Landscaping our Wedding

Today I decided to lay the smack down on our front yard.  Last year, as a wedding gift to Clay and I, my mom landscaped our front yard while we were on our honeymoon.  For an entire week in 103 degree weather she slaved away at our untouched/weedy yard.  Her work deserved the mother of the year award for sure!  When we got home, everything was done except for a small section on the side which is what I (almost) completed today.  Now, I know absolutely nothing about landscaping, but my mother, on the other hand, could go semi pro.  I have personally always felt it was her calling in life.  Joanna (who commented on my blog yesterday) once said that she thought my moms yard was the prettiest in the whole neighborhood.  Thank you Joanna, I think it was Colleen who told me that, but it was once of the nicest things I've ever heard and your compliment has always stuck with me.  I know my mom was really happy when I told her too.
So anyway, here is my almost completed project.  This took me ALL day and moving rock is so incredibly hard.  I can't wait to show you the backyard that I *think* I'm going to tackle this summer.  Bahahahah

B/c everything I do I try to do with a budget in mind...the grasses are split from my grandma's house (free), bricks & pavers are relocated from our backyard.  The only thing I paid for was the rock and small tree.

In addition to our savings here, I wanted to share what we did to cut costs landscaping our wedding.  You read that right :).  Let me explain.  When we were planning our wedding last year I was trying to come up with ways to do it economically and pretty.  This meant your typical floral centerpieces were out b/c they cost a ton of money.  I just couldn't rationalize spending that much money on flowers that would just get thrown away the following day.  The other part of this thrifty dilemma was that we desperately needed to landscape our front yard which would mean more money.  Solution to our problem:   I used every plant that we were going to landscape with as a centerpiece at our wedding reception.

Now, like everything I do this was slightly complicated.  Our wedding was in July, so to make this work we had to do several things.

• 1. The first thing needed was to ensure the survival of the plants.  How were we going to keep the plants alive until July?  Answer:  we asked the owner of our favorite nursery for a huge favor - to hold our plants until a few days before the wedding- to our surprise, he said yes!  This was huge b/c there was NO WAY we were going to keep the plants looking good in the dead of summer without his help.  We picked all of the plants out in May and the nursery held them for us until July.  Amazing!
• 2.  How to make them pretty enough for centerpieces?  We chose to wrap the bases in burlap = economic, earthy, and pretty.  I love burlap!  We put a layer of wax paper under the burlap to keep them from leaking or dirt falling onto the reception tables.  Perfect!
• The table number holders are bamboo shoots which my florist provided for free b/c she had them leftover from another event (score) and the table numbers I made DIY style.  
• The plants needed to be small enough for tables, but with the yard in mind.  We ended up buying hostas, a variety of grasses, corabells, and a variety of small bushes.
• The BEST part--2 needs for the price of one and a daily reminder of our special day right outside of front door!

Here are a few pictures that helped inspire me for this centerpiece project.

Afterwards I had a little photoshoot with the babes.  I've been begging my husband for a family photoshoot while these beautiful trees are still in bloom, but so far that has not happened.  Maybe this weekend we'll get gussied up and I'll get my pictures.  Here's hoping!

I could only get him to stop playing with his frisbee long enough to take one picture and to be honest, I love it the most.  That's my boy...always happy and playing.