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Flowers, that is.

February has proven to be a busy month for the Fiance and I on the wedding front.  I managed to find my dress as well as spend lots more of our cold, hard cash on wedding deposits.  One of those deposits happened to be to our wedding florist.

Originally, we didn’t plan on hiring a floral designer; my aunt is a florist with her own boutique in Orange County.  She wanted to help us on our big day, but unfortunately over the holidays she threw out her back (badly) and worried that taking on a project so far away from our home base would have been too much for her – even eight months down the road.

Thankfully she told us sooner rather than later so that we would have time to start our search for a florist.  The first thing I did was reach out to our day of coordinator, Kristina Veronesi.  She’s been super awesome so far and recommended Nicole Ha Designs.  Not only did she make the recommendation, she personally reached out to the floral vendor and set up an appointment for us all to meet.

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During our meeting, we talked about our vision for the wedding.  All I knew was that I wanted white.  I wanted airy yet still lush.  I wanted modern.  I wanted everything based off these gorgeous white centerpieces that I saw in an issue of The Knot magazine.  I was so excited when my aunt said she could do these for me for a fraction of the price since we knew these tall centerpieces would be more expensive.

But when we found out that we’d have to contract an outside vendor to do this, my heart sank a little bit to think that these pretty clouds of white would be beyond our means.

Before meeting with Nicole Ha, we met with another florist who sent  back an estimate that was almost three times what our set budget was.  Because of this, I didn’t have high expectations that Nicole would be able to do it either, but was still hopeful.  After meeting with her, the Fiance and I both had a good feeling and started Google-ing past events that she did.

We were surprised to learn that she’s worked with our (ah-mazing) photographer before AND I was even more delighted to see that they worked together on a wedding featured on Style Me Pretty!  This particular wedding is one that I actually took inspiration from early on in our planning process, being that it was a modern affair but still warm and romantic.

As we flipped through her portfolio, we really loved all the arrangements she had done.  During our meeting she caught on quickly to the look we wanted to go for and even made suggestions that I thought fit our style.  Needless to say, when Nicole sent back her estimate for our ceremony and reception florals, and it came in just a couple of hundred over our budget, I was giddy and we booked her pretty much immediately.

Thanks to our awesome coordinator’s suggestion, I think that our wedding florist was one of the easiest vendors we’ve booked to date!  I can’t wait to see how it will all unfold on our big day!

Ladies, during your wedding planning process did you get hit with an unforeseen expense for something as big as flowers and how did you get through it?

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