Amy+Eldy

​I love it when the images come back all edited and beautiful from the photographer. It's always a great experience to work with a photographer who knows and cares about flowers. The flowers are the finishing touch to every bridal portrait, so it's especially nice to work with Ashley at Hawkeye Photography because she takes the time to create beautiful images of all the floral details.

Anyway, I loved the opportunity of working with some awesome friends on the flowers and cakes for Amy and Eldy's wintry-rustic wedding.

Photo cred: Ashley with Hawkeye Photography

Amy’s color palette incorporated wintry hues of navy and grey, but also added in a hint of blush pink. The ingredients for the bridal bouquet included white button poms and stock, thistle, brunia, and pale pink astilbe and roses. I loved the shape and texture it gave to this hand-tied, cascading bridal bouquet. And since you know how much I loves me some texture, I went with several different greens: seeded eucalyptus, ninebark, salal, and amaranthus to help frame the bouquet and shape the cascade.​​ And I just love the trailing navy and ice blue silk ribbons!

​Eldy’s boutonniere pulled in several of these same flowers with a pale pink rose, thistle, brunia, and little snippets of the seeded eucalyptus, ninebark, and salal.

I've gone back and forth over the years on the best way to accent a boutonniere with ribbon. Bows were to frilly and girly, no stem wrap is just ugly, and plain ribbon is well...plain. I've fallen in love with what I've named the Tuxedo Knot. It's crisp, tailored, slightly luxurious, very masculine, and I really, really like how it finishes off the boutonniere. Again, the boutonnieres and corsages are those little details I'm always so happy a photographer remembers. So often they get overlooked, but they are perfect little snippets of the entire wedding's colors, style, and feel!

Photo cred: photo on the left by Ashley with Hawkeye Photography

The same wintry love went into the cake as well, even on the inside! Starting with the bottom tier, we did a rich, chocolate cake with peanut butter filling, the middle tier was a classic vanilla with a fresh raspberry filling (no jam people…just say no), and then we topped it off with a creamy lemon buttermilk cake and a double layered filling of cream cheese frosting and homemade, old-fashioned lemon curd. My mouth is watering just writing about it!

​Photo cred: Ashley with Hawkeye Photography

To keep with the wintry-rustic design, we went with an all-white, rustic frosted cake and accented with the flowers from the wedding line. And to top it all off, I got to use my brand new cake stand that my husband made for me.

​Photo cred: Ashley with Hawkeye Photography

Those who know me personally know that my husband is a super talented wood-worker, and he and his family will occasionally harvest trees for people in order to get their hands on more product. We got the call clear back in July last year that a long-time friend needed a large, silver maple harvested off of their very small property (Tangent: we don’t just chop trees with prejudice friends. It’s usually taking down a tree that was a very poor choice for landscaping 50 years ago. Research your tree selections carefully!) The second that tree came down, I could see one of the branches was the perfect size for a tree ring cake stand. Plus, it had some gorgeous grain to it! I looked at my husband and brother’s-in-law and begged them (complete with batting eyelashes) to get me a slice. None of them were interested. Go figure taking down a huge tree is exhausting and they didn't want to do one. more. thing. Now I, like any married women, know exactly how to get results, so I picked up that chainsaw and said I would do it myself! My Handsome Man knows me well enough to know that I don’t really know how to use them, so when I pick up a chainsaw, he immediately envisions all sorts of amputated foot disasters (ask about me seeing one of those sometime) and rushes over to save me from myself and operates the tool for me. He should know by now that I don’t do power tools because I like all of my digits and limbs firmly attached to my body, but for cake, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do :)

Thanks Amy & Eldy!

Enjoy!