Wedding Colors: Lilac and Brown

This bridal bouquet is overflowing with fragrance and texture. Ruffly sweet peas and tumbling lilacs, ranging from deep purple to almost pink, suggest romance. Tucked in between are more sweet peas in creamy whites, plus lamb's ear, oregano blossoms, and lisianthus. Two-tone ribbon binds the stems.

To translate this autumnal pairing for a wedding, we embraced its earthy beauty and chose nature-inspired details; here blossoms, leaves, and rustic wood pieces are the mainstays, and the feeling is sophisticated and calm.

1. Feathery calligraphy, Sesame Letterpress.
2. Lilac engraving on cocoa, Mia Carta.
3. Give mothers and bridesmaids personalized notebooks, Carrot and Stick Press.
4. Use chipboard notebooks by Delphine, with ribbon from the Tinsel Trading Company, as favors.
5. Tie scrapbooking tags by Making Memories to favor bags with ribbon from Mokuba New York.
6. Cheery flowers, Hello!Lucky.
7. Egg Press pairs pale blooms with a dark envelope.
8. Letterpress place card, Carrot and Stick Press.
9. Fun note card, Snow & Graham.
10. Use vintage stamps in the palette by Champion Stamp Company (totaling current postage rate) and add rice-paper liners to envelopes (addressed in brown) from Kate's Paperie.
11. Invite with purple buds, Milkfed Press.
12. Slip engraved seating cards, Thornwillow Press into beige envelopes with lilac vellum.
13. Letterpress hydrangea, Cheree Berry Paper. 

All calligraphy by Deborah Delaney.

Paper flowers invite guests to their tables. The leaves show the name and table number in easy-to-read white ink (write information yourself using a gel pen or give finished leaves to a calligrapher). Making the blooms is quick work -- especially if you ask friends to help; the more you fold, the simpler it becomes. At the wedding, set them out on a table draped in linen.

This buttercream cake is elegant enough for any party. Buttercream is versatile and easy to dress up with a romantic dusting of flower petals.

Decorate groomsmen's lapels with fresh and fabric boutonnieres -- tailored to an autumn affair. Pick one design or mix and match. The leaves are made of handsome textiles, including felt, wool-suiting fabric, and corduroy; the patterns mimic the veins of real leaves. Fiddleheads and sprigs of oregano, fresh lilac, rosemary, and grasses lend contrasting color. Make leaves ahead; add flora on the wedding day.

In a table setting that evokes an English garden, roses and flowering oregano in mauve tones contrast with succulents (brown-tinged echeverias and trailing crassula) and curly fiddleheads.

Single echeverias in wooden bowls echo the larger arrangement. Nuts in paper boxes and leaf place cards round it out.

Leaf Place Card How-To

Cut out leaf shapes with a short stem from paper roughly 3-by-4 inches. Pinch the leaf at the base of the stem, making a small pleat (this will make the leaf bend into a cup shape); glue in place with craft glue. Tie ribbon to stem, adding a bead.

These monogrammed groom's cakes are tucked into boxes and bound with bows. Guests can take them home to enjoy or to test tradition: It's said that if an unmarried woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her own wedding.

These escort cards were hand-painted with table numbers and clipped to a ribbon that was wrapped around an oak tree.

These packages are stuffed with lilac and brown candy sticks, taffy, and grape jelly candies and are also packaged with fabrics inspired by our color palette.

These truffles, made from a rich chocolate ganache dusted in cocoa powder and adorned with miniature blooms, are perfect served after dinner or on a dessert buffet. After all, why not let them eat cake and rich confections, too?

Florets burst from place cards, made by gluing card stock over veneer paper. Prop up the cards with a triangle of heavy paper glued underneath, perpendicular to the veneer.