Flowers and Floral Arrangements for Your Wedding

If you are planning and organising your wedding far ahead of your chosen date, we've put together a timetable of suggestions that may smooth the path to planning and organising the flowers and floral arrangements for your wedding:

Planning The Flowers For Your Wedding Day

When you first start planning the floral contribution to your wedding day, start by collecting together pictures and ideas.  Choose the varieties of flowers you would like to have for your wedding, along with the range of colours that suit your chosen wedding theme. You may want to consider starting a scrapbook of floral ideas to browse through when making your final choices. You will find lots of sources of information from books and magazines, internet sites and even garden centres. Bear in mind that the decoration at your wedding and reception venues will need to harmonise with your floral colour scheme, so it will be worth your time going along to view the areas that will be used for your wedding. Take a camera along with you, this will help as a reference and to discuss decoration with your florist.

Start to consider potential florists in your area to supply the floral decorations, etc. Friends and family who live locally are often a good source of recommendation, and the venue for your reception may be able to give you more information on florists who have worked there before. Make a short list of wedding florists that you will approach to discuss your requirements.

Set your budget for the wedding flowers. At this stage, you may want to just set a rough budget until you have more information from the florist, but don't go to the florist without any idea of the approximate amount you are prepared to spend on the flowers. Many florists will be happy to organise the flowers to fit your budget, they have a great deal of experience in arranging wedding flowers and floral displays and can be a source of good ideas and suggestions to make your flowers look and smell fantastic.

Wedding Flowers

Choosing Silk or Fresh Flowers

Tossing The Bride's Bouquet

Balloon Displays

Nine Months Before Your Wedding Day

Arrange a consultation with the florists that you have short-listed. Take along the ideas that you have for your wedding flowers so that you have a starting point for the discussions. The florist will be happy to guide you through the process and to advise the better options available to you, but it's good to be prepared with ideas and colours that you want. Florists should be able to supply you with an estimate of the cost of providing your wedding flowers following your discussions with them.

Choose your wedding florist. When you have collected information and prices from the florists, it's time to make your choice and book your wedding florist. Book your chosen florist as soon as you have made a decision as a florist can normally only supply the floral requirements of one or two weddings in a day, so avoid the disappointment of them not being available for you. The florist may expect a deposit at the time of booking.

Three Months Before Your Wedding Day

Confirm the floral requirements for your wedding with the florist. At this stage you should know how many guests will require buttonholes, sprays, etc. make your final choice of bouquet for the bride and confirm any floral arrangements for the wedding and reception venues. If anything changes that affects your wedding flowers, remember to keep the florist updated.

If the bride and/or the bridesmaids are having flowers in their hair, you may want to consider having a 'dummy-run' with your hairdresser. If so, arrange an appointment for this and have the florist make up some trail flowers for your hairdresser to work with. This will allow you, your hairdresser, or the florist to make any necessary adjustments to the hair design before the wedding day.

One Month Before Your Wedding Day

Confirm the final order for your wedding flowers, timings that you need on the wedding day and ensure that all the installation details for the floral arrangements are in place with the florist (including access ahead of your wedding time for the venues). Hold a final meeting with your chosen florist and run through everything that they will be doing on your wedding day. Supply the florist with written details of the delivery times and addresses for the buttonholes and include details of the access times and addresses for the venues that they will be providing the floral arrangements for. Check with the florist when final payment for your flowers will be required.

You may wish to consider asking a trusted friend or relative to assist with checking that the flowers are all correctly organised on your wedding day. If so, take this person along to the final meeting with the florist so that they know what you have arranged and ensure that they have the telephone contact numbers (shop and mobile) for the florist, the wedding venue and the reception venue. Give the florist the contact number (preferably a mobile number) for the person who will be organising the flowers on your wedding day. If you are using some of the floral displays from your wedding venue at your reception, it is a good idea to ask this person to arrange this and make sure that they know what is to go where when it arrives at the reception.

The Day Before Your Wedding

Make final checks that everything is in place with the florist, confirm the delivery locations and times. If you have asked someone to oversee the floral arrangements for your wedding, double check that they have all the details and know what is expected to happen.

The Flowers On Your Wedding Day

Relax! You've done all the hard work, the professionals will ensure that your flowers are spectacular and all in place when and where you want them. 

A wedding has a wide array of flowers, including the bride's bouquet, buttonholes for the guests, sprays for the bridesmaids, sprays of flowers for the mother of the bride and mother of the groom, a corsage for the groom and the best man, church flower decorations and floral decorations for the reception, etc. A professional florist will have experience of preparing and supplying flowers for all sorts of weddings. The florist will be pleased to assist with suggestions and matching your chosen wedding colour scheme. They will coordinate the production and distribution of all of your floral arrangements and displays for the guests, wedding and reception.

Book the wedding florist as early as possible to achieve the best results and secure your first choice, as florists tend to be booked for weddings months, even years, before the wedding date. Arrange for your florists and hairdresser to work together if you are having flowers in your hair on the wedding day. A practice run is advisable so that both the wedding florist and the hairdresser can work out the exact requirements for the wedding. A good florist will be pleased to make us a sample of the flowers for your hairstyle so that your can consider the hairstyle before the wedding day. 

At your wedding, deputise a trusted friend or family member to coordinate the wedding flowers. Introduce this person to the wedding florist and ensure that they have all of the details relating to your wedding flowers, along with contact numbers for everyone involved.