January blizzards, May flowers?

Yesterday, I worked from home because we had yet another snow storm here in Iowa (and 52 cars in the ditch on my route to work convinced me that was a very smart move). On this cold inhospitable day, my florist or "flower lady," as I like to call her, e-mailed me to shore up the details of our wedding flowers!

So, since I haven't shared these with you yet, let me open with my inspiration photos for our wedding color scheme:

This first picture with the black cocktail dresses and the dark purple tulips. Don't those tulips look so lux?!

And then the combo of purple and white flowers in the second photo has me sold on my second flower color.

Tulips will be the main flower in our wedding, but I love peonies too much to ignore them on my big day. (My sister featured pink and fushia peonies in her wedding and it was gorgeous!) I'm putting my own spin on them and using white peonies to keep in my color scheme. In fact, I'll likely call on my aunts and grandmas gardens to provide some of these beauties.

My bouquet: I want something like this picture only with all purple tulips. I’ve got something in mind for a ribbon on this bouquet. If it doesn’t pan out, a shimmery gold ribbon would be fine.

Bridesmaid bouquets: I’m picturing these with white tulips and purple filler. They can be much less structured than mine (no banana leaves), and the gold ribbon will work with them also.

Altar arrangements: These can be similar to the bridesmaid dresses. I’ll leave the design up to my florist to somehow incorporate all of the wedding flowers from the purple tulips and filler to the white peonies and tulips.

Cake flowers: We’re actually having several round cakes as more of a desert buffet, and a mini two-tier cake for us to cut. The mini-cake will be 8” on the bottom and 6” on the top. I’m picturing purple and white tulips on top and maybe a few blooms on the sides like this picture.

DIY Centerpieces: I’m planning to types of centerpieces to be placed on alternating round tables. Since we last spoke I’ve been busy collecting vintage vases and pedestal candy dishes (see pics).

Centerpiece #1: I’m picturing two purple tulips and one white one in all of my tall arrangements very simply placed in my vases.

Centerpiece #2: My low arrangements are going to be white peony heads floating in the candy dishes. We’ll need about 10 of these as well.

I have 20 vases or candy dishes now and will likely pick up a few more before the wedding, so I don’t think I’ll need to rent any vases.I think this should be simple enough for my wedding party/family to do as long as my flower lady delivers the flowers. Does this seem practical?

I'm very excited about all of this, and can't wait to see it all come together. But I'm trying hard to make it super simple so we can just plunk these down on the tables the morning of the wedding and be golden!