notes.
• Wedding Colors - I laugh that people use whatever wedding colors are "in style". What is that about? Why wouldn't you use colors that have been your favorite your whole life? Or the colors you want to decorate your home in? The one thing that all "in style" weddings will one day be is "out of style". But if it's "your style", it never will.
• Invitation wording - I love creativity and personality! When considering the wording for your wedding invitations I think it's great to make it sound like you...on your best behavior! Don't even get me started on those invitations where the couple is "gettin' hitched" and so on. Ugh!
• Telling people what to give you. This one is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! Of course I have no problem with registering. I think people are really starting to appreciate not having to guess what to give. And it's one thing to encourage gift cards if you are getting married and then moving across the country or something. But I have seen wedding invitations that say (I am NOT lying) "In lieu of gifts the couple requests cash gifts in $20 increments". Are you kidding me???? Since when do you tell someone what gift to give you? What happened to being thankful for any gift at all??? And if you are going to be that...wretched, why not shoot for the moon and say "$100 increments? I have seen so many invitations like this lately. If it were my child, I would pull all funding from the wedding (not to mention my name from the invite) if they tried to pull a stunt like that. It is tacky and horribly rude! And in this economy where people are just trying to keep their house and keep food on the table, it is completely unacceptable!!

I'm done now.

Wedding Blogs

One of my new favorite ideas is doing a wedding blog. Once you get engaged start a blog together. Tell about how you met, about the proposal, blog about wedding planning, post pictures trying on different dresses, post un-used engagement pictures. Another good thing about doing a blog is that you can get feedback. You can say, "I'm thinking about going through ________ for my catering. Does anyone have any input on that?" etc. (Note: Slurping your blog to www.blurb.com doesn't transfer really well. So you'll probably want to create your book at the same time as you do your blog and just copy and paste everything into both. Otherwise you have to spend a lot of time fixing the layout of your book at blurb.)

Making sure you leave enough time to get the book before your wedding, have your blog turned into a book. You could put it in chapters; for example:

Chapter 1 - Dating
Chapter 2 - Engagement
Chapter 3 - Wedding Planning
Chapter 4 - Sign-in book

Leave lots of blank pages in chapter four. Intersperse the blank pages with engagement pictures. Then let everyone sign this book at have a peek at all your wedding plans at your wedding. In the end you will have everything about your wedding, including the love notes from those who shared the day with you, all in one place. You could even scan and include cards from friends and family who attended showers or sent something in advance.

I wish this was something available when I had gotten married. But those were the good ol' days.