Wait, I’ve Never
Done This
Before
I knew from the very beginning that our wedding flowers were going to be really important to me. Basically, I wanted flowers everywhere. I also knew I wanted a very specific look to how they were arranged. The look I was going for was a little bit more whimsical & carefree. Like I just picked these up in the garden on my way over here. That effortlessly beautiful look. As I was doing my research on florists, I found that the look I was going for seemed to be the most expensive. It seemed that no one out there wanted to make my floral dreams come true at a price I could afford. So I had this crazy idea…I could do them myself!
See the thing is, I had never done this before, except when arranging flowers brought home from the grocery store, but something inside me told me I could totally do this. Not to say I wasn’t completely nervous about doing it well, but I was determined to learn as much as I could to become my own florist in a matter of months.
The Trial
I knew the only way I could officially say I was doing my own florals was to first have a trial. Back in late January, I ordered a round of flowers to be delivered to my house for a trial run. We ended up getting our flowers from Fifty Flowers & I highly recommend using this company. Their flowers are just gorgeous & their customer service is outstanding.
Having these flowers delivered to my house was so much fun. They smelled heavenly & looked like an absolute dream. Now it was time to get to work. I had one of my bridesmaids, Eri, come over so we could figure this thing out together.
Surprisingly, they turned out really well! I honestly think that if you have the right variety of flowers to choose from, it’s hard to go wrong. We ended up doing a trial of my bouquet, a bridesmaid bouquet, & a boutonniere. The hardest part was actually the boutonniere, even though that’s what I thought would be the easiest. I later found out that there is actually a pretty fool-proof way of doing it, but I was just trying to freestyle it. I should have done my research before the trial, but I did it after, & they were a piece of cake for the wedding.
Bouquets
Putting together a bouquet felt a whole lot like putting together an outfit. It’s all about knowing the shape or silhouette you want & making sure to add enough detail or accessory blooms to really make the look pop. I started figuring this out when searching for inspiration on Pinterest. Even though none of these look like my actual bouquet, here are a couple of photos I looked to for inspiration regarding shape, detail, & color. 1 / 2 / 3
First, I started with 3 stems of my statement flower. These big gorgeous roses gave me a similar feel to peonies even though those were out of season at the time of our wedding. I held the stems almost like an upside down teepee so that there was some space between each bloom making a triangle shape when looking from above. Then I did my first round of greenery, but since I had so many stunning flowers, I ended up using less greenery than I thought I would. Next came the fun part. I began filling up the open spaces of the bouquet with my accessory blooms & snap dragons which I used to add a bit more whimsy. The bouquets I wanted was very full, but with a feeling of holding fresh picked wild flowers, in the most elegant way possible, of course!
I think the most important thing to remember when choosing what florals to order is the variety in size. Having many shapes & sizes of flowers adds so much dimension to a bouquet. It’s a no brainer that I loved those giant roses, but have them in contrast to the different kinds of greenery as well as the smaller, more filler flowers, really is what made my bouquet as special as it was.
Arbor Decor
Dressing the arbors for both our ceremony & on the dock was no small task. I decided to use a combination of silk & fresh blooms which ended up being a lifesaver in the end. A little over a week before the actual wedding I built the bones for the two arbor dressings. I decided to attach my base to a wooden plank which we could then easily mount onto the actual arbor the day before the wedding. Then, I added my silk flowers scattered along the board to begin filling the middle & have some overflowing on the edges & sides. Since I was attaching everything to a wood plank, it was so easy to just use a staple gun to secure the stems into place. All of the staples would be covered in the end because of how full I wanted it to look.
As I mentioned before, we mounted the bones on the arbor the day before the wedding, leaving the fresh flowers to be added on the day of the wedding. On that morning, I stood on a ladder while grabbing flower after flower & plenty of greenery to add to the arbor. I thought I would use wire to attach them, but the staple gun was the easiest & fastest way to get the job done. It looked so good in the end! (If I do say so myself.)
So maybe I didn’t do it the “correct” way, but it totally worked! Staple gun hack for the win!
My Exact Order
It’s hard to know what flowers to choose & then what quantity will be best. Therefore I thought I’d share with you my exact order to give you an idea of what went into our wedding florals.
WHIPPED FROSTING SWEETHEART GARDEN ROSE – 36 roses
GARDEN ROSE CREAMY WHITE BLUSH – 72 roses
VANILLA ICE CREAM SPRAY ROSE – 8 bunches
SNAPDRAGON WHITE FLOWER – 100 stems
IVORY WHITE WEDDING ASTRANTIA – 40 stems
WHITE TWEEDIA – 10 bunches
TISSUE CULTURE STATICE WHITE FLOWER – 10 bunches
BABY EUCALYPTUS GREENERY – 30 bunches
CHOOSE YOUR OWN EUCALYPTUS GREENERY PACK – 20 bunches
(Willow Fresh Eucalyptus Greenery, Seeded Eucalyptus Greens, Baby Eucalyptus Greenery x2)
Choosing Fifty Flowers was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. Not only did we save SO much money, but using their site was so easy. There is no stress about them being delivered at the perfect time for your event, because they tell you exactly how many days before your event you should have them delivered for them to be at their peak bloom. They texted me when each kind of flower had shipped & when they were being delivered & were so helpful with any questions or concerns we had. It was so cool to see where our flowers were being shipped from, too! Some were coming up from Central America! I mean they were just perfect.
(This is totally not sponsored, I’m just genuinely so impressed with this business. I know I will be using them again in the future.)
Flower Care
As soon as the flowers arrived, we filled 12 buckets with about 4-6 inches of water & added one cap full of Superthrive to each bucket. We then went to work carefully opening each box, separating the bundles, & giving the ends of the stems a fresh trim before placing them in the buckets. With each new box we repeated this step, except there was one more step added to the roses. My friend, Marcello (who owns my favorite local antique store & also gave me so many amazing tips for our florals seeing as though he used to be a florist), gave me a thorn stripper to not only remove the thorns, but also the excess leaves all in one easy swipe. This tool is an absolute must-have when working with roses.
We kept the flowers in a cool, dark space until the wedding day. About twice a day, I used a spray bottle to give all the flowers a generous spritz of water. This helped keep them fresh & cool while waiting for the big day. If the blooms seemed to be opening too quickly, I threw a couple ice cubes into the buckets to keep them from opening too fast.
One last reminder is that when putting the flowers into the buckets of water, make sure you’ve removed any leaves that would be low enough on the stem to get into the water. The leaves can contaminate the water leaving your blooms not in their best shape.
Have The
Right Tools
Here is a list of tools I used to work with my florals:
Floral Picks (For securing any weak or wilting stems)
Floral Foam (For table arrangements)
All photos for this post were taken by our incredible wedding photographer: Emily Delamater.
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