Are you thinking about doing your own wedding flowers? Well if so read on as we want to share all our hints and tips with you to make the whole process stress free and enjoyable. This is part of a series of blog posts all about DIY wedding flowers, helping to answer as many of your questions as we can. Please do pop us an email at weddings@featherstoneflowers.co.uk if you need any further help with your wedding flowers.
Question 1:
Do you want to go fully DIY or a mix of a florist creating the wedding party flowers for you, with you having buckets full of blooms to create floral decorations throughout your venue?
This really depends on how confident and comfortable you feel with creating bouquets, buttonholes and any other items such as corsages and flower crowns. There are lots of courses and workshops around where you can learn these skills and techniques if you would love to create all of your wedding flowers. We are running these workshops in 2024 - dates to be announced soon, or you can book private or 1:1 sessions. A simple Google search will bring up other options if you aren't near us in Hampshire.
Key points to consider are:
Do you have time to create all of the arrangements?
There are lots of ways we can help you prepare for doing DIY wedding flowers (more on this later!) but there is no way of avoiding the fact that fresh flowers need to be arranged the day before your wedding, and often need checking and tweaking on the morning of your wedding. We allow an hour for one of our team to create a bridal bouquet, with 30 - 45 mins allowance for bridesmaid bouquets. Flower crowns can take up to an hour and half to create.
Tip: Start writing a schedule for the days leading up to your wedding and you can see where you can allocate time for the different elements you wish to create.
Do you know which flowers to use that are happy out of water for the duration of your wedding day?
This is a really important point as not all flowers (despite being breathtakingly beautiful!) are happy being out of water for an extended period of time.
Tip: You can test flowers in the lead up to your wedding by fully conditioning them, and then placing them in a vase without any water to see how long it is before they wilt. If they last over 6 hours then they will be fine for your wedding day.
Make sure you have space ...... You will need a reasonable area to work in while creating your wedding party flowers. As a guide, a 6 seater kitchen table is probably the minimum flat space you will need while creating. You will also need to have a cool, dark room to keep your flowers in. A garage is a good option for this (as long as night time temperatures don't go below 6 degrees), or a cool utility room is an option.
Are you going to enjoy the process or is it going to add a layer of stress to the build up to your wedding?
This final point is a really key one to consider. Creating all of your wedding flowers sounds like a wonderful idea in the planning stages, but can end up adding another time pressure in the lead up to your wedding. Your wedding is a time for you to enjoy every aspect, but it is always surprising just how much there is to do in the days before - no one wants to be up half the night the day before their wedding creating the bouquets!
Our top pieces of advice if you wish to create your own wedding bouquets:
Practice! Make sure you have a couple of practice runs at making the bouquets with similar flowers to the ones you wish to use on your wedding day.
Use a mirror when you are making your bouquet so that you can see how it looks with you holding it as you create it.
Take photos and videos of your bouquets. Bouquets can look very different in photos to how they appear to you. Photos help to show any gaps, or colours that don't sit quite so well together so you can tweak the design. Taking videos of you holding the bouquets and walking with them gives an idea of how they will look with you walking down the aisle.
Enlist family and friends to help you in the days leading up to your wedding and involve them in your practice sessions.
Source beautiful, high quality flowers - ensuring you have some scented elements within your bouquet. Scent is such an important sense, and there is something truly special about being able to hold your bouquet up and inhale a delicious perfume, especially on your wedding day.
Lastly - remember to take a deep breath, relax and enjoy the process!
Do have a look at our Buckets & Bouquets page if you are looking for DIY wedding flowers near Stockbridge, Hampshire. If you are a little further afield you can find your Local Flower Farmer by searching on the Flowers from the Farm Website.
Pop us a message if you have any questions, and keep your eyes out for the next DIY wedding flowers blog post instalment! Katie and the Featherstone's Floristry Team xxx