Eat your veggies – and decorate with them too! Veggie decor is a hot trend. It’s  a great alternative to flowers, especially for brides trying to save a few bucks.

Luckily vegetable decor can be just as colorful as flowers so you won’t have to sacrifice on color and vibrancy! These vegetable boxes have a great rustic, farm-fresh feel to them.

What I like most about this veggie buffet table is the details. The artichoke pillars, cabbage bouquets and brussels sprouts runner are such great unexpected details. I would love to see a thick brussels sprout runner down the middle of a farm table. Gorgeous!

I don’t know about you, but when I think about a “veggie bouquet” I envision a bunch of carrots (literally), not the most sophisticated image. Thankfully, brides today are much more imaginative than that and are great as making fusion creations. Some bouquets simply incorporate vegetables like this hydrangea and artichoke bouquet as well as the kale and artichoke bouquet.

A bride can also totally surprise you and create something you never would have imagined before; like a bouquet that features heirloom carrots, purple kale and asparagus among its greenery and flowers.

Veggies can also be doubly efficient by being used as both the centerpiece and your candles. Here these veggies have been carved or wrapped around to house candles.

You could even continue the veggie theme through to your paper products, using radicchio to make a gorgeously designed stamp for your menu, invites, or thank you cards!

Photo One: youaremyfave.com; Photo Two: marthastewart.com; Photo Three: forgetmeknotweddingsblog.com; Photos Four and Five: pawleysislandposh.blogspot.com; Photo Six: whitelilacinc.blogspot.com; Photo Seven: greenweddingshoes.com; Photo Eight: greenweddingshoes.com; Photo Nine: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com; Photo Ten: yesbride.com; Photo Eleven: marthastewart.com

Rebekah is a DIY obsessed, wedding and event design wizard who loves hunting her bay area      homeland for clever craft ideas, vintage gems, bargain buys, new pieces for her vintage rental line    and blogging inspiration. She and her husband live and  write in Oakland. Read her blog.

Hydrangeas have seen a huge boost in popularity.

For weddings, they’re styled in one color or mixed with other lush colors to show their true beauty and simplicity.

I’ll start with the most dreamy use of hydrangeas. This swoon-worthy runner was made using all green hydrangeas and is so incredibly beautiful I can barely stand it!

While the runner is rather grand, even the most simple use of a hydrangea cut short and placed in a vintage tea cup can have an impact that most single stems of a bloom couldn’t achieve. Here’s another example where a simple vessel and just a few stems can be just as good (if not better) than a packed centerpiece.

Being the versatile flowers that they are, hydrangeas also look beautiful when bunched tightly together.

Bouquets made up of hydrangeas are of course a favorite as well! If you’re wedding day is going to be hot though, make sure to keep them in water as much as you can to avoid wilting. These bouquets have a fresh and simple look that would be perfect for an outdoor wedding. Check out the DIY tutorial for how to make a bouquet like the pink one!

Hydrangea inspiration isn’t limited to just the fresh cut variety. Here is a simple, yet gorgeous rose and hydrangea inspired cake as well as pretty hydrangea cupcakes!

These hydrangea inspired invites are gorgeous as well.

Here’s a cute hydrangea inspired DIY pomander too! Learn how to make this hydrangea pomander.

If seeing all of these gorgeous flowers has inspired you there’s a few things you should know: they’re in season in the summer, so if you’re getting them at another time know that the price may be inflated with the quality and size decreased.

Heat or lack of water can make them wilt or appear “droopy.” The white varieties can also show bruising more easily. Have no fear though, as long as you’re styling these flowers in water or wet floral foam them should do fine!

If your wedding is going to be on a very hot day and the flowers won’t have relief from it, you may want to think of another variety of flower. If using the hydrangeas in your bouquet, that’s okay too, just make sure to be storing them in water whenever you’re not using them (for photos or during the ceremony).

Prices for hydrangeas range roughly from $3.00-$7.00 per stem depending on how many you’re ordering and from which time of year. Thankfully these beautiful blooms are all over the world and grow in many people’s gardens; you may be able to get enough for your bridal parties’ bouquets just from a friend or neighbor!

Photo One: simplesong.typepad.com; Photo Two: dreamywhites.blogspot.com; Photo Three: stylemepretty.com; Photo Four: valdirose.blogspot.com; Photo Five: stylemepretty.com; Photo Six: projectwedding.com; Photo Seven: watters.com; Photo Eight: iammommy.typepad.com; Photo Nine: glorioustreats.blogspot.com; Photo Ten: momentaldesigns.com; Photo Eleven: intimateweddings.com

Rebekah is a DIY obsessed, wedding and event styling wizard who loves hunting her bay area    homeland for clever craft ideas, vintage gems, bargain buys, new pieces for her vintage rental line  and blogging inspiration. She and her husband live and write in Oakland. Read her blog.

Want to learn how to make awful fortune cookies? Read on!

I just made my first batch of DIY fortune cookies and couldn’t wait to share the results with you. I think they turned out great for a first attempt, at least in looks!

But they taste horrible!

Sometimes this DIY wedding stuff just doesn’t turn out. I spent more than an hour on these little demons and then another hour+ writing up this tutorial, but the next morning after I tasted them, I was horrified. They have the consistency of shoe leather.

Since you can only make three of these at a time, you’d need a ton of patience to make these as favors even if they had turned out.

The lesson here: some things are best not DIYed! You’d be much better off buying custom fortune cookies and using your creative skills elsewhere.

How (Not) to Make Fortune Cookies (Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

1 egg white

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup white sugar

1.5 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Write fortunes/favorite quotes or print them out on your computer. Strips should be 4 inches long and approximately 1/2 inch wide.

Mix egg white and vanilla until foamy but not stiff.

Sift flour, salt and sugar and blend into egg white mixture. Add water and stir.

Place Silpat on baking sheet. If you do not have Silpat, generously grease cookie sheet. Place teaspoonfuls of the batter onto Silpat or baking sheet.

Use the back of a spoon to move the batter around so that if forms a circle that is about three inches in diameter. Make three circles.

Bake for 9-10 minutes.

Remove from oven and quickly remove a cookie with a spatula (I used a metal barbecue spatula) from the sheet and onto a wooden board.

Quickly place the fortune/quote on the cookie close to the middle.

Fold the cookie in half. Place the folded edge on the rim of a cup and pull the pointed edges down, one on the inside of the cup and one on the outside.

Place the folded cookies into the cups of a muffin tin to hold their shape until firm.

Voila! Some of your edges might get a wee bit cracked, so if you’re going for perfection you might opt for the store-bought type.

If you’re out junkin’ and you happen to find some antique oil lamps, you might want to consider picking them up. They make for excellent vintage wedding centerpieces. They look especially awesome grouped together. You can find oil for the lamps at hardware stores.

Photos: Karin Lidbeck

Being a vintage junkie I couldn’t be more happy that vintage inspirations in wedding and event design seem to be here to stay! One of the more recent vintage elements that can be seen throughout weddings today are vintage furniture pieces. While some people may be collectors or have pieces that they can borrow from a friend or family member, others may see a small desk that features favors or a rustic farm table for a dessert buffet or a fun vintage sofa perfect for their pictures that they dream of creating but don’t know how to go about finding these key pieces.

Thanks to this trend, vintage rental companies are starting to pop up to meet the demand of brides wanting one of a kind pieces and props that will add unique interest to their big day. I recently started my own vintage furniture and farm table business based out of Oregon. My business was inspired by how I felt when my husband and I were planning our Golden Era wedding. There were so many pieces that I wanted for our wedding decor, but it simply wasn’t in the budget to buy these furniture pieces when I would only be needing them for one day.

Vintage furniture rental companies offer options that the regular event rental companies don’t. Whether it’s a velvet couch perfect for photo ops before the wedding, a lounge area for guests, a photo wall, or the perfect dessert table, vintage furniture can really help to showcase a couple’s style.

Simply having the option of using rustic farm tables rather than fold-up tables that you would normally rent offers much more of a natural and intimate feel. The best part of all is that you don’t have to invest in scouting out and purchasing antique and vintage furniture pieces, you can just rent them for the day!

All furniture from A & B Creative rental line and all photography by Tara Leigh.

Rebekah is a DIY obsessed, wedding and event design wizard who loves hunting her bay area homeland for clever craft ideas, vintage gems, bargain buys, new pieces for her vintage rental line and blogging inspiration. She and her husband live and write in Oakland. Read her blog.