Wedding in the City: Growing Your Own Wedding Flowers - Part 1

Last year, we organized our own wedding. That included growing, begging, and borrowing some of our own wedding flowers. I am considering chronicling what went into our experience in this project. Who's coming along?

There were a handful of reasons why I decided to grow at least some of own wedding flowers: 

1. Our Vision: We envisioned little recycled jars full of lots of cheer-provoking blooms on communal tables. We wanted our wedding to feel very natural, cheerful, and simple. We shared an online board, with my husband adding pictures of mostly herbs and greenery on simple white or cream tablecloths and me contributing backgrounds with poppies and flower crowns.
2. Ethics: The more I read, the less comfortable I felt in contributing to the imported flower industry. Here and here are some starting points. It seemed better if any flowers we used needed to be local and organically grown.
3. Availability: After calling and emailing a few places, it seemed like even the best stocked local flower farms would not have sufficient blooms in time for our wedding. 
4. Feasibility: The literature review and feasibility analysis are very important before determining if and how to embark on a project. I obsessively read books on the topic The library systems and local bookstores were very helpful. Also helpful were academic horticultural publications. Given I use Excel daily for work, I used a similar tool to calculate the number of blooms we needed. From then I briefly calculated resources needed and backwards planned the schedule.
5. Personal interest: This was helpful with the above-mentioned obsessive reading. There is nothing I have ever felt that compares to the joy of the first bit of green coming up from the soil. Then, there is the wonder of the first true leaves emerging above the cotyledons. The miracle of biology in plant form.  
6. Challenge: I had never grown cut flowers before. All other plants were specifically grown for food, cosmetic use, healing, or efficiently purifying the air. I have an aunt who had a garden purely for the pleasure of it. I now wish that I had listened more when we walked around her beautiful tropical garden or rare plants.
7. Bonus: When my cousins and I were children, our grandmother used to only make dessert for us if we planted and harvested the main ingredients. We were in the habit of planting with a purpose. Most of the time, we ate things fresh, right away and we usually made it home, happy, sticky, with pieces of mangoes and cherries in our wild curls, and with no bounty. We would all be placed in a big tub and washed collectively! Lima beans, however, when in season, made it home, and our grandmother would turn them into a glorious dessert, sometimes with dried fruits and tiny cookies on top. 

 
I started planning the flower growing in November, planted the first seeds indoors in December. About this time last year, our indoor jungle was busiest with plantlets.