I’ve never been so excited about mailing a deposit check. As of today, we have a florist — at long last!

On Friday, I met with Kim at Geranium Lake Flowers in Portland. I was so impressed with her. For starters, she is super efficient and organized. She has a multi-page form that she fills out while you talk, and she actually gives you prices as you go along! Having waited weeks (err, months, in some cases… in other cases, five months and still counting) for bids, that instantly won my affection.

Geranium Lake is big on sustainability and supporting local growers, both of which are important to me. They let you come down to the shop a few weeks before your event to check out their current flower stock and see if there’s anything you might be interested in that wasn’t on your original flower wishlist.

And she really got me. As we were wrapping up, she flipped to the front of the proposal and wrote “lush, romantic” on the cover. I could’ve hugged her. I hadn’t used either of those words when I was going on and on and showing her photo after photo, so her read on my vision really knocked my socks off.

Did I mention that she did Amber’s flowers? Amber is a friend of a friend who lives a block up the street from me, and when she got married last year, she had the most personality-filled black tie wedding I’ve ever seen. Case in point:

How could you not love the florist who did that?

So now, looking at my flower inspiration photos doesn’t make me start hyperventilating.

Speaking of which, I talked about flowers for the reception tables a couple of weeks ago, but I skipped over the held flowers. The three inspiration photos for my bouquet are from Martha. The first one sets the overall tone and color scheme and includes many of the flowers I’m hoping to use — garden roses, tweedia, lisianthus, and ranunculus. And the shape is absolutely perfect… Not too round, not too flat or cascading. Enough definition to be modern, but enough soft movement to suit my romantic sensibilities.

But there aren’t any peonies in there, and we can’t have that. Plus there will be some soft pink in my bouquet — not too much, just a touch. Hopefully the pink will come from my beloved Sarah Bernhardt peonies. I’m in love with the ribbon here, but the jury’s out on whether or not that would detract from my dress.

And we can’t forget about the lily of the valley, a.k.a. my all-time favorite flower.

My beautiful bridesmaids will carry peony bouquets (or, if peonies don’t come through in April next year, garden roses).

I don’t have a good inspiration photo for the boutonnieres, but they will be very simple — a single lamb’s ear leaf with a spring of lily of the valley. The corsages will be DIY (hopefully), so we’ll see how those turn out.

The florist was the last big vendor to get on the books — hooray! Next up: sending the save-the-dates.

Snippet & Ink featured some fantastic DIY projects by Paul Lowe, and I’m enamored. How lovely are these votives?

The wedding planning has been on hold these last few weeks as I packed, moved back to Oregon, unpacked, helped with Rebecca’s nuptials, and attended my engagement party. But peonies can always get me back on track.

“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.” —1st Corinthians 13 (JB Phillips New Testament)

I’ve been sitting with my summer 2008 Martha Stewart Weddings for a couple of weeks, and there really are some fabulous finds in there. I must admit I was slightly irritated that one article is talking about being a bride on a budget (aside: anyone else notice the expanded DIY section?) and a few pages later, they’re talking about giving iPods as attendant gifts. (I love my girls, but how does $1,500 for gifts fit into a smaller budget?) But once I got past that, I found some fun music suggestions and downloadable templates. Oh, and the cuff links… Definitely one of the highlights, great variety.

My official inspiration board… This was actually a bit of a struggle, since so many of my inspiration images are not in my colors. Once I started to approach this as less literal representation of the feelings I want to evoke and the general design elements I want to use — modern elegance, soft light, hints of glamour — it all came together.