Beautiful blooms with Floret Flowers

We love gardens and this week we decided we need to tell you about Floret Flowers, a local farm in Mount Vernon, WA, founded by Erin Benzakein - nothing has made us want to learn how to grow a lush landscape overflowing with blooms as much as her Instagram feed does (this post contains just a few of her photos, click through for original posts). Her passion as a farmer-florist, focused on family, sustainable practices and education comes through clearly in all aspects of her business and her dedication to cultivating and testing so many varieties of flowers (and tomatoes!) to offer the best for floral arrangements is inspiring. Her book is gorgeous and full of helpful information for anyone wanting to get the best flower production from their own garden. We also learned so much from the free summer mini course this year and are excited to find out they will be back with a fall one! They also offer an annual online 6 week workshop for those looking to grow their flower business, which will be open for registration soon.

Recently on the blog they had a series about seasonal floral design that included conversations with florists in different places about their unique approach to floral design and sourcing locally:

New Innovations in Seasonal Floral Design: A Conversation with Holly Chapple
 

Passionflower’s Wearable Florals: New Seasonal Designs from Susan McLeary

Turning Heads in New Zealand: Zoe Field’s Garden Fresh DIY Flower Crowns
 

The Seasonal Flower Movement in Mexico: A Conversation with Gabriela Salazar from La Musa de las Flores
 

Sourcing Local Flowers at Destination Events: A Conversation with Katie Davis of Ponderosa & Thyme

If you feel motivated to do some gardening, their seed shop opens at the end of September for fall bulbs and hardy annuals and in January the rest of their selection, including some exciting new varieties, will become available. After watching their Instagram stories we feel as though we've been a part of that little seed journey and can't wait to add some to our own small gardens! Be sure to sign up for their newsletter to get updates on all the courses and shop offerings.

Hopefully you feel inspired to up your garden game or discovered new ideas for your wedding!

Color inspiration No. 1 (plus instagram accounts to follow)

So neither of us are planning our own wedding right now (A: est 2009, I: TBD) or redecorating, but we have fun daydreaming about it anyway (other daydream topics include, but are not limited to: the perfect afternoon tea menu and the next trip we should take). A fun, and manageable, place to start when starting a project is to think about color and texture - with so many artists and influencers sharing images we're surrounded by inspiration. Whether you're brainstorming colors for your wedding or a new room in your home, here are a few color palettes we love.

In the next year, deep jewel tones will be showing up for weddings, so we thought we'd start with a few variations on this idea. We sourced each image from gorgeous Instagram feeds you'll want to follow (click to see the original post).

Bold look - create a dramatic backdrop and add a new dimension to softer colors.

Fresh new take - nothing better than fresh greens and white, although this version uses that richer jewel tone with overflowing greenery and luxurious fabrics.

Classic interpretation - if the others feel a bit too dramatic, we really like this more subtle version.

And if you need more help filling out your color palette, we recently discovered Coolors for generating color schemes. Fair warning, it's definitely addictive. You can scroll through for ideas or if you already have a color you like it's easy to input a hex color code. Once you see something you like, lock specific colors and keep clicking to complete your color scheme. This tool is especially helpful for consistency across projects (wedding or elsewhere) because the codes are universal. So use fun images for inspiration and then for those of us who love the details, find the hex color code combination of your dreams.

Speaking of Instagram... we created our own account! Check us out @perfectlypairedsisters

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Our Perfect Picks: when should you DIY?

We both love creating - baking, crafting, building, organizing, writing... So it makes sense that we want to encourage and support couples who want to incorporate personal touches into their wedding day. Handmade or hand selected, these items can convey so much about what has brought you together and set the tone for the celebration.

We see a big part of our job as making sure all these details are executed well and have created a system to make sure we can make that happen.

Here are the top 3 places where we love to see a DIY project!

- Invitations/paper crafts: depending on the style you want, making your own invitations (maybe getting help from a crafty friend) is totally doable. From a very simple postcard style to layered or pocket-style, many of these can be done yourself given enough time and can save a lot of money. Many other things like save-the-dates, programs, place cards, and menus can also be handmade and all of these elements can be both beautiful and cost-saving.

- Centerpieces: whether it's the whole thing or a special touch added to a floral arrangement, small details can be sentimental (old photos) or fun for your guests (Erin & Fred had scrabble tiles!). If you have a few friends willing to help, beautiful in-season floral centerpieces can be arranged from a local farmer's market.

For Amanda's wedding, she and her husband made truffles and included a note handwritten by her grandmother. Photography by Piper Moore.

- Favors: this is one place where the diversity of options has exploded. Many couples choose to use this opportunity to make a donation towards an important cause, create handmade items (by themselves or family members), give a favorite quality chocolate or candy bar, include inside jokes... the creative possibilities are endless! It is one place where you can both save money and add a small personal touch with as much or as little effort as you want.

The best DIY advice though: make yourself stop all projects at least a week before the wedding. There will be so many other things going on you'll want to enjoy, don't be tempted to leave projects to the last minute.

We know that many decisions to DIY revolve around a budget (an important first step when wedding planning), but we have found a few places where hiring a professional is a better option. Some of these include your photographer, catering, and of course a day of coordinator! Preserving memories and freeing up friends and family to enjoy your wedding day are places we think are worth the investment.

Let us know your favorite wedding DIY and if you need help brainstorming a DIY for your wedding, send us an email!

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What is a "wedding day coordinator"?

Hollywood loves weddings and wedding planners are often a key character, they even devoted a whole romantic comedy to one in The Wedding Planner. And who can forget Franck Eggelhoffer in Father of the Bride?!

All-inclusive wedding planners are a great resource for couples feeling overwhelmed by the research and options that come with planning (an often large) wedding. They also come with a hefty price tag, often not feasible for the majority of couples. Many brides and grooms also want to personalize various aspects of their wedding, even creating and designing elements themselves. So while the allure of handing over the legwork to a professional is still there, the desire for couples to be hands-on has made the emergence of the wedding day coordinator the perfect alternative.

Wedding day coordinators bring experience, organization, and assurance that things will run smoothly the day of your wedding. There are also two varieties of this kind of professional assistance: we use the term wedding day coordinator because while our primary focus and time will be spent the day of the wedding, we also offer significant support leading up to the wedding, including organizational documents and running the rehearsal. It is also possible to hire "day of coordinators" (often abbreviated DOC), which typically arrive just for the day of your wedding to run everything. In both cases, coordinators are the point person for you and all your vendors, watching the timeline and are often the only people to see everything that day from start to finish. We also spend time setting up anything not provided by a vendor that you may have created yourself (additions to centerpieces, favors and other personal touches).

Having a great time at Rachel & Sean's wedding!

For more information about wedding planners and coordinators, here are a few good resources:

- On our website there is a document outlining what we do

- This recent article in Brides Magazine compares options and has questions to help you decide what might be a good option for your wedding

Overall, we are there to make sure you can relax knowing everything will go smoothly and to free up your friends and family so they can enjoy this special day with you!

Welcome to the Perfectly Paired Blog!

We thought it would be fun and helpful to create a blog section on our website where we could post a couple times a month - advice based on our experience, answers to questions we often receive, links to articles we like, vendor highlights, or other content we think you might enjoy. While many of our posts will be wedding focused, we hope everyone can find something of interest. Thanks for checking out our website, we look forward to your comments!