alternative to bridesmaids flowers?

[Mrs.Levitt]

Is anyone doing something other that a bouquet of flowers for their bridesmaids to carry. I was trying to do my own flowers and loved them until today. I was going to finish them up today and I just hate them. Practically in tears I dislike them so much. I bought them on clearence about 2 months ago and now they just look different to me. I dunno, myabe I'm just having a bad day.

Anyways just wondering what alternatives anyone has done or is doing. Pictures would be fabulous!

Thanks ladies

[clairon13]

i'm a fan of doing unconventional or unexpected things, and from the get-go, i wanted to do something alternative to BM flowers. i had originally intended for there to be more of a "theme" (think spanish/fiesta), i nixed that decision, but kept the spanish-style fans for my BM's. i had originally wanted to have something that looked like this: http://www.spanishfans.com/, but those were all to expensive, or shipping would've taken too long. when i was about to despair (my back-up plan was to go to a grocery florist and buy red roses that my BMs could carry hand-tied), my MIL found some fans at a world market type place, and they were hideous yellow w/ birds and flowers and pagodas on them--none of them matchted, but we took off the yellow, bought red fabric, cut the fabric to match, and reglued the red onto the wooden spokes. voila:

anyway, that was our alternative.... i loved the way they looked in the pics.

[ljeagle]

I don't have a picture of the final thing but I had a friend take these and put a candle ring around them with some string of ribbon. Leave out the holder they was really nice!

[birdie]

I think the idea of parasols for the BMs is really cute. I'm thinking about it but not sure how it would tie into the theme of my wedding, whatever that is.