When Kristin & Brandon said that they wanted to do something really different, they had me hook, line and sinker. I LIVE for clients who want to push the envelope. The suggestion of raw cotton sealed the deal for me. All of us have worked in the wedding industry for years and had never seen raw cotton used before. We knew it would be unique, but we had no idea we'd be starting such a trend!

For Kristin's bouquet, I wanted something rustic, funky, and still incredibly happy... to suit Kristin's aesthetic and her personality. I used raw cotton, balsa wood flowers, lily pods, green berzillia berries, silver brunia, eucalyptus pods, astrantia rosea, and lots of dusty miller along with other assorted sticks and pods. I finished the bouquet off with a wrap of burlap and raw cotton puffs adhered with wrapped twine.

The pièce de résistance of the ceremony were the many, many, many feet of raw cotton, strung on monofiliment wire and suspended high along the aisle way. Kristin & Brandon & I came up with this idea during our initial consultation, and it really defined the aesthetic for the rest of the wedding decor. I won't tell you how many hours I spent stringing the cotton... but each piece had to be pierced twice in criss-crossing directions (to actually hold the four "puffs" of cotton onto the pod) and tied off with a double knot to hold it in place. I strung several hundred cotton balls and it took me about three weeks of stringing off-and-on in the studio to get it all done. I also hung strung cotton from the wooden arbor that served as the backdrop for the ceremony.

At the reception (held in the tented backyard of a private residence), I decorated the massive head table with an utterly amazing tablescape. The other guest tables had burlap runners with alternating bud vases filled with different types of flowers and twigs, and mini mason jars with candles. There was seriously something different to look at every where you turned.

Kristin and Brandon, I wish you a lifetime of happiness together.