It’s two days before the wedding. Flower boxes and debris everywhere. Literal chaos in this lovely Airbnb rented for this destination wedding. This is a secondhand account of how my sister pulled together fresh wedding bouquets and decor for her own wedding. Spoiler: it takes a village.
A few years ago, I was blessed with having Designs With Love create some amazing designs for my own wedding. I’m lucky enough to know Wendy well and working with her on my wedding flowers was a dream. However, being based out of northwest Ohio, referring her to my sister’s destination wedding in Florida, simply was not an option.
There are a lot of reasons you might be tempted to design your own flowers. Cost can be a huge factor but there are other reasons. My sister contacted several florists in the area of her wedding. Not many responded and those who did, weren’t guaranteeing much. Seems there was a flower shortage at the time. Between the difficulty finding a florist and the cost, my sister decided to throw something together with what she could find.
After searching and searching, she finally stumbled upon a wholesaler that would let her purchase even though she doesn’t have a business license. Important to note here: you might not be able to find what you’re looking for at Sam’s Club or Costco and most wholesalers require a business license to purchase. You could run into serious supply issues and not be able to find what you’re looking for. Also, flowers are EXPENSIVE. You can easily spend several hundred dollars and still not get exactly want you want. Fresh. Flowers. Are. Not. Cheap. Silk isn’t much better sometimes. Quality silk is even more expensive than fresh.
With the hurdle of finding a supplier over, all that was left was to place the order the week of (wouldn’t accept orders earlier) and go pick them up when they were ready. Two days before the wedding and a nearly 4-hour drive later, the chaos unfolded in the Airbnb.
We loved staying with the bride and groom and invited ourselves to help with the prep. We realized quickly we would need lots of vases and containers. Sent the hubby out. Comes back with Dollar Tree trash cans and buckets. Okay that’s covered.
It takes hours and hours and if you want your flowers to stay as nice as possible, enduring the AC as cold as you can stand. It took hours just to prep and water all the stems. I didn’t know how to properly care for many of them. It’s a daunting challenge. We let the flowers rest and designing began the next day.
We thought it would be easy -- my sister, my mom and myself. Should be good in a couple of hours, yeah? Nope! Our saving grace came in the form of a wonderful friend of my sisters. She wasn’t in the wedding and had no other obligations. Having owned a bakery, she had experience designing cakes and had worked with flowers before.
I wasn’t able to stay for the whole process. It took all day. My sister didn’t leave her Airbnb the whole day, even missing out on a family event.
In the end, the flowers were beautiful. They turned out so good and I was so happy for my sister. It’s important to note, we didn’t have the tools or the knowledge necessary to keep them looking fantastic. By the end of the wedding, they were looking a little sad, but the pictures had been taken. Preserving them is a whole other thing to consider. They will wilt and fall apart quickly.
Watching and walking alongside my sister as best I could throughout this process, made me so thankful for a wedding designer that cared deeply about making sure my flowers were amazing. You cannot undervalue the expertise and time spent on wedding flowers.
My sister’s wedding had a happy ending, but it could have easily gone sideways really quick. You have to count the cost of the stress and the time spent for yourself. To think they can be thrown together really quickly and still look fantastic, it’s a bit of a fantasy. Happy endings do exist, but I’m forever grateful that I was able to work with a florist and designer and that I really didn’t have to give it another thought. If you can escape the stress and chaos of designing your own flowers, do it!
Written by: Audrey Bladen
Photo Credit: Audrey Bladen
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