Thanks for all the interest in the behind the scenes blog post I wrote! It seems you are all interested in what it is that goes on behind the beautiful blooms. Catch up here if you’d like to read part one.

We left of at Thursday where I have done the majority of the prep work including mossing and greening up four big old hoops which will be hung from the ceiling of the marquee. 

Friday

Today I have a lovely freelancer to help me, whilst I do a lot of my work myself there are logistical things during set up which you often need a second pair of hands for. If you are a couple getting married and are wondering why perhaps your delivery charge seems higher than expected it may be because of the nature of the set up and needing to pay someone to help. Freelancers are usually paid in the region of £15 – £20 per hour so this might well be added to your bill. All florists work differently and some might cover the cost of help in the price of the item – this is often why archways and hanging installations are higher in price due to the time it takes to make and install. 

So when my freelancer gets here I have to run off to collect the van I’ve hired as I need to transport more items than my vehicle will fit. Different sized jobs require different sized vans. 

Today we have to go to the venue and hang the hoops. This needs to be done before the tables are set up as moss and foliage tends to drop a little and creates a bit of mess which is no good if the tables are already set up beautifully for the wedding. The hoops go up on a pulley system which needs to people to operate – one to pull the rope and another to secure the hoops to the other end of the rope. Don’t be trying to do this on your own!

Before we head out to the venue the cake maker for this wedding (lovely Ellie from Bunston Bakes) swings by and collects flowers I’ve selected for her to put on the cake. She will do this first thing in the morning when she’s at the venue tomorrow.

After the hoops are hung we also drop off the two mantelpiece arrangements which have been made yesterday. These are in water so are happy to be sitting at the venue waiting for the wedding tomorrow. This isn’t always possible as some venues have very tight turnaround times and will only let you in on the morning of the wedding. This should be a serious consideration when choosing a wedding venue – how long can you be there?

Friday afternoon

We make the bridal flowers, bridesmaids bouquets, buttonholes, table decorations, ceremony arrangement, pew ends and the garland for the ceremony archway. Below we are organising vases, filling with fresh water and generally accumulating mess as we work!

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Next stop once we’ve made all the arrangements is pack them up. This is the moment when you think you’re finished fir the day but actually have another hour of packing and organising the workspace ready to load the van first thing in the morning. Every little vase needs to be wrapped in paper or bubble wrap to keep it from moving around/spilling or breaking.

Sweeping the floor is a must or you’ll end up going flying from slipping on a wet leaf!

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Also taking photos of your work is another thing to think of. It’s always best to do that the day before if you can – I’ve been guilty of leaving it until the morning only to realise I don’t have time and not getting any good shots to remember the wedding by and also to use on my website and social media. Its amazing if you can get some of the professional photos from the day but that’s not always possible.

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Saturday

This is the day!! All systems go, everything needs to be delivered looking perfect and in time and if there are any problems you need to think FAST to fix them. Load the van again, first of all to deliver the bridal party flowers, this is sometimes at a separate address or hotel to the venue and sometimes if you are lucky it’s all at the venue. After this it’s onto the venue and first of all set up the ceremony room – I like to do things in the order they will happen on the day. It’s no use the reception being ready if you’ve not finished the ceremony room hen the wedding starts! Personally I am always aiming to be finished at least 1 hour before the ceremony time, I aim to be finished 2 hours before so I have plenty of leeway. After the ceremony room then it’s onto the reception room. This should all be ready to go with tables cloths and glassware etc – so be careful of the glasses when leaning over to put on table centres!

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That’s it! You’re all set up and ready to go. Take some quick snaps of how gorgeous everything looks then get outta there and let your lovely couple have a great day!

Sunday

Did think you were all finished did you? Today we go back to the venue to dismantle everything and take back any hired items such as vases etc. I have to take down the 4 hanging hoops in order for the marquee company to dismantle the marquee too. Most of the time the clients take home their flowers but sometimes there are things left over that need to be removed as you don’t want the venue to be left with loads of mess you created. Below is the carnage I am left with and what my workshop looks like after I dump all the leftovers in it, then I shut the door and lie face down for the rest of the day! I then put off cleaning up until the threat of more flowers is near – in this case I have a couple of days before more flowers are arriving so I think I’ll shut the door and pretend there’s no mess! After a rest it’s back to cleaning buckets and ordering more flowers for next weekend’s wedding.

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I hope you all enjoyed reading about what it is I actually do! Let me know if you’d like more behind the scenes posts.

Read up on the first part of the week here if you missed it

A week in the life of a wedding florist

I thought I’d write this post to try and give everyone a little behind the scenes look at what actually goes into creating your wedding flowers. There are probably a lot more processes than you think! I’ve divided this into two parts as it got a little long and I’m guessing you don’t want an essay from me!

I often hear people commenting on how expensive wedding flowers are and the main reason for this is (not that we add an extra zero because we hear the word wedding!) that there is a lot of work that goes into creating bespoke wedding flowers. There are many different steps and processes for us to go through before we get to the ‘playing with flowers’ fun part! So here is my summary of a recent wedding journey I went through. I hope you find it interesting.

Monday

So we have a wedding coming up on Saturday and this is the final 5 days in the lead up and where the most work happens. I will have already put together all my recipes and stem counts and ordered quite a lot of flowers on pre-order (which is an amazing system my supplier uses which allows us to order direct from the grower) The flowers will come in Wednesday giving them a few days to open up nicely and be fully in bloom for Saturday.

From 3pm on Monday is the best time to buy from the live Dutch auctions so this is what I will be doing for most of the afternoon. There’s 1000’s of stems to choose from and being indecisive it takes me quite a while to put my order together! Of course I know the kind of design I am going to create but there are many different ways to create beautiful displays. I spend a lot of time making sure I am buying the best quality ingredients at the best possible price.

Tuesday

This is a really fun part, cleaning buckets! Nope, not my favourite part of the job but a necessary one none the less. Flowers need to be in clean buckets with fresh water, if the buckets are dirty and contain bacteria then that will affect the life span and the quality of the flowers.

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Tidying the workshop (which is inevitably still a mess from the previous weekends wedding) is also a Tuesday job. I’ll collect all my cardboard boxes and fold down into a neat stack for my supplier to collect with my delivery on Wednesday as they take them back and recycle.

Wednesday

Wednesday is flower day! When I got to my studio first thing in the morning there will be a big pile of boxes waiting for me to unpack, full of gorgeous flowers. The delivery driver has a key to my workshop and will let themselves in to drop the boxes there in the dead of night.

So now it’s time to unpack. All of the flowers are thirsty as they have been out of water whilst they travel from Holland, this isn’t a problem for them as long as you recut the stems so they can have a big drink. You should leave them to have a drink for at least 2 hours before using them. Part of the conditioning process is also stripping all foliage off which will be below the water line, if this is left on bacteria will form and your flowers wont be happy.

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Above are beautiful British grown peonies and stocks. The British growers I use are great at packing their flowers without extra plastic packaging. These haven’t come from Holland as they are grown over here in the UK but will join the rest of the flowers which have arrived from Holland and will then go on to be delivered to us florists.

Thursday

I make a trip to my local wholesaler to add some extras to my order. Sometimes I need to do this as there might be a problem with some of the flowers in my order, this could be that they are smaller headed than I was expecting or a different shade of colour which affects the whole harmony of the design! There’s all sorts of potential issues when working with a fresh product! Today I purchase extra peach carnations, orlaya, apricot stocks and yellow achillea.

Because most of my ordering is done online I have to visualise how everything is going to look together and sometimes when the flowers arrive I feel like an extra colour is needed to balance or to create an extra pop. When you have a creative eye so much has to be done with the product in front of you – well not everyone will do this but that’s how I work because I got into floristry for the creativity, colours and textures.

Check on your flowers. This is when you see some bursting open and some that look like they wont budge. The ones that are opening super fast need to be moved somewhere cool and dark, the ones that are taking a while need more warmth and more light! Prime example are these coral charm peonies, they often burst open straight away. Peonies are very unpredictable and cause a lot of stress for florists, they can take anything from 1 day to 1 week to open! Of course we forgive them and use them anyway because, well look at them they’re GORGEOUS!

These flowers above have been moved outside to the sun to help open them up. Part of the reason you might find the cost of peonies in your wedding flowers to be high is because we have to order more than we need as they are so temperamental.

Thursday also is major prep day as Friday will be the main day of making. This means prepping all containers and filling with water. Below are some wallpaper troughs I’m experimenting with! As I choose to work foam free for environmental reasons I am trialling different containers which I can use with chickenwire and water rather than floral foam. You can read more about my reasons to work foam free below

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why I work foam free

For this particular wedding I had a lot to make and the rest of Thursday was spent tying moss and foliage around large 5ft hoops which will be hung from the marquee ceiling creating floral chandelier style arrangements.

END OF PART ONE!

Part two will follow. This includes the bulk of the making, delivering and setting up but also the aftermath!