I met up with Kara and her girls, Emily and Maya, in Pittsfield last night to work out flower girl dresses. The girls are 6 and absolutely adorable.

Kara’s mom is making their dresses, so we headed over to Jo-Ann Fabrics to pick out a pattern and material.

Here’s the dress we picked:

But it will be in ivory with a similar green sash. We’re undecided on the flower.

The girls also said they wanted to throw petals, so I’m going to get some of those fabric petals from Michaels (probably in green, since the church has a maroon carpet) and Kara said she has baskets. So we’re pretty much set.

It was so much fun to hang out with them. They’re getting so big! I bought them each one of those stuffed Audubon birds, you know, the ones that sound their call when you squeeze them.

Kara said she can’t wait until I have kids and she can buy them annoying toys.

I have at least three posts in my head, but time has been short lately.

The most pertinent to the purpose of this site is that we have figured out the flowers. (Really, I have figured out the flowers; James declined my invitation to the florist.)

My intrepid maid of honor, Heather, and I headed over to Country Gardeners in Millerton to see what they had to offer.

I have to admit, I’ve been procrastinating this task. I know so little about flowers, except that they are pretty and expensive. Pretty expensive. And knowing how much Sharon just spent on flowers, I was dreading this whole experience.

But Joanne, the owner, was wonderful. Down-to-earth and low pressure. We’re paying for the flowers a la carte; no packages, no minimum amount to spend. The initial estimate we worked up came to only about $500. I was so psyched.

I’m going to attempt to describe the floral scheme, but as my floral vocabulary is lacking, please bear with me.

I used silk green and white hydrangeas and green, white and orange gerbera daisies for the pew decorations. With copper ribbon.

I like hydrangeas, but they aren’t essential. Just using what she had in the cooler, Joanne came up with a gorgeous bouquet of white stalk (?), supra green roses, hypericum berries and orange gerberas. And she’s going to wrap the stems in copper and loop some copper wire over the top.

Other bouquets and arrangements will be a variation on that theme. I talked to Mom, and she liked the little bouquet that my aunt had at Sharon’s wedding, so we’ll probably do something like that for the mothers. And all the guys are getting boutonnieres of hypericum berries. James can have a flower with his, too. Whatever he wants.

For centerpieces, I’m doing fishbowls with colored stones and floating candles. I want to float a gerbera head in there, too. Since we’ll only have 10 to 12 tables, I’ll probably get those flowers through Country Gardeners, too.

I called to say we’re definitely going to use them; now I just have to drop off a check.

My countdown orb tells me it’s six months and one day to the wedding. And, for a change, I’m not going to freak out about how close it is. Honestly, I wish it would get here faster.

We’re in really good shape. All the major stuff is done and a bunch of people have booked rooms. I was stressing out about people not booking before the block is opened up, but many people have told me it’s not my problem. I have done everything I can do to get them to book rooms, and now if they have to pay more or stay at another hotel, well, there’s nothing I can do about it. It feels good to let go of that stress.

The only major thing left to decide on is flowers. I was thinking of talking to florists around now, but the idea of putting down another deposit is terrifying. My credit cards are a nightmare and I just don’t want to deal with another expense right now.

James is really set on using a local florist, but I think I’m going to order at least the flowers for the centerpieces from someplace online. I just want some gerbera daisies, and I’m going to cut all the stems off anyway and float the heads in water. Not like I need to pay a florist to do that.

In other wedding news, Sharon’s wedding is fast approaching. We had her bachelorette party last weekend, I have my dress alteration appointment on Friday, next weekend we’re putting together favors, then it’s Easter, then it’s the wedding! I’m really looking forward to it.

I cut up some more magazines tonight because I hadn’t played with my wedding book in a while.

I added an invitations page with a couple of ideas on it. I tried to print out some flowers and a cake that I really like, but the printer is dying, just about out of ink.

James picked out a few boutineers that he liked. I love when he gets involved in stuff. He also saw some flowers that I was cutting out and said he really liked those, too. I don’t have the names of them right in front of me, but they’re something a little bit different from the usual roses.

But, of course, it wasn’t as easy as just picking out some stuff that he liked. He asked me what I thought of his choices. And I said, “It’s up to you. You’re the one who will be wearing it.”

I thought I was doing the right thing, the thing he has asked me to do: Let him have an opinion. But he thinks that I’m not helping him. He says he doesn’t know anything about this stuff and that he values my opinion.

I don’t know how to balance keeping him involved and letting him make choices with giving my opinion and help when he needs it. His reactions confuse me. He wants to have a say, but he wants my input.

We decided to set aside some time each week, probably Sunday nights, to just talk about wedding stuff. Hopefully that will help to resolve this issue. I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope.