Our Florist's Guide to Wedding Flowers

Welcome to wedding week here at Girl Wonder Life! I’ve got a fun round-up of different posts including tips from the pros to tips from me, the bride, and a whole lot of photos from our big day.

First up, meet Maggie, of Bramble and Bee, and the talented designer behind my dream wedding flowers. I really didn’t know much about flowers when I started the wedding planning process, but Maggie was a dream and understood exactly what I was looking for. Today she’s here to share some bits and pieces from our wedding and a florist’s guide to wedding flowers.

Q: You work on a lot of weddings, what’s your favorite part of the process?

A: There’s a common misconception about what a florist does day to day – I think most people assume that the majority of the job is arranging flowers, but really I would say arranging is probably 30% of it. The rest of the time we are cleaning buckets, processing shipments of flowers to be used (you have do prepare a flower once it comes from the wholesaler before you can even use it in an arrangement!), cleaning and preparing vases, cleaning, counting, and assembling non-floral pieces like lanterns, candles, candelabras, etc, moving all the arrangements from point A to point B, picking all the arrangements up at the end of the night and putting everything away for next time. Arranging is what I fell in love with and I tolerate the rest of it for the time I get to spend designing!

Q: Is it more often that a bride comes to you with an exact vision or the opposite?

A: I would say that the majority of our brides come with an idea of at least color palate and overall vision. Flowers are such a tricky thing to completely pin down early, for example that freak rainstorn in New Zealand 6 weeks ago could have knocked out the crop of eucalyptus we were expecting to have for your wedding in April! So, that bride who is flexible about varieties of flowers will be much happier than one who has her heart set on something in particular. Also, florists are artists in their own rights and a bride who comes in with a few parameters but ultimately leaves the artist to do their thing, is an absolute dream! Odds are your florist has worked in the space before and knows about what varieties of flowers will be available and what crazy cool things can be done with them that haven’t been done before!

Q: What do you like to suggest if a budget is small and oppositely, if the budget is large?

A: For Brides with smaller budgets, a lot of wedding and event florists have minimums that they charge for delivery but often, they’ll have lower minimums or none at all for brides who are willing to pick up their flowers instead of having them delivered. If you’ve fallen in love with a florist’s design style, but your budget doesn’t meet the minimum for delivery, then pick-up is a great compromise! Also consider doing some non-floral centerpieces like candles or lanterns that can be sourced at a lesser price point, to allow more of your flower budget to go toward impactful moments, like ceremony back drop and personal flowers.

For larger budgets, again, my suggestion is to let your florist get carried away with impactful floral moments; think about what’s going to be photographed! Ceremony back drop, maybe a cool hanging piece or installation near the head table, epic personal flowers… With larger budgets, hire a florist whose artistry you trust and let them come up with ideas!

Q: Tell us a little about some of the obstacles you go through as a florist?

A: The biggest obstacle I face as a florist/small business owner is balancing my product (floral designs which are a right brained task) with daily operations of my business (inherently left brained!). I am competent at one OR the other, but rarely can I do both at the same time. It’s hard for me to switch from email/proposal writing/checkbook balancing mode to designer mode quickly and vise versa.

Sourcing the best of the best product can also be challenging! I like to buy flowers direct from the farms that grow them as much as possible but there isn’t one farm that grows all the varieties of flowers I need for one wedding. One farm grows roses, one grows peonies, etc. So for one event I have orders coming from 3-5 different places and hopefully they all get here in time! Plus, working with perishable goods can be tricky. If there’s any hold ups in the shipping, my flowers could spend an extra 24 hours in a hot warehouse somewhere in Alabama and be completely dead by the time I get them! Event floral design is like spinning plates in the circus!

Q: Do you have a favorite that you like to do for weddings overall? Least favorite? (i.e. bouquet, centerpieces, etc.)

A: My absolute favorite thing to make for any wedding, including yours, is the bridal bouquet. It’s the most important part, really. Hands down it’s the most photographed, so as florists we have to be sure it’s the perfect representation of your wedding day! My least favorite thing to make are boutonnieres, haha. They’re too little and time consuming! I have a few wonderful girls on my staff and the first thing I do when training new employees is teach them how to make boutonnieres so I don’t have to!

Q: Of all the pieces you did for my wedding, did you have a favorite?

A: I loved designing your wedding because you wanted whites and neutrals but you were ok with us playing off your accent colors, the dusty blues and beigy/blush. Your arrangements ended up being “neutral” but not stark white; they had lots of depth and demension because of the color scheme! I also loved that we did arrangements entirely of blooming branches (which are only available a few weeks in the spring – so we got really lucky with timing!). I think there’s something so impactful about a vase full of tall blooming branches!

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Hoping you loved Maggie’s insight and tips as much as I did! She was such a pleasure to work with and her firsthand insight into a florist’s guide to wedding flowers is totally helpful for those of you soon to be engaged or engaged ladies planning your wedding. If you’re in the Houston-area, be sure to lookup Maggie and visit her store in Tomball. She regularly does arrangements for different holidays, too!

Are you a bride-to-be or just love looking at weddings? Then be sure to click over to my wedding tab where I’ve got previous wedding posts all in one place!