Little big ideas
Image courtesy Fantasy Floral Designs/Alice Hu Photography
When you’re planning a wedding, you have major decisions to make – the date, the location, the groom …
But sometimes the smallest details can be the most meaningful – and most fun.
Take a look at two trends that show the success focusing on the details and that a little does go a long way.
The Brooch Bouquet
You might have seen a bride thread a family heirloom into her bouquet, but what if the entire bouquet was made of items special to the bride?
That’s the idea behind the brooch bouquet, created by Amanda Heer, a floral designer based in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Brides from around the world send boxes of treasures to Heer, who assembles the tokens into a bridal bouquet with ribbon.
“It’s their grandfather’s watch, the necklace their grandmother wore to church every Sunday and the pin their uncle wore in the army,” Heer says.
Heer, who charges $350 to assemble these bouquets, says it’s a great way to reuse family jewelry.
“They’re treasures,” Heer says. “They’re so many little details in all of them. When you look at it there’s something you didn’t see before. You keep something something new every time.”
Check out more of Heer’s work at fantasyfloraldesigns.com.
The Cupcake Wedding Cake
A wedding cake is a lot to handle – to bake, to cut and to serve. That’s why Phoebe Walters of Phoebe’s Cupcakes in Chicago suggests you might want to think about using cupcakes – stacked and presented in a cake-esque form.
In addition to their fun factor, cupcakes spare the need for that hard-to-find cake cutter, forks or even plates.
“If you’re looking to scrimp as a lot of people are these days, you can cut down on your utensil essentials,” says Phoebe Walters. “You just put it on a piece of napkin. You don’t have to rinse all of the plates and forks.”
Using cupcakes allows you to focus more on the cake.
“Instead of spending money on cake rentals and plate rentals, you can actually put it back into the cake so it’s better tasting,” Walters said.
Cupcakes also are fresher than regular wedding cakes because they take less time to prepare, so bakers can prepare them the day of.
“If you watch “Cake Boss,” they make them so far in advance that they put them in the freezer,” Walters says. “There’s a lot of going between thaw and freeze.”
Another simple reason? Everyone loves getting their own little cake, says Walters.