Sometimes the Answer Is Right In Your Back Yard!

A friend and I were recently asked to help decorate for a wedding reception of two friends in our church whose children are getting married.  Even though I have a lot going on, I couldn’t pass this up.  This is what I love to do.  I love to transform spaces into magical oasis for big events in people’s lives.

Yesterday my friend and I drove all over St. Louis looking at things to use for the reception.  We went to look at vases for the centerpieces, ribbon, material, and flowers.  We have a tight budget and we are determined to stick to it as best we can.  I love the challenge of limited resources that force you to be creative and work with limits.

We were blessed to find some great deals.  But it’s a wedding, and weddings need flowers, and flowers are not cheap.  We visited a wholesale florist to get some $$ figures on what we would need.  We were encouraged with what we found and came away knowing that the bulk of the budget would go towards flowers.

The brides colors are golds, creams, browns, greys, and hints of red.  With the flower purchase I knew we could get the main flowers, but filler is always the thing that seems to get you in the end.  It can be pricey but is so necessary to complete the whole picture.

As we drove home I was thinking about this and how we were going to make it work.  As we were just about to reach my house a tall grass plant caught my eye.  It was dead, but it was cream.  I literally gasped out loud as if something finally “clicked” in my brain.  Nature had delivered the answer we needed.  All of a sudden instead of seeing dead foliage and weeds I saw a smorgasbord of different plants we could use all in hues of creams, browns, and greys to help round out our decorating needs.  And it was ALL free. 

    {This one is my personal favorite.  I know the pictures aren't the greatest and it all looks like a bunch of brown and tan, but that's exactly what we needed.}

I pulled over and my willing friend traipsed through mud and tall grass clipping things as I pointed to various plants that would work.  We were both elated!! 

I really felt like we had hit the jackpot.  But God was not done delivering the gifts.  As we drove through the neighborhood to see if we could find anything else, we drove by a house that was recently purchased and is having some work done.  In the driveway was a huge dumpster and in the dumpster was a piece that looked similar to a mantel sticking out.  We pulled over to take a look.  It ended up not being a fireplace mantel but a trim most likely from around a window and right beside it were to leaded glass windows.  Mega Jackpot!!!

After talking to the owner, my friend traversed the ledge of the dumpster and we plucked those beauties out.  The window frame wouldn’t fit in my car so my cute friend carried it to our new house.  We aren’t quite sure how we’re going to use them yet, but I’m not worried.  They were free and we have sometime to think about it.

{She really is awesome - and so cute!}

There are so many things I love about yesterday and the lessons it teaches.  We most definitely need to put in our own time and effort to come up with solutions to our problems.  I am a firm believer in God giving us brains so we could use them and not be puppets but I’m also a firm believer that God always wants to help us.  He wants to grant us gifts greater then we could ever imagine, we just need to be open to possibilities that perhaps aren’t always obvious at first.  That’s when our capacities are increased, miracles happen, and our faith grows. 

This reception is going to be stunning!  I can’t wait to see it all come together.  And I will certainly post pictures of everything put together.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Go HERE for a great talk on the power each of us have to make our lives great and use our agency to follow God.