Today as I was walking my dog Buddy, I passed by the farmer’s market in Copley Plaza. Stand after stand, there were arrays of fresh locally grown produce. The variety of colors was astounding. Time and again, I kept hearing people saying how incredibly beautiful the fruits and vegetables were. I had thought that maybe just because I am always looking at the world through a photographic lens that I was the only one who thought they made for beautiful subject matter, but apparently they really appealed to the general public as well. So after walking the dog (and buying some delicious tomatoes and mozzarella for my lunch), I went home and grabbed my camera. As I was taking shots, I came across Sienna Farms‘ stand. They displayed the produce in beautiful wicker baskets and rustic wooden boxes. Then it hit me, these would be the most perfect affordable and green centerpiece ever. Instead of buying expensive floral centerpieces made up of flowers flown in from all over the world, you could instead have a cornucopia of locally grown organic fruits and vegetables placed in baskets on the center of the tables. The colors of the summer veggies are diverse enough to match just about any wedding color scheme. You can see the variety of colors available just this week at my farmers’ market in the photos below. This isn’t too much of a stretch from a Thanksgiving centerpiece with little pumpkins and squash or an edible arrangement, just instead the fruits and veggies wouldn’t be cut up. Their natural beauty could shine through. The favors could be “green bags” allowing your guests to then take home a selection of the fresh grown produce with them. Anything that doesn’t get taken home could be donated to a local soup kitchen.
You could also get your bouquets from a farmer’s market as well. If you are really adventurous, you could have a bouquet made out of veggies. You could keep them in their natural state, or have radishes carved as roses. If you want to go the more traditional route, the flowers there were fantastic and VERY reasonably priced. You could talk to the stand’s owners a few weeks in advance, or just go out and pick out a few bunches of what they have that day. Have some satin ribbon or lace that coordinates with your color scheme and some pins with pearl ends, and wrap the base of the bouquet, and pin the ribbon in place with about 10 pins. Voila! You will have a beautiful and affordable bouquet.
Photographic Note: these are the TRUE colors of these vegetables. I didn’t up the color saturation or vibrance at all in post production. These fruits and veggies were really that colorful!