Choosing the flowers for your wedding is one of the most enjoyable parts of planning your wedding… or it should be! The design and attention to detail that goes into creating your dream day is a partnership between you and your wedding florist. But how do you go about building the perfect working partnership?
Don’t Keep Your Wedding Date a Secret
Tell your florist when your wedding is! It may sound like stating the obvious, but the number of enquiries we receive with a long list of requirements but no wedding date would amaze you. Telling a florist what you want is good, but if they don’t know when your wedding is they can’t tell you if they’re available.
Go Prepared
It’s helpful to take along a list of flowers you think you need for the bridal party, together with photos of your venue and prominent areas that you feel require dressing. This initial prep work will help the florist tune-in to your style and vision for your wedding day and will help them to give you a realistic cost estimate.
Decisions, Decisions
If you are booking your wedding florist more than a year in advance, don’t set your ideas in stone. You may have an idea of the flowers and colours you like but then decide to change them, resulting in a lot of extra work for your florist. We generally recommend booking six to nine months in advance.
Socially Acceptable?
Don’t let social media take over your life! It’s a wonderful invention, but websites like Pinterest can become completely addictive and all consuming. We use them as a way of inspiring and presenting our ideas to our clients, but if a client throws too many images into the mix then this can be cause confusion and create unrealistic expectations.
Keep Your Wedding Flowers Seasonal
Choose seasonal flowers and trust your wedding florist to advise you about the best flowers and foliage available when you’re getting married. This is what we do every day, so we know all the tricks of the trade and what’s available at your time of year.
Be Honest About Your Budget
It doesn’t matter what the budget for your flowers is, but be honest with your florist about what you can afford and what your expectations are. You’ll probably never spend as much on flowers again, so of course you want to get it right. My advice is to be as upfront as possible about what you’re happy to spend.
Additional Costs?
Make sure you’re aware of any additional costs. For example, your arrangements may or may not include delivery and vase collection. Ask when you need to confirm your final designs and how and when your florist will expect payment.
Delivery and Storage
Meet with your florist roughly two weeks before your wedding to discuss final details and extras you may have forgotten, such as thank you bouquets. Also find out what will be delivered, where and when. Schedule a convenient time for the bouquets to be delivered to you and for the buttonholes delivered to the best man.
Finally, remember to ask how you should look after your flowers. You may need to store corsages and buttonholes in the fridge, and bouquets may need to stand in water with the stems re-cut just before you leave for the ceremony. Also, don’t forget to dry the stems before leaving so as not to mark your dress.
If you find a wedding florist whose work you love, but more importantly you trust to bring your ideas to life, then you’ll have found a perfect working partnership.
Guest post by Simon Nickell, Victoria Taberer Bond and Gemma Beasley
Images from…
Bride Holding Out Bouquet: Brian Robinson Photography
Table Flowers: Voyteck Photography
Buttonholes: Lee Maxwell Photography
