la france sait tout!

I've been a little (very) hesitant to include actual red poppies in my bouquet, on the tables, etc. Why? Poppies are so fragile! I've been worrying they'll fall apart. But just look at how adorable this french bride is with her red poppies!

C'est si français!!

It's perfect french countryside! What a wonderful way to start your wedding day - picking wildflowers :)

So beautiful! So genuine!

The bride and groom really look so blissful! And why not? They're French! :) Don't you think she has an air of Juliette Binoche in this picture?

The one thing I can't tell is how well her flowers held up over the day. Don't get me wrong - I don't expect my bouquet to be pristine by the end of the night - I'd just prefer for it to hold some of its shape, you know? Not too much to ask for?

So what do you think? Should I go for my inspiration? Should I include real poppies in my bouquet? What's your experience with using wildflowers as wedding flowers?

Oh dear...

When grad students get married, the whole "planning process" is taken to a new level:

I wonder what she coded that in?

PHDComics saw me through many a bored/stressed afternoon at the office in grad school. I hope Jorge Cham continues this story arc for a while! There's so much to deal with planning a wedding, not to mention planning a wedding in grad school. It's not so awful for science majors - they (and I) typically get a stipend just above the poverty line. It's an interesting fine line between crappy food and unwillingness (call it laziness?) to get a job in addition to school. Humanities majors, on the other hand, (from what I know) don't get a stipend. I can't imagine going into major debt for school and even more debt for a wedding all at the same time!! I consider myself very lucky to have gotten a sweet job just as we started planning our own wedding.

I love how PHDComics is so droll with the grad school experience - I'm beginning to see similarities with the WIC (Wedding Industrial Complex) experience! Plus, leave it to a grad student to inject their research into the wed-planning process ;) à la Tajel's MOH.

If you're planning your wedding while you (and maybe your fiancé also!) are in grad school, what are some ways you've found to cope with the stress of the two at once?? As with PHDComics, have you found ways to make light of the situation? (even if at times sardonic - believe me, I understand! ;) )

PS- Click the Emergency Button at PHDComics!! GENIUS!!!

You need to know about this NOW!

You might say I had some pretty severe internal conflict when it came to defining our wedding "colors" or "palette". I didn't want anything too defined! You can't hold me back from pairing green and red and purple! and brown! .... and cream! You could say I'd have benefited from some good idea refining.

Everyone and their momzilla needs to go here right now:

Hey! Not so bad, eh?

Maybe I'm not the most "with-it" fiancéed when it comes to the wedding color palette (because the ring on the fingy must mean I have an honorary arts degree - what? you don't?). Even if you're much more color-confident than myself, I recommend a gander at this crazy flickr widget thing!

I picked colors for my automatic palette generator from inspirational photos like these -

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Did your wedding colors come together naturally? ...easily? What's been your secret weapon for channeling color inspiration into a concrete palette? (have you slipped by without a color palette? lucky! ;) )