Congrats on your upcoming wedding. I can't answer all of your questions, but a few thoughts. Moss on top of your containers would be nice, here in the pacific northwest we have a native moss which is green and lush. You can put it on the day of or day before the wedding or put it on when youn plant. Irish moss would be pretty also. I'm not sure you are giving enough info, what sort of plants are you thinking? Annuals, sedums, very small shrubs....you mentioned alpine looking. To me, it makes me think of a bonsai look, a twisted knareled looking bush with leaves on the top. If you are doing annuals, the sky is the limit and your nurseryman would be the place to start. Getting them done now would be best and yes, leave them in an area of good light and some warmth or they will sit and not to a thing. Don't worry if you don't get the bloom you want. You can always buy flowers and attractivly add a blossom here and there. Roses, carnations, orchads, Alstrameria, dasies, are a few that would work well for this. Get a hold of some water picks,usually from a florist, and cut the stem short, put it in these tiny vials of water and push into the soil, attractivly. Another great florist trick is to get some dead twigs, they usually use curly willow, and have an airy artful wisp of that coming up out of the center. You see, do not stress over the planters if they are not perfect, because you can 'kicking it up a notch' when the time comes. You might even be able to puch tapers into them and have a soft glow of light as well. The law of table center pieces is to keep them low enough for conversation to go on over the tops. Canles and twigs don't typically cause a problem with people talking. If I am thinking alpine, I'm looking for 'less is better' Rocks, dead wood, sparse looking plants. Recreate what you see when you are out on your hikes. I hope that helps. Good luck, Smiles, D...

Well, *I* certainly was not going to cry 'Uncle' first, for sure!!! However, ken's energy level was amazing, despite the incredible heat and humidity! Only disappointment was that he didn't have the mud-pit primed for us, by the end of the day! :o)) There WILL BE proof of the visit in the form of pix, but there are SO MANY I need to really take a rainy day to get them ready for 'publication'!!! I warned you--didn't I--that you better have eaten your 'Wheaties' for the tour!

Oh my, Allison I am sorry! I wondered how your DD2 became engaged and married so fast :-( I should have known you would at least have posted a dress issue or something on the conversations board with all that wedding talk! Very sorry for that misunderstanding. But initially the posts that crossed over to houzz were not dated, so I had no idea the thread was four years old. Now I see they are dated, although in the faintest possible ink color. (Houzz must have mostly 20 and 30 something users with better eyesight.) At any rate, the groom may not have been a keeper but the flowers were lovely!

We got two gifts in total. A vacuum cleaner and a pressure cooker. Both most welcome and the pc is still in use. No ’shower’ and only 8 wedding guests. Just parents, siblings and their spouses. DD got married during covid with the permitted 6 guests but a year later we had a party with 100 guests. They requested no gifts, just donations to two charities. The Italian side of the family found this diffcult to grasp and gave a lot of knickknacks they neither want nor need.