I’m finally settled back into my house after a nice visit with my family in my hometown. Now for the long awaited wedding series featuring our wedding pictures! I’m so excited today to share with you our wedding flowers!

I love flowers and with a country outdoor wedding, flowers were a really important part of the wedding day for me. I wanted to use flowers that fit into my color scheme and also incorporate in things that held meaning for me.

Peonies are one of my top favorite flowers, so choosing peonies for a late spring wedding was no difficult decision. I love the large size and soft, delicate look of them. I love them here in dark pink, blush pink, and soft white colors. They also were meaningful to me as well. My mom has several peony bushes in her garden. When my little sisters and I were young, we would often play “wedding” in our backyard. We would dress up in white dress-up clothes (an old white lace and sheer nightgown of my older sister’s) and then pick flowers out of the garden to be in our bouquets. I remember picking the soft white peonies off my mom’s peony bush to use in our play wedding bouquets.

Daisies are another favorite flower of mine, so I begged my florist to incorporate those tiny little daisy-like flowers. I love the country wildflower charm they add to the elegant peonies. They are actually a tiny aster called Monte Cosino. I’ve always loved the look of Hypericum berries and I love their yellow-green color and how well it accents the pinks in the bouquet. The addition of sprigs of lavender was such a sweet touch that my florist made and I love that it counted as my something blue! My mom always grew lavender in her garden as well and I remember when I was young we would use it to make lavender ribbon potpourri wands. The greenery is a mixture of variegated pittsoporum and a couple of variegated ivy stems.

My bouquet was wrapped in burlap ribbon (I used burlap fabric for table runners on the tables and on various other things throughout the wedding) and then my Mamaw‘s lace handkerchief was wrapped around it as well. This was really special to me, as it not only counted as my “something old” but was also a sweet, simple reminder to me of my wonderful grandmother and how I’m sure she would have absolutely loved to see me on that day. I’m so happy that I had a way to include her memory into our celebration.

The crystal brooch is my mother’s and was my “something borrowed.” My mom has lots of pretty brooches and I remember her wearing this one a lot when I was younger. The clasp broke, so she hasn’t worn it in a while, but I’m happy we were able to secure it to my bouquet for it to hold a special place in my wedding day.

The bridesmaids all had slightly smaller versions of my bouquet, minus the lavender. Theirs were wrapped in different bits of burlap and lace ribbons.

I love how the colorful bouquets complimented the neutral dresses so well! More about the dresses to come in another post!

I loved the way the guy’s boutonnières turned out as well! Drew’s included a small soft pink peony and was accented with the same accent flowers as the bouquets. I love that they tied into the girl’s flowers without being overly pink and girly looking.

The groomsmen’s boutonnières didn’t include the peony, but simply greenery, lavender and the daisy-like Monte Cosino.

I just can’t get over how well each of the flowers used tied in so well to our elegant but simple country outdoor wedding. I think matching flower types to the theme and scale of the wedding is really key.

The boutonnières for my dad (he was also the minister), my grandpa (who walked me down the aisle), and Drew’s father were different from the others as well. They included greenery, the daisy-like Monte Cosino, and the Hypericum berries. I loved how all the boutonnières went together so well, but were also slightly different for different people in the wedding.

So beautiful, huh? I can’t stop looking back over these pictures and re-living our wonderful wedding day! I’m so happy with how these turned out and how special they were. Can’t wait to show you all the other wedding pictures, including flowers we used on the tables and to decorate the winery!

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If you live in the Southern Illinois area and are in need of a wonderful florist, I highly recommend Nadine Williams of Flower Ridge Farm, she does excellent work! Check out her Facebook page, , or send me an e-mail and I can give you more contact info for her.

All pictures taken by the wonderful Stephanie Milligan of Stephanie’s Photography. I highly recommend her as well if you are in need of a wonderful photographer! Check out her website, .