This blog post is about my experiences of organising the flowers and venue decorations.
It wasn’t hard for me to choose which flowers I wanted in my bouquet and the button holes, as I’ve always loved calla lilies and they fit in well with the green and white/ivory colour scheme of the wedding. I just needed ideas on what to put with them and how I wanted them to look.
I’d been scouring wedding magazines and Google images, like you do, and found some lovely ideas.
We’ve got a great shop in Swadlincote called 'Weddings Are Us'. It’s a family business, run by Clare and her husband, which specialises in venue decorations, balloons and table decorations.
In fact, if you want it, they do it! They also run a company alongside it called 'Flowers Are Us'. They’d been recommended to us by the formal suit hire company where Simon hired his suits from and a couple of friends in the village.
I’ve not got a lot of spare time generally as I work full time and am studying in what spare time I have got so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and get them to do our flowers and decorations.
I went along to see Clare initially to discuss the venue decorations and balloons etc but just meeting with her and seeing how genuine she was about giving you an excellent service without being pushy sold it for me. If she can save you a few pounds on something you want, she will offer an alternative and will work to your budget, no problem. The shop is like Aladdin’s cave.
I made an appointment with Clare’s husband to discuss the flowers and showed him some images I’d found on the internet. He was great too, he offered lots of ideas on what type of arrangements could be made for my bridesmaids to compliment my bouquet and given the varying ages of my bridesmaids, knew exactly what would suit them.
I’ve gone for a plain but simple bouquet and over arm arrangements for the bridesmaids. The button holes have been chosen and the corsages for my mum and future mother in law are all sorted too.
I’ve chosen not to waste money on flowers for the Church, but that’s my preference. You’re only at church for a short while, and yes, you can move the flowers to your reception venue, but in all honesty I don’t want the stress of organising any more than I really need to and it would mean someone having to take the flowers 17 miles in the boot of their car. In any case, most churches have fresh flowers around the altar more often than not.
I’ve read a lot in magazines about brides travelling around, visiting different florists, comparing bouquets but I think that if someone has been recommended to you, they’ve been recommended for a reason. My advice for any bride to be is don’t give yourself more stress for no reason. Yes, have a look around but recommendations are given to help, particularly if they’re from friends and family.
