I Love Me Some Talavera

I've mentioned my obsession with Mexican talavera before, but I haven't shared the origins of this obsession. While visiting the beautiful state of Guanajuato just after getting engaged, Mr. Tortolito and I spent a couple days in the city of Dolores Hidalgo - a city famous for its pottery. I fell in love with the city as we walked through the streets lined with stores selling hand made talavera goods.


Even though we hadn't started planning any wedding details, I knew that I wanted to incorporate Mexican talavera somehow.

Several months later when we began to finalize a theme and feel for our wedding, talavera was still on my mind. While flipping through a wedding magazine, I came across the perfect inspiration:

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Forget the flowers, how gorg is that vase? This was it. We were going to use talavera centerpieces. Nevermind the fact that Dolores Hidalgo is a few thousand miles away from Los Angeles. These were our centerpieces. We knew it.

Fast forward another couple months and here we were brainstorming on how to get 20+ vases from Dolores Hidalgo to LA before November. Should we find contacts for stores in the city, place an order for vases, and have them shipped? Nah. Shipping would be too expensive. Should we make a weekend trip to Mexico, buy whatever vases are in stock and bring them back with us? Also too expensive, and how in the world would we carry them on the plane with us?

THEN, the perfect opportunity came up. Mr. Tortolito's dad had a friend who was visiting family in Mexico for a few months. The friend would be driving back to LA soon, and we were told he had space in his truck if we need him to bring us some goods. Through a very fortunate turn of event, perfect timing, and very helpful family members, we were able to get talavera vases delivered to us. We are very appreciative of Mr. Tortolito's uncle who made a couple trips to Dolores Hidalgo to custom order talavera vases and pick them up. He then took the boxes of vases to the friend who offered to drive them back to the U.S. I didn't think everything would work out so well until the night when Mr. Tortolito's dad's friend showed up at Mr. Tortolito's house to drop off six heavy boxes containing our centerpieces.

I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was when we opened the boxes to find these:


Compare to our inspiration above:

Loves! I can't wait to start doing flower trials with them. I'm trying to figure out a way to create simple flower arrangements as I'm certainly not going to make something as elaborate as those from our inspiration example. Am I crazy for wanting to make my own centerpiece arrangements? Perhaps...

I often find myself surprised and humbled by the support that others offer to make their loved ones' wedding just that much more special. What acts of kindness have you experienced during your wedding planning process?