Everlasting Flora-an Interview with PaulasPetalPastries

Our Featured artist today is Paula of Paula's Petal Pastries. She creates unique centerpieces, favors and decor for your special day.

1. Where are you located?
St. Peters, MO

2.Tell us a little about yourself.
I am 27 years old and a stay at home mom to my wonderful 2 year old son! I have a great husband and we are a young and happy family J I have a degree in Communications and a Minor in Dance. I love decorating my house, planning parties, organizing playgroup activities, and just recently being a part of esty!

3. What special things do you create for weddings?
I create unique centerpieces, favors, and gifts.

4. Who or what sparked your interest in making wedding-related items?
I made a 3 tier fresh flower cake for my grandmother’s 75^th surprise birthday party and my dad looked at me and said, “You should sell those.” After much research I realized there isn’t anybody out there who specializes in silk floral wedding cakes so………here I am!

5. What is a little known fact, or something unique about your work that is interesting?
All of my cakes are made from floral foam and come to life when I start applying the flowers.

6. If you are married, what’s the one thing you wish you had for your wedding that you didn’t?
Better centerpieces.

7. What is your favorite wedding song?
From This Moment

8. What is your favorite part of the wedding journey?
Shopping for the dress, there isn’t another experience like it!

9. What advice can you share for all the brides getting married this year?
Enjoy yourself because it will go by so fast!

10. What is your perfect honeymoon spot?
Hawaii

11. If you could pick anyone famous that would purchase your items for their wedding, who would they be?
Paula Abdul

12. If you could choose 1 item from your shop that you wish every bride could have, what would it be?
My rhinestone and glitter cake

13. Links where we can find out more about your work:
http://divadea.blogspot.com
www.paulaspetalpastries.etsy.com

Etsy Wedding Scrapbook: Valerie Tyler

Throughout this blog, you will have the opportunity to meet many members of the Etsy Wedding Team who will also share with you some of the photos and details of their own weddings, weddings we have attended, or our" Always a bridesmaid stories" I figured to kick off the series, I'd share with you a few details of my own wedding.

I happen to be a jewelry designer, and a teacher. These two things make me a bit of a micro-manager. So when it came to the details about the role of flowers in my wedding I was really rather anxious.

For starters, I knew I did not want to spend a fortune on floral centerpieces for my tables. I toyed around with the idea of ordering fresh flowers in bulk, but knew there was no way they would ever successfully make it to the tables. The solution came from a lot of brainstorming on my part and the help of my rather artistically created mother. I wanted the centerpieces to be natural, but not particularly fragile or pricey. What we ended up doing was get affordable glass vases. I then used natural bamboo poles, grasses, and money changers (unfortunately I couldn't find enough **real** moneychangers, but they still looked and felt real). We then recycled smaller glass bottles as well and put the bamboo inside the bottles to center them inside the vases and filled the entire vase with glass pebbles to weight it. The bottles were then wrapped inside vellum, and a black ribbon added for flair. I think the total cost per centerpiece came to about less than $10.00 a centerpiece.

Since my wedding, I've noticed different versions of this. I had a friend who took beautiful branches and put them in a vase. She made personalized cards to commemorate occasions and events that she had in common with her wedding guests and typed all the happy memories on artsy cards. She hung the cards from the branches. They were a great way to get to know the other guests, and let each guest know how much the bride and groom cared about their special memories of their times spent with the guests.

I've had also dreamed for ages of doing the old-fashioned toss of the bouquet coming out of church. It had always seemed so elegant and glamorous to me. The whole bouquet toss and accompanying garter dance at the reception just didn't really fit with my personality or my husbands. The solution was that I had a throw away bouquet of simple daisies, tied loose. I walked out, untied the ribbon and tossed the flowers to----the children! It was a delight to watch the flowers scatter through the air and watch the children gleefully catch them all.

Having been married on the Fourth of July weekend however, I think one of my favorite moments was when we all lit sparklers under the tent outside. Cute little tin buckets filled with sand and star cut outs were perfect places to put out the hot sparklers. The grown ups were more hilarious than the children even running around twirling their arms in the air (note: my change of dress for late night dancing too!)