My little sister’s best friend from childhood got married last Saturday in Talkeetna, Alaska. Talkeetna is considered “the country” of south central Alaska. They have a bluegrass festival each year. People have cabins and fish in the Susitna River. As my dad describes it, “It’s a funky hippy town.”

It was a last-minute wedding and the bride asked me last minute to do the flowers on the cheap. That’s my specialty, so it was my pleasure to see what I could whip up. Her colors were blue so I decided on orange and white for the floral arrangements.

 But before I made it to the floral shop I decided to stick to the bride’s Alaska roots and gather the flora and fauna of our childhood neighborhood. I decided on wild yarrow for arrangement filler. Alder and birch sprigs and wild ferns were the greens. The mountain ash is setting into fall mode with clusters of bright red berries.

The biggest treat was the pink yarrow that has grown in the same spot every year across the street from my parents’ house. Nowhere else have I seen wild pink yarrow and it was perfect for the bridesmaids’ bouquets and mother corsages.

I snagged wild forget-me-nots from my parents’ back yard and little sprigs of plants I don’t know the name of from around the street we grew up on.

The biggest benefit to using wildflowers? Free! I saved the bride a lot of money by using plants in our back yard.

At the flower shop there weren’t many stunning blue flowers that were sturdy and affordable, so I decided on orange and white carnations with orange roses. Orange is complementary to blue so it’s really a great combination. An unusual combo is orange and pink, but I really love them together in the bridal arrangements.

For $90 I got 26 roses, 60 carnations, a bunch of spray roses (the mini ones), and a bag of flower petals for the flower girl. Keep in mind we live in Alaska so prices are higher.