Oh my gosh. It's truly hard enough to plan a wedding let alone coming up with the perfect garden. YOu do sound a bit overwhelmed and please take things one step at a time. In gardening, everything is doable. It's just the question of timing. Sunflowers are easy to grow which is good.

Go to a garden centre to do a consultation. Take several photos of your yard, take measurements, take cutting out of magazines that represent your ideal wedding garden and go to a reputable garden centre to consult with a 'landscape' designer. Garden centres like Sheridan will charge $100+ for a consult. They will recommend the kinds of plants to use etc.. You can perhaps get ideas on the scope of the job ahead.

For tree planting into heavy clay. Many garden centre will provide the service of digging the hole and setting the tree in place. It's not a job to do as a dIY. It is better in fact for trees to be planted in clay than say very soft ground which causes the trees to be lest secured. Tree VAlley for example will do all these for you. Well worth any possible backaches.

For the sunflower avenue... Have the bride cut out photos of what she wants. And I don't know how cut sunflowers could survive a wilting sun - unless of course they each have those little vials of water attached to them.

To plant an avenue --You will have to choose tall, midlevel and possibly even dwarf sunflowers for a multi-level effect. Seeds are available in hardware places today. You will also have to plant these things in stages so not all will flower at once. Hate to think that after all that work, all the flowers bloomed and looked old by the wedding date. So plant in stages of a week in between so you can continues flowers throughout the season. Also, don't plant all these things directly in the ground. Perhaps this is fine with the smaller plants, but the large kinds are harder to replace if they age too early. Instead, you can fake some areas with potted large sunflowers. In some areas dig trenches and set in potted sunflowers which you will backfill when the time comes. The idea being that if one sunflower dies or looks ugly by the time of the wedding, you can dig it up and exchange it for a new fresher one.

Use only large fiber pots that will decompose. Sunflowers are tap rooted and so these are deep rooted plants. The larger the sunflower the larger & deeper the pots. By the time you put this inground, enlarge the bottom hole so the roots can penetrate outside. Of course you plan to get everything in place by July when the sun is still very forgiving. Make sure you have extra plants in reserve.

For the largest sunflower, there are the branching types which can produce multiple flowers. So you can get away with one plant per pot. For mid level and dwarf forms, you can plant several in a row. One other thing with sunflowers is that you cannot plant large ones tightly near each other because they compete. To create a tight row, you will need to overlap the plants which is the reason why I recommend inserting potted sunflowers.

For my daughters wedding I tried to help the flower arranger by growing lots of annuals and had many perennials blooming at the time in late June. But they weren't needed in the end as the professional arrangements would have looked to "hokey" with my rainbow of garden flowers added.

My advice is to let a landscaper look after the property if there is that much heavy stuff to be done.

The August sunflower theme is timely and to have the wedding path an avenue, blooming with a 'variety' of sunflowers would make any bride happy. Sow seeds of three or four species, looking at the Veseys Internet Site or at your non box store garden centre for seeds. I suggest a few short black eye susans, Rudbeckia, purchased at the garden centre spaced under the sunflowers. Add a chipped wood layer of mulch keeping things somewhat rustic looking.
Perhaps you could dabble and plant in your rock garden small plants that do not grow over 30 cm. Have the landscaper find small rock garden shrubs like Daphne and Junipers to give a permanent look to that area.
Sounds like fun to me! Good Luck!

I, too, would hire a good landscaper. Let them know exactly waht effect you want to achieve, and let them do some sketches or plans for you to approve. They have the knowledge, equipment and manpower (or womanpower) to give you a near-perfect garden in a short time. I would advise getting in touch with some prospective landscapers now before they get busy in the spring. They may actually give you a discount for contacting them now (in the off-season.) With regards to the sunflowers, check with the bride about her colour scheme for the bridesmaids gowns, etc. Make sure she knows what colours you will be using in your sunflower walkway. For example, do you want to use sunflowers with red, burgundy, chocolate brown in them or just the golden yellow ones?

thanks so much for the great responses. The bride was here on Sunday and is thinking of chocolate or other shade of brown for the guys (just vests, not jackets) and maybe brown for her 4 girls. We have 3 little nieces, 2 and nearly 2 years who are going to wear white with sunflower theme (sashes? print) etc so the colour scheme is pretty much open.
re: trenches and pots. I am so excited with this great management tool!!! I went to the local (rural) feed mill and shopped through the early seed selection and they have 8 different types of sunflowers available - all colours/sizes etc. so I think we can get really creative with the "Kong" colossal towering type in the background and move forward and down with the various other types. I like the idea of wood chips to tidy it up.
re:landscaper We had begun with a landscaper (local, well reputed) last fall and took out our walkways and old garden along the garage and across front of house. They have yet to bring the diagrams of plantings though. They got here before the snow and frost and prepared the new walkways and
front planting areas. Will call them and ask for diagrams right away.
Thanks so much for the input. It is really encouraging.

Lovely colour scheme. Re the Kong sunflower - it might be way too tall. I've seen these reach 2 stories and the leaves are huge. There are other tall varieties worth looking into. When plants are too tall, they tend to overwhelm, not to mention, overshadow everything else.

Ianna

I saw the seeds at the feed mill...can anything really grow that tall without flopping on the ground?? We have our sprawling house in the middle of about 3 acres with a row of poplars as snow break, plus a huge line of enormous pines flanking the drive on the other side. Pretty much open so a towering line of giant sunflowers would be strange indeed. I am toying with the idea of interspersing these giants in among the poplar row. I would like a max of 8 foot tall for our "wedding walls".
I had the idea of hanging baskets over the black metal railing of the front porch with green cascading out and either a rambling kind of sunflowerish flower or just cut and add the bloom for the event. We are 150 feet back from the road so anything I do on the porch has to be quite emphatic or it is invisible from the road. Usually I do vivid big blooms with sprays in black urns and hanging baskets but that wouldn't go with the wedding feel.

It's up to you of course. The Kongs grow from 12-14 feet. Flowers are only located at the very top. It's more for show as to how tall this plant can get. From a design point, I feel it's got nothing else to show. This plant won't flop becuase of it's sturdy trunks and very deep roots. Because of it's size, it's not an ideal plant for potting. You will need to plant it in place. In fact, the more I think of it. It's best to plant the taller varieties in place and to have extras of the smaller varieties in fiber pots to use in case needed (to replace a plant or to fill up a space)

The hanging basket ideas on the porch is nice ideas. I always say, mix match. Set up the hanging basket arrangements a couple of days before the event and be prepared with extra plants for replacement purposes.

The smaller dwarf forms of sunflowers like the Pacino and the teddy bears are good for troughs that can be set in the porch. You can mix them in with fuschias. Black urns have a 'formal' feel to it. Sunflowers immediately produce the feel of a country or even a French Country wedding and therefore elegant yet not very formal.

I would recommend that you take some time and visit a website called FLICKR and do a photo searches on sunflower paths, walks, bridal walks, etc.. There will be many examples of sunflower themed weddings from the cake, to the reception table arrangements.