I have always enjoyed throwing a good party and curating unique events for my friends and family. I enjoy leaning into my creative and artistic side, and I have continued to grow these strengths in my work at K2 & Co the past year and half. I am writing this blog to reflect on a wedding I helped plan for my dear family friends earlier this month. They are an older couple in their late sixties, have been together for more than 20 years, and finally decided to officially get married. They too love throwing an awesome party, so I was honored and excited to help them plan their big day.
Originally I was asked to be the bride’s personal attendant and thought I would solely be helping with small tasks on the wedding day. However, through the planning process, I became more of a full wedding planner! I was stunned and overjoyed when I was listed on the wedding program as “wedding planner and flower design.” After reflecting on this experience, I feel I learned a lot about how to plan an event in a timely and relatively inexpensive way.
Flowers on a budget
I by no means think I am an expert at putting together flower arrangements but after doing all the arrangements, bouquet and bootineers for this wedding, I am beyond proud of myself. A few tips I want to highlight are: doing a flower trial in advance, purchasing flowers from Trader Joes and using floral tape on the vases.
When I was first asked to help with the flowers, the bride only mentioned the color scheme of white, creams and greenery, with an emphasis on simplicity. To start the process, I went to Trader Joes three weeks before the wedding and picked up any flowers that looked pretty and were within our color scheme. Trader Joe’s flowers are so reasonably priced and they have a wide variety of flowers to choose from that you can usually only get from wholesale. I also made a point to buy multiple types of greenery for filler. We then went home and just winged it and threw the flowers together to create an arrangement and a bridal bouquet. We used floral tape to create a grid on the vases which helped space out flowers and hold everything in place. I have never used this before and it was a game changer. I think the fact that we did not overthink it and just creatively worked together really shined in the final design.
After getting a glowing approval from the couple, I then took detailed notes on the arrangements. How long were the stems? How many of each flower were in each? How much of each flower do I need to purchase? This took out all the guesswork when creating the arrangements the day before the wedding. I was a bit anxious when we started but as my mom said “We have to get our mojo going,” and we sure did. I was in tears with how gorgeous the flowers turned out for under $400. You can do anything you put your mind to!
Trust your professional opinion
Despite not ever having planned a wedding, I felt the pressure to make sure everything was perfect for the bride and groom, Geri and Luther. A month or so before I was going through what I thought was missing from their day: a cake, wedding sign and photographer. At first I got a lot of push back from the couple for these things. “We are old, we don’t need all that.” But I felt these were three things that would really elevate the weekend and make it feel like a wedding. The venue was the upstairs of a high-end restaurant in White Bear Lake and there was no signage directing or welcoming guests to the space. I felt a sign would be a great touch for guests to see right as they walk up the stairs. I found a designer on Etsy that was good quality and reasonably priced and the color scheme matched perfectly with the arrangements. Despite having to ask the couple at LEAST 3 times to order this, I am so glad we did and many guests loved it!
Next was the cake. Maybe I am biased, but I love cake and the cute photos of couples cutting the cake at their wedding. Again there was so much push back on this but my mom said, “You need to stick with your professional opinion!” The couple ultimately decided they wanted the cake to be at the wedding brunch, and I quickly jumped on ordering this. Personally, and at K2, we have used a local Stillwater baker, Jess Cakes, and I knew she would do a phononeal job for this cake. We ended up decorating the cake with the same florals we used for the wedding, and it was stunning. The pictures are priceless and the cake was absolutely delicious.
Finally was the photographer. Despite Geri and Luther getting married for the second time later in life, I think it is so important to capture the day and have memories to look back on. Especially having so many close friends and family together, you need to take advantage of that! Through family connections, I know a photographer, Erin Renee Photography, in the Twin Cities that is a good price, beyond friendly, and I knew she would do a great job. Given she is a small business she is flexible with hours and allowed the couple to book her by the hour so they did not need to break the bank having her there the whole day. To make sure we capitalized on the two hours, I coordinated a timeline with the couple to solidify all the pictures they wanted. We made a detailed list of photos they wanted with specific family members and sent that to the photographer the day before. Ideally I wish the couple would have gone outside by the beautiful lake to get more intimate and artistic shots of them, but that was not their priority. They wanted to solely capture the ceremony and get professional photos with their family. I can’t wait to see how they turned out!
In conclusion, this was such a fun experience to be a part of someone’s special day. Many people that evening had so many compliments for me and said, “You could do this for a living!” I know I do not want to be a full time wedding planner, but I think being involved with experiences like this is really beneficial for me personally and professionally. It gave me a huge boost of confidence in myself and my abilities and also made me look forward to planning events in the future for K2!
– Megan Linder, Account Executive, Fundraising & Events