At Forgiven Flower, we mainly preserve florals from weddings. Whether grand, decadent extravaganzas, or small & intimate ceremonies, every bride & groom wishes to cherish & hold onto, not only their flowers, but the memories of that precious day.
Time is priceless and we allow your wedding flowers to be unaffected by time, preserving the beauty, sentiment, and memories of your wedding day, as if no time had passed at all.
Being a bride myself in 2024, I understands the seemingly mad realm called the wedding industry and what it's like to be a bride in this modern world. The new norms, expectations, trends, & traditions is all so overwhelming. After persevering amongst the chaos of wedding planning, I gained a real understanding & empathy for the modern bride and the immense pressure, chaos, stress, & unrealistic expectations that fall onto the dear bride to be.
Blooming out of the chaos however, is a newfound sense of empowerment, independence, freedom, pure authenticity & originality, and a wave of brides braking tradition and doing what's true to them.
If you're currently engaged, or maybe think you have a proposal coming your way, choose to be empowered by this special season of wedding planning instead of allowing the stress take over and make decisions for you! In this social media, online, metaverse, 'all about the content' society, planning a wedding has become 2x more complicated.
You now have to plan a perfect wedding through two lenses: through the "optimizing the in person experience lens", and through the "aesthetic, content creation, picture perfect lens." You have to plan a wedding for the real world and for the online world. This also brings about another struggle of a modern bride, which is trying to genuinely be present and in the moment on your wedding day: not worrying about getting "candid" photos of everything and actually just being "candid", not worrying about everyone else's enjoyment, or if everything's on schedule, or all the million little things that could go awry.
I believe all of this pressure is what's inspired so many bride's to just throw up their hands and just do whatever they want, and whatever would bring them the most joy: casting traditions, norms, opinions, and judgments to the side . From my experience I had gotten a concrete plan of what our wedding was going to be, then realized this wasn't at all what we wanted, why am I putting myself through all of this stress when this isn't even what I want? I thought if I was going to spend this much time, energy, and money, I was going to make sure it was going to be something I genuinely enjoyed.
So last minute, we canceled all of it and planned an intimate micro-wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It was an intimate family affair, with wedding festivities spanning from Thursday to Sunday.
Thursday was a free night for everyone, time for everyone to get settled in, & gave everyone a chance to do any Vegas activity they were looking forward to, separate from the wedding. The boys went out to the Casino's, some went to try out some local cuisine, some went to shows, etc.
Friday morning all the girls went out to get manicures & pedicures, then later that night was our rehearsal dinner. It was held in a private dining area in Mon Ami Gabi, at the Paris hotel & casino. Mon Ami Gabi had the perfect romantic, dimly-lit, intimate atmosphere and the food & service was outstanding.
Saturday morning, we had a bunch of chicfila breakfast carryout that we all shared in our hotel room while we got ready together in our fancy robes. The ceremony was at a classic quickie wedding chapel, It's a Sure Thing Wedding Chapel. It was quick, dirty, kitschy, and adorable. The ceremony & pictures were followed by a lovely gourmet dinner experience in a private dining area at Vetri Cucina, overlooking Vegas for our wedding reception. I can't recommend Vetri Cucina enough, they worked thoroughly with me to create a custom six-course menu and dining experience. I wanted it to be different than a regular family dinner, I wanted a truly unique dining experience. It was fun, delicious, celebratory, brought everyone together, and the private room was surrounded by floor to ceiling windows overlooking Vegas, so there was no need to decorate: the view was more than enough.
From beginning to end, the weekend was memorable, retro, chic, classic, kitschy, intimate, fun, stress-free, and genuine. Very untraditional, but very true to us: which is what I'm finding to be very common among brides to be and I am all here for it. I, like many other modern brides, realized I was in control of making my dream wedding happen, we only get one wedding), let's make it awesome, and fun, and amazing-whatever that means to us. 
I hope all the modern brides out there continue to break the norms around weddings, continue coming up with fun, creative ideas, and be truly authentic and original. Just don't get caught up in boxing yourself in a certain aesthetic, whether it's coastal grandmother, old money, garden party, nautical, cottagecore, or midwest princess, create your own aesthetic, be original, and don't take yourself so serious, it's just your wedding day after all.
Vendors:
Chapel: It's A Sure Thing Wedding Chapel
Florist: Lucid Juliet
Reception Venue: Vetri Cucina
Wedding Dress: Ladies of Lineage
Wedding Stationary: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WolfePaperCo
Photographer: Andi Artigue
Suit Rental: Moon Tuxedo
Rehearsal Dinner: Mon Ami Gabi
Veil: BHLDN Weddings
