Ugh...

Yeah, I don’t even have the creative juices left to come up with a snappy title...it’s that bad! You see, I’m up to my eyeballs in rose petals. I've run the numbers like three times trying to figure this out, and I'm just about cross-eyed. This is the vision that I had in my head about how I wanted our aisle decorated:

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I bought the shepherd’s hooks, made the little pomanders, and now I need to figure out the rose petal situation. In all of those tasks, you would think that the rose petal portion of the plan/design would be the simple part, right? Wrong. Or maybe I’m just making it harder than it needs to be...where, oh where did I place my award for being the Least Stressed-Out Bride???

At least I’m honest, and I’m willing to take it away from myself!

Since I might possibly be making this process harder than it needs to be, I’m going to turn to you for help. Please, please pretty please. I’ll even add the sugar on top, if you can give me some advice.

Here’s the dilemma: I want rose petals mixed in these colors: cream/ivory, lavender and eggplant. Typically, you can’t find eggplant-colored roses (they MUST be related to tablecloths MOH!) so I was going to use silk rose petals just for the eggplant ones. Good plan, right? Yeah, well, my venue doesn’t allow silk rose petals.

Hmmm...that could be a tiny problem. I wonder why not? I can only assume that it has to do with real petals being bio-degradable and silk ones essentially being litter on their property. So do I ignore their rules and sneak some in anyway? I’m thinking like 10% of the whole order would be eggplant, just enough to put a touch of eggplant in the mix. And then I could offer the kid (since there are like 50 invited) that picks up the most of the dark purple petals $5. Sound like a fun game during cocktail hour while we’re doing pictures?

But there’s a hitch...there’s always a hitch...I’m not really what you’d call a “rule breaker” kind of girl. I’m more the type that does what she’s supposed to because you might get in trouble if you don’t follow the rules. I like Danny, the manager of Texas Old Town, he’s been nothing but the nicest person to work with and I certainly don’t want to do anything that might upset him.

Regardless of what happens with the eggplant petals, I still need to order the lavender and cream petals. Here’s the question that I post to the blog-o-sphere: would you recommend freeze-dried petals or fresh? I’ve got suppliers with pricing in each category and I just can’t make up my mind.

Freeze dried petals seem easier since they don’t have to be stored in a fridge at a set temperature, and I could go ahead and order them and make up the toss bags. I could do them now, and get that crossed off of my To Do list – doing things ahead of schedule ALWAYS gets my vote!

But I can order SO many more petals if I go the fresh petal route...which is SO tempting! And since we’re mentioning the number of petals, can anyone tell me why there are like 50 different calculators and guidelines for exactly how many petals you need? One site says 4 cups per square foot for moderate coverage, the next site recommends 8 cups for the same space and coverage, and yet another site says you’ll need 2,000 petals – using an entirely different measurement system!

Another factor is that the web sites that I’ve checked out mention that fresh petals are only good for 72 hours...which means that making up those toss bags would be left until Thursday or Friday before the wedding. A time when I don’t want to be making toss bags...and since NONE of my Maids sew...you see where I’m going with this, right?

So there’s my problem laid out for you.

Can anyone help me out a little bit?

Did you use fresh petals or freeze dried? Did you like them or not and why not? Can you tell me how many your ordered and if it was enough? I would LOVE to have some help or ideas on this...