When a woman has chosen a wedding date in the springtime, when the world is awakening from the drabness of winter, she has a wonderful opportunity to use her flowers to build not just beautiful visual memories, but delicious aromatic memories as well.
"Smell, more than any other sense, is deeply rooted in memory," according to Nadia Goodman's article, "How Scent Can Evoke Forgotten Feelings," published in the December 15, 2011, edition of Huffpost Healthy Living.
What bride doesn't want her special day remembered with all the joy and beauty that the fragrances of spring flowers can arouse?
This article presents you with three ideas for creating your own wedding centerpieces that use the richly scented bulbs of springtime flowers. Let your own imaginations and talents then direct you to something special and unique.
Ceramic Containers Painted In Bride's Wedding Colors Are Perfect For Planting Bulbs
Ceramic pots can be created at local studios and can offer a wide choice of shapes for your floral containers. If you love teapots or teacups, for example, they can be painted in your chosen wedding colors and decorated with the couple's names and wedding date or whatever personalized way the bride-to-be chooses. Often ceramic studios have someone on staff skilled with calligraphy, or know of someone who will do the beautiful writing for you. You may choose something as personal as the thumbprints of the bride and the groom, perhaps on each side of the wedding date. Or you might prefer to just paint simple flowers on the sides in colors that will harmonize with your wedding colors. Whatever shape(s) you choose will be totally you and perhaps your bridesmaids as going to the studio and working together is a fun, bonding experience for the bride and her best friends. Some shops will even allow bridal showers in the studio, as the bride-to-be can allow her friends to participate in creating her personalized decorations.
Few Things Say 'Springtime' Like Terracotta Pots Filled with Blooming Flowers
Terracotta pots are seen everywhere at affordable prices for the thrifty bride-to-be, or even for a bride who prefers the classic design. Just because the pots are classic does not mean they have to be boring at your wedding because these ubiquitous clay containers can be decorated anyway a bride-to-be's imagination dictates.
Again, painting the pots can be a group project that a bride-elect and her friends laugh over together. If you are new to pot painting, Patricia's Pots offers the novice step-by-step instructions.
The possibilities are limitless with these favorite containers, and a bride-to-be may want two sizes – one in which to plant individual bulbs to cluster as centerpieces and favors and a larger size to hold candies or even use as a base for pillar candles, which can be mixed in the centerpieces along with the potted flowers on the tables.
A bride-to-be may not want fussy decorations on the pots, but wants the reception tables decorated in her chosen colors. In that case, she would choose to paint her pots in either a solid color, or just two colors. The overall pot in one color, then the second color would be applied to the rim of the pot and to the saucer. Simple, but pleasing to the eye.
Others may choose to use the main color for the overall pot, then place chosen patterns such as the ease of painted polka dots or flowers or kites, which are a sign of spring, or the couple's names and wedding date. The patterns can be glued on, decoupaged or painted as simple or as complicated as the bride's time and talent allow.
Stencils can be used to create many effects, including lace.
Perhaps the bride and her friends will enjoy getting together and painting whimsical, one-of-a-kind pieces, initialed and dated on the bottom, for guests to treasure for years.
Brides-to-be should assess their time frame, their skill levels and realize that planning the myriad details of a wedding is stressful, and it is wise to simplify, simplify, simplify.
An easy simplification for the painted terracotta pots, is a solid-color pot and saucer, maybe in two or three coordinating colors, then wide ribbons tied around the pot. Just be sure this is going to be fun and create good memories, not something that will stress the bride into becoming a bridezilla.
Glass containers Can Become Holder for Spring Flowers
Easier on the bride-to-be than either of the above suggestions is simply using a collection of glass containers, filled with glass pebbles or real pebbles into which the blooming bulbs can be "planted" for the few hours of your wedding day.
Grow Your Own or Purchase Blooming Plants?
To reduce stress, most brides-to-be will prefer to purchase her spring bulbs already budding and about to burst into fragrant bloom.
A few might have prefer to purchase the bulbs in the fall, winter them for a few weeks in a shed or unheated garage, then place them into ordinary pots to begin their journey toward the wedding day. A few days before the wedding, the individual bulbs can be transplanted into their colorful wedding pots that guests will take home with them.
If brides are using the clear containers with pebbles and a little water, they will want to gently wash the soil from the bulbs, so the arrangements look clean.
Whichever of the options a bride-to-be is considering, be sure to plan arrangements that will be gorgeous, but simple in order to keep your stress down so you can enjoy your own reception party and the sweet fragrances of your DIY spring centerpieces.
Velma Southerland - Velma Southerland has been employed in the lifestyles section of an award-winning East Tennessee community newspaper for more than 20 ...
