Should you leave flowers in the church after wedding ceremony!

[confuseddoesntcutit]

Hi all,

So I'm getting married In 2 weeks, got the florist organised and al bouquets paid for.

We have asked for x1 pedestal arrangement and 8x little posy-jar arrangements to decorate the church. These, along with some buttonholes, bridesmaids posy's and my bridal bouquet have come to almost £900.

We had arranged for the florist to aid in moving the arrangements from the church to our reception venue after the ceremony, so we can continue to enjoy them.

I had a message from a family member today to say how hurt they are, and how rude and mean it seems to be - to 'swipe' the flowers from the church straight after the ceremony not leaving any behind.

I didn't realise that this was a thing. Maybe I'm in the wrong? Can anybody please explain?

Absolutely not, churches are businesses like everywhere else, if they want flowers, they can buy their own. Take your flowers and enjoy them. I find it baffling that you'd be expected to leave them?!

Churches are not businesses like a theather or cinema with a pay for use mentally.
The flowers in many churches are donated by the members of the congregation.

Maybe they aren't businesses like theatres or cinemas, but they have a lot of money and are still businesses, and flowers are a luxury, not a necessity, so why would it be expected that they should be left?

Most churches, particularly in rural areas with small congregations, absolutely don’t have a lot of money and are struggling to pay their parish share/future utility bills etc as various PPs have said.

What’s the tradition in your church? I assume that if you’re having a church wedding you are active church-goers to that church. When others have got married there, what has happened to the flowers after the ceremony?

Eh? Churches are not businesses. That’s obvious. And most churches are seriously short of funds, quite poverty stricken, in fact.

in the church where I grew up they’re often passed on to the community. Particularly the elderly or those who’ve recently lost someone or anyone who may just need to know the congregation are thinking of them.

I think it's best to leave them.
When I got married, we weren't able to have any flowers in the church at all as we were the second wedding of the day and the first couple insisting on taking all of their flowers. We offered to pay them for them, but nope. And there wasn't enough time between ceremonies for us to be able to have new ones brought in.

Obviously that's different to just leaving them for the community but that's what we would have done had we actually been able to have any. Then others could have continued to enjoy them too.

I can't get my head around the posters thinking a church wedding is cheap - I couldn't afford to get married in my church and instead had to have a marriage blessing during the Sunday service.

Aside from that, all churches are different re flowers and you are best just speaking to them. Where we are people will take the majority with them

We left all the altar flowers and displays, and took the pedestal decorations to the reception. Everyone won!

I'll add we did discuss it - either with the priest or church flower group I can't remember now.
It was an outside florist who did the displays.

We left our pedestal of flowers in the church and the pew ribbons which had flowers but took a table display with us to the reception for the top table. I wasn't aware it was tradition to leave the flowers but we had good feedback from neighbours who attend the church who said the flowers (we had left) looked lovely at the following church service.

We took some and left some. I think we left the pedestal ones and took the ones in the windows.

Maybe you could take the jam jars and leave the pedestal?

I think everyone takes the bouquets though don't they? You want them for the photos usually. We went back the next day and laid my bouquet on my sister's grave and others on grandparents graves.

Take them OP, enjoy them at your reception give them to leaving guests at the end of the night. You pay for every part of your wedding so completely up to you to decide what you do with your arrangements

There was another wedding the same day as ours in the same church. We liaised with them about flowers and chose them together so they stayed there all day. We left them in the church because in those circumstances they didn't seem particularly ours, and it was a long time ago when no-one did any different.

However, these things weren't nearly as expensive then and I don't really think it's wrong to take flowers away, unless it was people attached to the church who arranged them.