Good morning! How are you all today?
I have so much to tell you, which is surprising, as I’ve struggled to find the energy to blog over the past couple of months. I think that was partly because my posts were taking such a long time to put together. So this decision to write a short post each day is remarkably freeing! Mind you, some days you might just get a photo of my dinner. Also, fair warning: I’ve recently started collecting vintage haberdashery, so expect a few posts on that too.
When Big Boy and Monkey Girl were planning their wedding (and to their credit, they arranged all of it – we just had to figure out what to wear), they tried to do it as sustainably as possible. I’ll be writing about this over coming days.
Wedding flowers were a particularly tricky area – most wedding florists use fresh flowers which are discarded at the end of the night. Literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars worth of blooms can end up in the bin after just a few hours. Thankfully the kids found Anna at The Faux Fernery, a Sydney-based silk flower hire business. The process was identical to using a regular wedding florist – Monkey Girl and Big Boy chose the colours, style and stems they wanted and Anna arranged them at the venue. The flowers were essentially rented for the evening – they didn’t get to keep them.
Anna’s fee was half of what comparable fresh flowers would have cost and there was no wastage, which made me ridiculously happy!
On the night, there was quite lively debate among the guests about whether the flowers were real or faux – it was honestly that difficult to tell. Even the kookaburras were fooled!
If you’d like to see more of Anna’s glorious work, have a look at her instagram account here.
The bouquets, buttonholes and cake flowers were real and prepared by our young friend Emma, who has just finished her floristry course. They blended seamlessly with the faux flowers. I’ll show you those another day!
Finally, thank you for all your lovely comments yesterday! I won’t be able to reply to all comments at the moment, but I am reading them and incredibly grateful that you’re still following. One question was asked though about Monkey Girl’s nickname. I can’t remember where it came from now – she’s been a part of our family for so long – but it’s very apt because she IS a cheeky monkey. I love her to bits! ♥
PS. to Dan and Dredgey whom I stole the photos from without credit, my apologies. I’ll be doing that a bit over the coming days, as I can’t remember who sent me which photos! xx
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
The flowers are gorgeous. I looked at her instagram page. So many beautiful flowers and arrangements.
It seems like the idea of “renting” silk flowers for a few hours seems to be catching on here as well. The couple chooses the flowers, backdrop, etc. and then the business sets up everything accordingly. After the wedding it is all taken down again and someone else can reuse the same flowers, supports, curtains , lights, etc. later on. Reuse, recycle.
These are just lovely! What a wonderful idea.
I so dislike fake flowers but here they work and I definitely think an ideal solution for our waste issues. You can always spray the rooms with floral scents.
Love that! I also had fake flowers at my wedding way back in 1984 – and I still have them!! Love the pictures, especially with the kookaburra.
Love this!
Beautiful flowers and please keep the blogs coming they brighten my day xx
Flowers are amazing and made for YOU!! and yours of course!! Lovely.
What a wonderful idea!!!! I am so impressed and pleased. I am going to make the same suggestions to others.
Please do keep these shorter posts coming, I have missed your voice.
I never would have guessed. Either way, they are very beautiful and so lovely that they can be reused again. Our world needs to find many more ways of preventing waste and re-using or repurposing what we already have. MegXx
Congratulations! <3 Beautiful idea to have a sustainable wedding. Take care, and stay safe.
What a fabulous idea – the flowers look beautiful. Our daughter took herself to the flower market the morning before her wedding, bought a bucket full of natives and then created her own bouquet. She used the rest of the flowers and greenery to decorate the tables. It looked gorgeous and she spent $100.
I’ve often told my hubby (of 31 years of marriage) that if I ever..ahem…got married again I’d have the simplest most sustainable laid back easy wedding ever!! He just laughs and says “Good luck with ever getting rid of me that easily.” haha.. but seriously Celia I am so honoured that you’ve shared your family photos and special events, recipes, every day life adventures with us! x
When I saw the wedding flowers in the pics I thought wow. Now to find out they are faux is marvellous. Makes so much sense to re-use.
What a fantastic idea and they look perfectly real! Wonderful!
Hugs. xo
Excellent idea. My daughters were bridesmaids when my sister got married in Australia and brought their posies of native flowers back home (the UK is very lax about bringing in things like that). I dried them and used them as Christmas decorations for over twenty years.
The Husband and I got married late in life and did a low-key wedding. No arranging to speak of, except that I did my own flowers with a full range of fakes! I had tremendous fun; we live in the tropics and the flowers are lavish, so I was able to go a little bonkers :-) The flowers at Big Boy and Monkey Girl’s wedding were wonderful, lush, abundant and super-realistic. Bravo to them!
Beautiful flowers, and well done for sustainability.
They are beautiful and your are right they do look like the real thing. What a fantastic way to reduce waste and still have a stunning display at a wedding.
My goodness, those flowers were wonderful and the wedding photo too – i bet you cried
Celia, no need to reply. Just wanted to say: it’s a joy hearing from you no matter how lengthy or abbreviated your thoughts are. It was also lovely to read some good news in the midst of all of this. Blessings on the newlyweds and y’all!
the flowers were beautiful!
Those flowers are stunningly real and so beautiful! Looking forward to all your future posts about the wedding and other things..