Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere

This past weekend my husband and I hosted our oldest son’s wedding. He is the second of our children to get married and the second to be married at our home. A lot goes into hosting a backyard wedding and not all of those details are fun or interesting (think bathroom set-up and trash cans), but what can be enjoyable, creative and thoroughly gratifying is designing and arranging the flowers. I am hardly an old pro. Like most of us, I have arranged flowers for miscellaneous dinner parties, holiday events, birthdays, even a baby and bridal shower, but what I learned about scale and organization through doing the flowers for the 2 children’s weddings is invaluable, and I think worth sharing with those of you who may be considering doing your own flowers. Before I go any further though, I must acknowledge my sister, Corrine. I could not and would not have done this without her taking the lead. She is the creative one of the two of us, and equally important, she is a great optimist. I wanted to pass on the bouquets - too risky, I wanted to eliminate the arbor - too big, but at every stage, she found ways to make our ideas work. We found inspiration on Pinterest and wedding sites, in hotel lobbies, at recent weddings attended and at our local wholesale flower mart. Indeed taking on the flowers ( at least the first time) felt a lot like a trial by fire, but the end result was truly beautiful and no one got hurt:). It was definitely worth the effort. And did I mention that we saved a small fortune? That alone is reason enough to give this gift of flowers to loved ones. Think of it as freeing up funds for some awesome honeymoon adventures!

The success of an undertaking as large as wedding flowers depends almost wholly on being organized and then on being flexible. I hope you find the following tips helpful.

Advance Preparation:

• Choose the color scheme: In my experience, this has been the bride’s choice and the flowers have complimented the color of their bridesmaids’ dresses. Unless, the betrothed have asked you to surprise them, definitely defer to their wishes.

• Get ideas: My sister and I sent each other at least hundred images we found online. Pinterest, wedding sites, or simply a quick search of wedding flowers using succulents, for example, will turn up more images than you can sort through.

• Select your flowers: There are many different flower options within a color group. Sometimes size dictates your choice, sometimes feel - sturdy or delicate, oftentimes price. Most likely there are some flowers that are non negotiable for the bride- that is, a must have variety or an absolutely not bloom. Selections, too, will be influenced by availability: time of year and region. Whatever you choose, make sure the flowers are available in your area, and if not, find out if an advance special order can be placed.

• Trial run: Purchase the flowers you've selected to construct one centerpiece and one bouquet and put them together. If you are using different shaped containers for different shaped tables as we did, then put together one centerpiece for each vessel. This may seem an unnecessary and expensive step, but it is crucial to figuring out your eventual flower order. It will also provide you with your recipe (see below), and it will help keep you within your budget as you discover how many of each stem you need. The upside is you will have a floral arrangement or three to have around the house or to gift to someone special. Also, keep track of how long it takes to prepare the arrangement, then multiply the time by how many you'll need to make. This will give you a good idea of how much time you'll need to dedicate to the flowers and will let you know how much help you will need when the big day arrives.

• Set your flower budget: Flowers are expensive and with so many other costs involved in putting on a wedding it is important to stay within your budget. With that said, I love flowers and I believe that they set the tone of the wedding. They are colorful and fragrant and put the finishing touch on a table setting. There are tricks to keeping your costs down. You will see dinner plate dahlias in our latest arrangement. Yes, they are more expensive than the white roses or the white lisianthus, but the large dahlias took up a lot of real estate in the container making it a perfect statement flower and budget friendly too.

• Gather all the supplies: Get everything together in advance. If you have friends and family helping, be sure you have tools for everyone. The work goes much more smoothly and quickly when people aren’t obligated to share supplies. The types of arrangements you are doing will dictate the supply list which may include clippers, floral tape, ribbon, flower preservative, rose strippers if you have roses, corsage pins, wooden boxes, vases of all shapes and sizes and floral foam. I like the Oasis brand. Find it here. Also, if using floral foam you will need a large plastic storage bin to soak the oasis in before putting it into the containers. Wide is more important than deep for this container.

• Buckets for water: When the day arrives, as soon as you get home with the flowers, you will want to prep and place the flowers in large buckets of water. You will need something that is big and also tall so that your longer stem flowers are well supported. I find that paint buckets from a big home improvement store like Home Depot or Lowes work great. Find it here.

One to Two days Before the Event - The Arranging Begins:

• Recruit lots of help: If you're having lots of flowers, you'll need lots of help. This is where the fun comes in. The job gets done faster with friends and family helping, and everyone gets to feel that they have been a part of the process. Last weekend, besides my sister and me, all the gardeners helped, a fiance, a boyfriend, the bride to be and her sisters and her mom all pitched in. We laughed and talked as we arranged away, and it helped build excitement for the big day.

• Make a recipe to follow: Prepare a recipe for your floral arrangements just as you would write a recipe for a dish you are making. This is important for a number of reasons: 1. Although you should allow your helpers some artistic license, the arrangements should look very similar to one another. 2. The flower order/count was based upon the prototype, so it imperative that the numbers of each flower type don’t vary from container to container. 3. If you have a reluctant designer it is helpful to have something for them to copy. Our recipe was roughly 9 roses, 1 dahlia, 2 proteas, 3 anemones, 3 veronicas, 5 lisianthus, 5 blue thistle, 2 succulents and greenery to fill in.

• Pick up flowers: If you have a wholesale flower mart in your area, this is the most cost effective way to go not to mention chances are their flowers will be the most fresh. We are lucky to have the LA Flower Mart within driving distance, plus the Orange County Mart. If not, Trader Joes carries a wide variety of flowers and Costco roses are lovely and affordable. Wherever you buy, I would recommend buying about 5% more flowers than you think you need.

• Getting started - flower prep: Be sure to remove all foliage on your blooms. For vase arrangements, in particular, you do not want any foliage under the water line. Remove rose thorns, strip away outer rose petals and be sure to cut all stems at an angle and place directly into water. My sister found these clippers and they worked beautifully on all but one thick woody stemmed flower we used. Find it here.

• A dedicated work area: Whether you have small arrangements or large ones, you'll need a dedicated work area. In our case, our kitchen was turned into a floral shop. We set-up two large work stations that could be accessed from both sides of the work space. You will need a sink or large plastic containers to soak the oasis in, and plenty of trash bags and garbage cans nearby.

• A cool place for storage: You'll probably purchase and start preparing the flowers 1-2 days ahead of the event, and they'll need to be kept chilled. We did this past wedding one day ahead because we ran into a few problems when we did them 2 days in advance, but I attribute that to not being able to cool our house down as well the first time. If you live in a warm climate (and even it you don’t), it is imperative that you reserve a room in the house to store all the arrangements and turn up the air conditioner. We had ours set at 50 degrees and the flowers were perfect. Don't let the cold air blow directly on the flowers and check to make sure that the arrangements have enough water.

Happy arranging…

Kathryn

P.S.

I found a couple tips that I am eager to try next time around.

• Crowning Glory is a spray wax that keeps your floral arrangements hydrated resulting in longer lasting blooms. Find it here.

• Alum is said to keep hydrangeas vibrant and wilt free. I have not had consistent luck with hydrangeas. Sometimes the soaked head works, other times not. I am eager to give Alum a try. Apparently, after you cut the stems you place them directly into the Alum powder. You can find Alum in your grocery spice aisle and here.