Flowers and FOCCUSing

So thanks again to the two ladies who offered flower advice! It was much appreciated. I googled the recommendations and printed some bouquet pictures out and took them to the florist.

After much discussion and with help from my mom (thanks!!), here are the flowers we decided on: I will have white roses, white irises, med. purple hydrangeas, darker purple freesia and even darker lisianthus (had too look that one up!). The bridesmaids will have white irises, white freesia, mid purple hydrangeas and a slightly darker lisianthus.

I just talked to a friend, though, and now I have another must for the florist: no spray painted flowers. Said friend remarked on how her florist spray painted white hydrangeas (I think that's the right flower) a hot pink shade. She was supposed to have pale pink hydrangeas, which were apparently in season. Now she has hot pink flowers for eternity as her mother saved her bouquet for her. Note to self: NO Spray Painted flowers. Must remember.

The rest of the florist was just figuring out how many corsages and boutonnieres we need - and of course we still don't know.

Our next major hurdle (aside from the save the date cards which I have been procrastinating on) is that on Thursday we meet with a married couple who we have been matched with through church. They will give us some sort of test/survey thing (called FOCCUS) and then we will discuss the results. From what I hear it is more to make sure that the engaged couple has discussed the important stuff, from spending money to raising children etc.

But awhile ago I heard a funny story from a woman in a different married couple who participates in working with engaged couples. Apparently when you take the FOCCUS thing you fill out a Scantron and it gets sent off to be scored and then comes back to the married couple with results of things they should talk to the engaged couple about. Well, this woman said usually it's pretty same old same old, and they chat and everything is fine. But one time, they got a test back from a quiet couple in their late 30s, and the results showed the woman was afraid of her husband's violent behavior and the man said he had homosexual tendencies. This married couple was thinking "how in the world do we address this? This is pretty major stuff." So when the engaged couple showed up, the married couple brought up some of the issues and said the two looked at them in horror and said they never said those things and they weren't true. Turns out the Scantron grader was broken, and their results had been all messed up. I guess that was a relief for all parties involved!

So, me, I'm just hoping we don't have any problems like that!

Anyone have experience with this FOCCUS stuff? Comment away!!