Has anyone done reception flowers themselves?

Unless this is a necessity money wise, I would advise against you doing this, if it's anything more than plonking flowers in vases (ie using wet oasis which takes a lot longer per item).

Especially not if it needs attending to on either the day before the wedding or the day of the wedding.

I only made 4 flower arrangements, and it was on the morning of the wedding. It was supposed to be the day before, but we were so rushed with getting everything ready and dealing with everyone arriving for the wedding that we didn't have time. I hated doing them on the morning. I didn't get to relax and got extremely stressed about it, and it caused massive problems with me not being ready on time.

If I could do it all over again, I would leave myself NOTHING TO DO AT ALL from mid afternoon the day before until I walked down the aisle.

I am planning to get some flowers from covent gardens a few days before to make our top table arrangements. We have lots of little vases.

I will be doing my own flowers for the tables... just a small bunch on each one, with some flower food the ones I normally buy last for ages, so they will be fine overnight (we decorate the reception room the evening before).

We bought extra flowers to decorate the venue with, but husband bought way too many. It looked amazing, but it was pretty stressful having to do those aswell as everything else. If you want to do it & New Covent Garden is close enough, go for it. It's only an hour from us, but I actually found a wholesaler close to us that ordered them in put them in their warming room to open a bit. It made such a difference having that time.

Hi,

I did the ones for my daughter. Bought flowers from Village Green wholesaler and Van Hage garden centre. Worked out realy well.

Lynne

Doing your own wedding flowers is not a bad idea if you do it with proper preparation. You need to be prepared for arrangements earlier to stay stress free. Think about what supplies you will need like floral tape, floral scissors, pins, floral foam, vases, etc. and order them in advance. It is better to get the flowers the day before because you cannot do flowers on your wedding day.

Banquet Venues London Darbar

What are the other alternatives to doing them yourself?

I'm doing mine with assistance from my cousin who is an ex florist. We are going to wholesalers on the Thursday morning (as in 4am morning) then she's going to condition (don't know what this involves) them to be arranged in vases on the Friday afternoon, for Saturday wedding. The vases are going to only have a few flowers in, not elaborate.

Unless you've planned it all, it could be extra stress you don't need at this late stage

My grandmother did our for us and having seen what goes in to it (baring in mind my grandmother is a retired florist) I, personally, would not advise doing it yourself.

I was so, so busy in the run up to the wedding, I'm fairly certain I couldn't have done it all if I'd had to do my own flowers as well.

Do you have a friend or relative who would be willing and who you could trust with the job?

I'm thinking about bringing some extra flowers to go outside, there are some troughs that I wanted to fill with tulips. I spoke to my local garden center and they offered me quite a good discount for buying a lot so it would be worth asking round depending on what you wanted might be less stressful to have the flowers ordered rather than going to the market right before.

Thank you all for your replies, they have been really useful. I've decided that we will do them ourselves. What i am aiming for are two really small arrangements in cut glas vases on each table. Each vase will only have around 4-5 stems in so it shouldn't take too long to do the day before. And i've got an army of helpful volunteers that will do it all for me - sorted. Thanks guys.

Don't forget that if you buy them from the wholesale market, you will need to be up VERY early in the morning! I've no experience of Covent Garden as I am in Yorkshire but all the wholesale markets in my area open at 0300 and close at 0800. If you arrive later than 0530, all the best stuff has gone. It's also important to know that flowers bought from wholesale floral markets have to be conditioned before they can be used otherwise they will die quite quickly. This is a process normally done in the florists' shop before they are put out on sale. Different flowers need different types of conditioning so worth doing your research. Normally, florists will buy flowers needed for a Saturday wedding on Thursday. This leaves ample time for conditioning and for the blooms to open to their best ready for the big day.

If you are basically just placing flowers in vases on the morning with no arranging as such, your best bet is buy from your local florist who may give you a discount if you're buying in bulk or, if you aren't bothered what type or colours or flowers you have, your local supermarket. These will have flower food attached which you can pop in the vases on the morning of the wedding. Your helpers will have to do all this so you need someone who you can trust to buy what you would like and set everything up on the day as you won't have the time or inclination! Not to mention ruining your nails too!

I have known plenty of brides to do this but I must add they tended to be a bit creative, they enlisted friends' help and although I thought it was visually pretty cool maybe in terms of floristry it isn't technically a good arrangement- as in I couldn't tell the difference because I don't have a good eye but they looked lovely to me and I was surprised when they said it was their own handiwork from mixing tesco's bundles! I don't think anyone and everyone could do it and yes it'd involve extra time in the morning so it depends how many hands you'd have on deck etc.

Thank you Rainbow for putting my mind at ease that we are doing right!

4am is a good time to go! You'll have the pick of the crop When the flowers arrive at the wholesale markets, they are often dry packed in boxes so they weigh less in transit. A lot of the flowers sold in the UK are flown in each day from abroad. The more the flowers weigh, the more it costs to fly them over so the flowers are in 'sleep' mode so to speak because without water, they won't do much. The conditioning is basically cutting the stems at an angle, removing all the leaves from the stems which will be below water and feeding the flowers with conditioner so it takes up as much food and water through the stem to make it develop to its full potential and to prolong its life. Some stems of flowers are soft (tulips) some are woody (roses) some are hollow (gerbera) and need slightly different conditioning to others. For example, gerbera are an absolute pig to condition! Because they are hollow stems, you have to dangle them in water without the stem touching the bottom of the bucket otherwise it blocks the stem and causes an air lock. This is what makes gerbera heads flop. My hubby made me a Blue Peter like structure to dangle my gerberas in when I had my shop LOL!

My FFIL is doing all my flowers and we are going to Covent Garden on Wednesday to get all our flowers BUT he did own his own florist shop for 15 years... DO NOT just go to Covent Garden expecting to buy all the flowers you want on that day as certain flowers have to be ordered. We ordered all my purple calla lilies, purple orchids, cream roses and gypsophila as you can not guarantee they will have it there. Just a word of warning my FMIL had found Covent Garden a very very male dominant market and my FFIL gets better deals than she does because he is a man.