Cruise Vow Renewal Flowers

I haven't blogged much about the vow renewal that my husband and I did last fall. We renewed our vows on a cruise ship on our 21st wedding anniversary. Only our little family present. We bought the vow renewal package from the cruiseline. Most cruiselines and many resorts offer them now. If you are unsure check with the wedding department. Our package included a private room on the ship, a huge two layered cake, champagne and cider, commorative glasses, music ( I brought my own CD) and the ships Captain renewed our vows. There were also staff present to cut the cake, serve the drink, play the music and a photographer to take pictures.

The cruise ship offered flowers with the package but I decided to purchase silk flowers ahead of time and brought them with me.  I got these small bouquets from afloral.com and wrapped them with the tuile and ribbon that I bought at the fabric store. I made similar bouquets for my daughters who were the attendants. Their flowers were burgandy and ivory. After we returned home from the cruise, I put the silk flowers in a small vase on the entry table in my living room. I am able to enjoy them daily. 

This was my bouquet. On afloral.com the bunches are described as 9" small ranunculus clutch bouquet in purple, yellow, citrus and tangerine. They are small. You can sort of see them in my hand in the picture but it was a renewal and I didn't need much. They were regularly less than $10 each at afloral.com. I think when I got them they were on sale for even less.

The Captain asked me were I got my flowers. I guess he didn't recognize them as part of the cruise package and he thought they were real and I guess you can't bring real flowers on the boat or take the real flowers off the ship once it's been out of the country. The photographer was asking me where I got them as well.

I bought the marble in the bottom of the vase at Micheal's. I was going to do some sort of sand ceremoney for the family but the heart shaped vase I bought was too big, I couldn't fit it into my suitcase and I already had so much luggage. The colored sand kind of expensive. I wanted a bunch of colors. Anyway...

Below is one of my girls bouquets. This is two bunches of the flowers for one fat bouquet. I bought four total and wrapped them with the same tuile and ribbon. These are also ranunculus flowers. When we returned home, I put the bouquets in a crystal glass on the fireplace mantel. Those small votives next to the flowers were also supposed to be part of the sand ceremony but as I mentioned above I decided not to do that part of the ceremony. The funny part was I forgot all about it at the renewal. My husband was the one who said "See, we didn't even need to do the sand ceremony."

I didn't even know he was paying attention to me when I was talking about doing the sand ceremony and then cancelling it because I couldn't carry the stuff.

This is a close up of the cake topper. There are a few bouquet jewels (fake diamonds) in a few of the roses but I didn't happen to get a picture of them. When I first came home from the renewal, I kept the topper in the box but then I decided to use the flowers. So this center piece is on my kitchen table all the time. I bought the cute shabby chic cupcake stand on eBay and the topper fit perfectly there. It slides around and one day I'll get some of that two sided tape to keep it in place but right now it does what it needs to do.

 My husband and I jumped the broom on our renewal. Of course, I couldn't fit a full size broom or even one with a shorter handle in my suitcase...so when I found this super cute wedding wisk broom I purchased on the spot for $15. It was on etsy.com. It was pre-made and the colors weren't in my color scheme but actually they matched my bouquet (with the purple and yellow). The broom is hanging on the back of the front door. I read somewhere that it is supposed to be good luck.

This picture is some custom floral head pieces with clips. They are basically flowers that the artist glued beads, pearls, shimmer on. They actually are very pretty.  I purchased a whole bunch from a girl on etsy.com. Three burgandy and three beige. The girls each wore one at the renewal and then never bothered with them again. I hung them on the chandelier in my bedroom. There are also some silk flowers clipped onto the light that I purchased other places.

I guess the morale of this story is.. if you want to invest in a few goodies including flowers for your vow renewal go ahead. You will be able to use the silk flowers again as decor around your house. There are tons of places to purchase silk flower bouquets online, so look around and see what you can find. 

I think the vow renewal package was worth ther $395 price tag. If I was to try to put something together at home, I could easily have spent that much or more for room rental and a cake. It was fun. I bought matching dresses for my daughter's at an outlet for $15 each. I found my dress on eBay (brand new with tags) for less than $20. Of course the girls never want to wear their dress again but the fabric is nice and I will either sell on eBay or make something out of them.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my dress but I might have an opportunity to wear it again. I will post pictures of my dress, shoes, and hat later.

Have fun and enjoy you vow renewal.