FLOWERS

My favorite topic and the one I know the most about.

Flowers are the finishing touch to any event and are absolutely essential to a wedding.

Back in the day, when I met with brides and their mothers, I found out everything else about a wedding BEFORE I talked about flowers..

WHY? because the location, time of year, time of day, style, mood, color,budget...all these things need to be taken into consideration when selecting flowers. You can't know how many centerpieces you need until you know how many guests you will have. You can't know what flowers to use until you know what color the venue is. You can't know what to decorate until you know how big the tables are, what the layout will be ..etc etc etc... It's a lot to coordinate. You need someone who has all the information , creativity and resources to pull your wedding flowers together.

THE BOUQUET- The first place to start determining your flower style:

 Your daughter will have strong opinions about her flowers .

 Her bouquet sets the tone for all the other wedding flowers. After the dress, her bouquet is probably the most important part of her bridal ensemble. As long as they follow the level of formality of her dress and the venue...it's her decision on what to carry.

Your daughter will be doing her visual research on websites like The Knot, Martha Stewart,  Pinterest,  StyleMePretty .  She is going to see the most exquisitely beautiful flowers on these sites and as they say,

" How'ya gonna keep'em down on the farm, After they've seen Paree?".

cindysflowerpatch.net

So What does the MOB do?

As the MOB, make sure you have done your homework.(Your well-organized daughter may already have all this info... you need it too.)

Gather all the information you can about your venue such as: what time is the set up, who is the contact person: names, emails, phone, address...Are there any other weddings/events in the venue before or after your event and how does that affect you? Are there any restrictions at the church or reception site? Gather swatches of bridesmaids dresses and anything else that will affect the colors you will be working with. 

Once your daughter has given you a basic colorway and style, do your own research. There is a mountain of information on the internet and it takes time to sift through it....she will love that you have spent the time to help her find the flowers of her dreams. 

Save all your research on Pinterest (  you need an invitation to join, so let me know and I will send you one). 

Create an inspiration board ...Don't worry that you love everything from pink to green, from red roses to daisies, collect all the images you like. Take all of this to your florist and let him/her guide you; your florist will find a common thread.

So how do you find a florist that is perfect for you?

Ask around: ask everyone who is involved with weddings, ask your friends, ask recent brides... you will start hearing the same names over and over. Once you have heard a name several times..do some sleuthing. Most floral designers have a website and a Facebook page. Facebook is great because you get to read interactions and see current work . .

REMEMBER, you should not judge a florist based on an exact wedding that they did, you are looking for someone who has a style and an aesthetic that meshes with your own. If a florist has done 100 weddings, not every one will be to your taste, because each wedding is done to each bride's taste. You are looking for an overall sense of creativity and professionalism. Once you see that visually this floral designer is on your same wavelength , make an appointment !

 How to get along fabulously with your florist..

• Be honest about your budget so that your florist can work with you to design wedding flowers that you love and that will work within you budget.If you've done your homework, you will have set a realistic budget that is aligned with your expectations..go read that blog entry!

• Be flexible: don't ask for an entire wedding of lilacs in November... There are no unscented gardenias...you cannot tape flowers to anything in a church... You may have to make some decor sacrifices if there is only a 2 hr window for set up. Some things are just not practical and your florist will help design something that follows your desires while maintaining sanity.

• Pay promptly and enthusiastically: florists need to buy all your flowers and pay all their helpers. Generally a florist will spend at least 120 man hours in ONE WEEK exclusively on your wedding.( 8-10 hrs a day for 4 days x 4-5 people) and that does not include meetings, walk-throughs, production meetings, paperwork, ordering .....Don't go describing the $7,000.00 Vera Wang Dress while complaining about the $300.00 handmade,custom bridal bouquet .Never EVER complain about set up fees.There is a crew devoted to you the day of the wedding making sure everything is right..there isn't enough money in the world to give you peace of mind and the wedding that everyone will be talking about. ...it is always of a labor of love .

• Do take advice from the expert. Give them your ideas and let them FLY!. A good designer loves nothing more than creating beautiful flowers and making you happy. It's as much fun for them as it is for you and their reputation is at stake every weekend,. Great floral designers  thrive  by exceeding expectations. 
• Realize that special event flowers are meant to be FABULOUS for ONE DAY...florists work like mad to make sure that your flowers are perfect on the day of the wedding. Roses may be left baking in a hot van to force them to open spectacularly {even if that means they drop at midnight like Cinderella}. When people say it's so sad that the expensive flowers were only phenomenal for one day, I remind them what happens to that delicious dinner at 7 AM the next morning!!!!!! :)

Wedding flowers look like fun, I think I'll do them myself!

DO NOT .I repeat DO NOT attempt to do wedding flowers yourself. Trust me!

Murphy's Law will be in full effect from the moment the flowers arrive at the supplier-or not- as the case usually is. The less you know about what happens behind the scenes, the better. It takes nerves of steel and good contacts to get what you need in a very short time frame. Florists are a well-hooked-up bunch!

I didn't do the flowers for my own daughter's wedding. ( full disclosure: I did do the bouquets 3 days before) 10 of my my incredible flower friends set up for the event and all hell broke loose when the loading dock was locked until 2 hrs before the ceremony was about to begin!!!!! God bless this seasoned crew for making magic happen with NO time to do it.  Makes me shudder to this day! THANK GOD I didn't know what was happening.

  Doing wedding flowers is very stressful,extremely time consuming and occasionally involves physical torture!!!! I once had a Naval Academy drill sergeant help me on a job and he was amazed at the level of physical endurance and emotional fortitude it takes to set up flowers at a wedding. 

Try carrying a 25 pound bucket of flowers up 2 flights of stairs in August...and going back to do it 10 more times!!!!

roses arrive like this....

  As for the actual flowers; roses come packed in a box with thorny stems and have been out of water for days. Every single stem needs to be cleaned and cut under warm water and placed into a scrupulously clean bucket , then monitored so that the flowers open perfectly for the wedding day...no easy feat.... and THEN they have to be arranged and transported to your venue in perfect shape.Your florist is worth her/his weight in gold!

Budget..that 4 letter word. So how much do flowers cost?

 All this having been said, you still need to plan the budget and that all depends on what kind of flowers you use, how many you need and what you want to decorate. Your daughter will be reading a lot of blogs and googleing prices... remember the websites give averages on average wedding.. and your daughter's wedding will not be average!

The actual flowers are expensive in the quantities that you need and you need LOTS ... but it's the labor to: plan, design, arrange ,deliver and troubleshoot that you will be paying for.

To get an idea of how much cut flowers cost ,go here . This site is a great resource to learn about flower types and colors

On a simple wedding ......I'd say start at $3000

On an up-scale wedding $15,000-$30,000

and on a blow-out wedding..the sky's the limit. 

...the reality is that if you want gorgeous flowers, done right...it's expensive.. It is worth every penny.

.. .and here they are after hours of work

 bunches of flowers that we worked with on my daughter's wedding


credits: 

Pink inspiration board from  
 http://blog.weddingpaperdivas.com/inspiration-board-pretty-in-pink/

Green  style board from http://thebridalcollectionnew.blogspot.com


happy florist hauling bucket of flowers and Sabine on a ladder doing a large arrangement in a tent:
http://littlewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/stunning-pink-wedding-flowers-by-sabine-at-g-lily/