...then I'm your gal! At least in spirit, results may vary. This wedding is in part a celebration of our hobbies, which includes unnecessary and elaborate crafting, apparently including the assembly of all our own flowers for the event.

See those blooms in the picture? None of those are "real", but in fact made of paper-like sola wood! All the surrounding greenery and filler is dried, preserved, or artificial. Sam would be aghast, but he doesn't have to know.

This was quite a process including:

• Buying everything from an assemblage of sources (on mega sale!)... and then buying more... and oops! more...

• Painting each flower with airbrush, paintbrush, or dip-dye.

• Gluing flowers to wire stems

• Scouring Goodwills for glass vases

• Bundling flowers and fillers into bouquets, centerpieces, boutonnieres... and then unbundling & rebundling to get them just right

• Tying a couple pool noodles to the Middle Georgia Wedding Hoop (Editor's note: See our previous issue "Wedding Hoop?" for more details), and sticking approximately one million flowers into it to make it the One Ring to Beautify Them All

• Sitting back to admire our achievement

• Living with a giant hoop in our living room and twenty or so centerpieces in (so far) cat-safe locations around our house for several months

• Realizing we have boxes left of material, so hmm... maybe just one arrangement more... my precious flowers... mine... my own...

At the end of all this we're left with hopefully beautiful flower arrangements (I can't tell anymore, I'm too close to the project) that won't wilt while were working on them months in advance and will last potentially forever after the wedding. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you want to take home a centerpiece, just let me know.