From 'Can I Do This?' to 'I Did That!' - My Wedding Floral Adventure

Is there something that you thought about doing before and you didn’t know if you would ever do it? Try it? Make it? I think we all have those moments and when we are presented with the chance to do it, there is excitement, anxiety, joy and sometimes even fear! But once we move forward and do it, we come away a better person. We learn, grow, create memories and can be proud of ourselves.

While writing this blog, I had so many memories come to mind where I experienced every one of those emotions. The one that is the freshest on my mind happened recently and is subject of this blog.

I said YES and it was such an exciting experience that taught me more about myself and allowed me to do something I had never done before!

About 6 months ago my nephew, Noah and his fiancé, Morgan asked me to design the flowers for their wedding. I thought it would be something small for the church or part of what they were going to do at the reception. But Morgan, said, “I want you to do all the flowers and decorating for the church and the rehearsal.” 

Wow! Remember all those feelings I mentioned above? Every one of them ran through my mind within the first couple days after being asked and saying yes.

As a flower farmer I had briefly thought about designing flowers for weddings, but not given much thought to it. I had designed bridal bouquets before and really enjoyed doing them. When the chance presented itself to design flowers for a wedding, it wasn’t just any wedding. It was the wedding of my nephew and his fiancé, that made it even more special and there was no way I was going to mess it up.

After reviewing her board, I sat down with her and your mom, Denise, to talk about the wedding and reception. We reviewed all her images from the Pinterest board and other ideas to go along with them. We talked flowers, generic pricing, layout of the reception and ideas for the church. Then we set a time to meet at the venue and church to walk through everything.

For the church she wanted simplistic elegance. Not a lot of flowers, but tastefully placed arrangements, ferns and hurricane vases in the windows with roses. We included pew clips with relaxed bows and ribbon that draped to the floor with hydrangea stems at the top. The arrangements consisted of hydrangea, baby’s breath, delphinium, lisianthus and minimal roses. Everything was white and elegant.

We carried the feel of simplistic elegance to the reception yet took it to a whole new level.

The reception would be held at the country club at Cedar Rock, NC. The club has two large banquet rooms and we would end up using both of these and even bring in extra tables to sit all the guests. The best was of course, the flowers and what I would end up creating for them.

After our meeting at the venue and the church, I sat down and created a very detailed list of what we had discussed, checked my notes to make sure I didn’t leave anything out and came up with the direction for the flowers. I spoke with Morgan again to make sure that I understand everything and then proceeded to create a very detailed quote for her.

The Fun Part – Flowers and Arrangements

Now let's talk about the flowers and the arrangements! The fun part.

Before the install day, I decided to design one of the large arrangements for Morgan to review, so I could make sure that I totally understood what she was envisioning. I was so nervous when she and her mom came over to review the arrangement! Again, I was experiencing all those emotions I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.

However, those emotions soon turned to joy because they loved the arrangement and Morgan told me it was exactly what she had envisioned! Woo hoo! To say that I was happy doesn't express my feelings enough. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Now I knew for sure that I was going to be able to provide what she had envisioned for her wedding. And that was the most important part of it all.

For the reception, I ended up creating 20 large arrangements, (19 of them used on 19 tables with tall, fluted vases) and 1 arrangement for the outside area of the clubhouse. We had 13 additional tables with hydrangea stems in vases. We added 8” and 7” vases with floating candles to all the tables. In all for the reception we decorated 32 tables, 160 - 8” vases with floating candles, 160- 7” vases with floating candles, 65 vases with 2 hydrangea stems in each, 20 large arrangements, and an additional large arrangement for the entry way and misc. flowers used in small vases on the porch and bar areas.

For the church, I ended up creating 2 large arrangements, 2 medium size arrangements, 5 vases of roses and worked with Mitzi to create ribbons with hydrangea stems used on the ends of the pews.

The Importance of Flower Recipes:

The most important part of creating arrangements is establishing a floral recipe. A floral recipe is just like a recipe you use to cook food. It consists of all the flowers, stems, greenery, and other components of an arrangement that you need to create it. When you have duplicate arrangements, the recipe helps ensure that you create each one as consistently as possible and don't go under or over your original stem count. The recipe is also used when calculating the total number of stems needed to order.

This recipe was used to create all 20 of the large arrangements for the reception. I created different recipes for the arrangements at the church. 

All the flowers were white. We used white hydrangea, white roses, white delphinium and white baby’s breath. With a little bit of white lisianthus and greenery used for the church arrangements. We used around 300 hydrangeas, 360 roses, 140 delphinium, 24 listianthus and 3 bunches of greenery.

The Flower Takeover:

Morgan and I joked about what my kitchen, dining area, and living room would look like once all the flowers arrived. It was so funny to imagine that I would probably have so many flowers in my house that I wouldn't be able to walk around! (Right now, my dining area is where I create all my arrangements before putting them in the florist refrigerator.) From the pictures I'm showing in the blog, you can get a feel for what it looked like before unboxing and processing all the flowers, as well as what it looked like while we were processing them. I had flowers in two bedrooms, the hallway and the living room, prior to taking everything to my florist refrigerator.

The flowers arrived on Monday, and I began creating the arrangements on Wednesday.

Looking at the list of flowers and arrangements needed, you can tell that once Wednesday came, I was busy the rest of the week. The wedding was Saturday evening, with install day for the reception venue on Friday and install day for the church on Saturday morning.

Without additional help processing and preparing the flowers for arrangements and vases, I would never have completed everything on time. My mom, daughter, daughter-in-law, niece, and sister all volunteered their time to help make it happen. I appreciated this so much, and they in return were part of making all of this come to life!

We accomplished a lot of work in a short period of time. Both install days went off without any issues. We worked over 17 hours on Friday and 5 hours on Saturday setting everything up. The hours were long, but the results were fantastic. Everything looked so beautiful. I was so proud of all the hard work we had done, how well we all worked together, and how elegant and gorgeous everything turned out.

The Best Part

Morgan and Noah loved everything! I have to say that Morgan was the perfect bride. She communicated with me, trusted me, and we laughed together. Once she approved the arrangements, she knew that I would handle everything and create the perfect florals for her. Morgan told me more than once that she knew I could handle it and would do a great job.

You may not have caught this earlier in the blog, but this was my first time designing florals for a wedding—and it was a large wedding! Having the bride tell me that she believed in me made such a difference. Now I have the confidence to move forward. If I take on another wedding, I'll do so with confidence and assurance that I can handle it.

So, what did I learn from all of this?

Hard work, planning, and organization are crucial when planning a large event. Communication is essential.

I learned that I was capable of designing florals for a large wedding and felt proud of myself and everyone who worked with me to make it happen.

I learned that even when things are challenging and schedules are tight, staying focused helps keep things moving and allows you to complete your tasks successfully.

I learned that it's okay to sit back, look at what you've created, and celebrate the beautiful work you've done!

Most of all, I learned to enjoy the process, the beauty, and the joy that flowers bring to everyone—including yourself.

This was a long blog and if you have read it all, thank you! This wedding was one of the most exciting, fun, hardest things I have done in a long time. And after it was complete, I loved seeing all the beauty that was created and the joy that it brought to everyone.