Mother of the Bride, do you and your daughter want to avoid one potential disappointment on wedding day? Make arrangements with your florist to preview the wedding flowers the day before the big event.

You don’t want to arrive at the church just a few hours before the wedding and find that a mistake has been made on the type of flowers requested for the bridal bouquet or that the florist completely missed your vision for the altar flowers. You don’t want to be short on corsages or boutonnieres.

Previewing the flowers may not be convenient on the already-busy decorating day before the wedding, but it’s a safeguard you need to make time for. You may not be able to avoid some things that go wrong on wedding day, but disappointment with the flowers is one thing you can fix before it happens.

I didn’t know to do a preview when Kristin, our first daughter, got married, and she ended up unhappy with her bridal bouquet. She had requested a white rose bouquet with a few little yellow touches in it. But when we got to the church and saw the bouquet, we discovered that the florist had gone overboard with yellow. Kristin was so disappointed. I know now it could have been altered if we’d seen the bouquet the afternoon before.

When planning our second daughter’s wedding, I still didn’t realize that previewing the flowers the day before the wedding was done in the floral business, but Kelli’s florist himself asked that we come by and give final approval, even though some of the flowers might not be finished. This is when you know you’ve got a good florist, MOB. A good florist doesn’t want any misunderstanding. He or she wants everyone happy on wedding day.

So go ahead and add a quick preview of the flowers to your day-before-wedding schedule now, Mother of the Bride. You’ll be glad you did.

*You might also like read Get It In Writing and Three Tips for Working with Your Wedding DJ.

*For info about my book Mother of the Bride and also my Wedding Inspiration cards, check out my Books/My Work page.

*The next issue of Life Notes, my quarterly inspirational newsletter with a giveaway in every regularly scheduled issue, will come out in early November. Sign-up is FREE and to the right! (If you’re on a mobile device, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click View Full Site to find it.)

*Hope this slightly revised post from Feb. 2014 was helpful to you today, MOB!

*Photo by Will Flowers