From Ceremony To Reception: A Guide To Maximizing Your Wedding Florals
Written by Curator Paula Jimenez, co-owner of Cresco Stems
Dream weddings are often filled with stunning lush floral arrangements. Beautiful flowers lining your path down the aisle, floral arches filled with large blooms and foliage, candles setting the mood, meadows as a backdrop to your “I Dos” – the possibilities are endless. A religious ceremony lasts an hour and most non-religious ceremonies have a duration of 15-40 minutes. Finding creative ways to repurpose your flowers throughout the day is the best way to maximize your floral budget while also ensuring a cohesive design from ceremony to reception. Here is a list of do’s and don’ts to ensure that you get the most for your floral budget.
DO’S To Maximizing Your Wedding Florals
Be honest with yourself about the limit of your budget. When setting the maximum amount you’re willing to spend, take into account the actual product being used, the design cost of an expert creating a cohesive floral look, the labor costs of a full wedding day production. Full productions involve a lot of pre-wedding preparation beyond creating flowers. Prepping candles, cleaning glass candleholders, sourcing goods, loading/ unloading; those are all part of the labor involved while on the clock adding up to 40+ hours of labor during wedding week. Labor costs can be anywhere between 20-35% for delivery, set up and design in addition to the cost of breakdown.
Find a floral team that does Full Service Production. Most floral teams list this as a service on their websites. Full Service Production is a customized service to handle your florals and any other décor items from beginning to end on the actual wedding day. The floral team will handle every aspect of your florals such as design, sourcing, onsite installation and end of day breakdown. While some floral designers offer only delivery services, full production design teams are a part of your vendor team the entire day.
Ask Your Floral Designer for a Design that allows Repurposing. This is crucial. This allows the floral team to create every single piece with the intention of being used throughout the day
Plan Timing. Timing is top priority for every single vendor on wedding day. It is especially important if ceremony flowers are being repurposed for reception. You must allow for enough time to make the transition. Consult your floral team when you’re working on your timeline. If you fail to do so, labor costs can increase drastically as more people will be needed to complete the work in a short amount of time. Floral teams not only need to move the florals, but they also need to set them up in the new space, refresh damaged or withered stems, redesign and work around catering and venue staff. It’s an organized chaos that works perfectly if you allow an expert team to take lead.
Focus on Statement Florals We can’t recommend this enough. Use statement florals in important focal points throughout the day. A lavish ceremony backdrop ican be far more impactful than meadows down the aisle. A lushly flowered sweetheart table is far more impactful than a large floral installation by the seating chart. Trust that your floral team will know how to prioritize what pieces are most important
Don’t’s To Maximizing Your Wedding Florals
Let your flowers go to waste. Using ceremony flowers or decor that are difficult to repurpose or will be out of water is the most common way to waste a chunk of your florals spend. For example, aisle markers hanging from a chair or pew might seem like a beautiful idea but these blooms are often difficult to transition into reception as they either don’t withstand being out of water or they can’t be used at all because of how they’re made. The cost of labor and product becomes a waste. Instead, focus on a couple of statement pieces that will serve as a focal in both your ceremony and the photos.
Assume that YOU know how much time is needed. Never assume. Ask your floral team how much time they need. Although your coordinator or planner can provide a quick estimate, only your floral team knows the intricacies of your design and only they can determine how much time is needed for set up, transition and breakdown.
Focus on the little things. Couples, especially brides, often focus on tiny details. Particular flower varieties, the size of a vase, the way flowers stand in a bud vase, the exact shade of a candle – none of these things matter on their own. What truly matters is how everything works together. You’re painting a picture that may look messy up close but it sinks into a beautiful focus from afar. Trust your vendors – ALWAYS!
Rely on Bridesmaids Bouquets One of the most common requests is for bridesmaids bouquets to be used as centerpieces. THEY DO NOT MAKE GOOD CENTERPIECES. They are usually designed to be front facing, they are cut in a way that allows for comfortable carrying, they are often left out of water throughout morning portrait sessions, ceremony and cocktail hours – they look like a mess after all of that! Event florals are conditioned to be at full bloom on wedding day. These means that they are almost at the end of their vase life and hydration becomes extremely important. Its almost impossible to expect the bridal party to keep them hydrated. The best use for these florals is possible in areas of either low visibility or fast turn around such as guest book table, bars, or bathrooms.
Don’t Assume Everything Can Be Reused Florals designed for a specific location can be difficult to transition. If you’re not flexible with the design, repurposing can become difficult. Not allowing enough time to transition can also make it difficult to repurpose florals. With the right team, your aisle meadows can become centerpieces, the ceremony welcome sign can be used for your seating chart, the floral arch can become the focal florals for your sweetheart table; let the floral team do what they do best – design!
Our floral design team excels at being creative with each design to ensure that your florals can make a smooth and beautiful transition from ceremony to reception. While you experience the memorable moment of a first look, our team is working on your ceremony setup and during the cheerful, congratulatory exchanges of the cocktail hour; our team works efficiently and diligently to take your blooms from ceremony to reception so that we can take your breath away all over again during your long awaited reception room reveal.
Vendors:
Photography: Emma Mullins Photography emullinsphoto.com
Event Planner: Firmly Rooted Events - firmlyrootedevents.com
Florals: Cresco Stems - crescostems.com
Venue: Lacuna Loft - lacuna.catalystsuites.com