Succulents

In keeping with the out-doorsy, natural theme of the wedding, my Mum had the genious idea of making up little succulent pots for guests name places.  Thankfully, she had this brain wave in the very early stages of wedding planning so that gave us 11 months to collect baked bean tins...95 of them!  I roped in relatives to start eating baked beans from the smaller tins and the old ladies at church started collecting them as well.

Mum started collecting lots of varieties of succulents and taking cuttings from them so that they'd multiply.  By July, the conservatory window sill was covered in trays of succulents, ready for planting.  About 3 weeks before the wedding, we painted all the tins, tied rafia around them, filled them with soil and planted the little succulents.  It was tedious and time consuming but this was a repetitive job that mum was actually looking forward to!

On the day, they looked great, all lined up together at the entrance of the marquee.

Everyone took theirs home as a little momento of the day :) Some people thought I chose each succulent to represent them (i.e short and fat, tall and prickly, wide and hairy!) but I can assure you this was not the case!