How Long Does Wedding Floristry Take?

[FloralQuestions]

I am fairly good at making bouquets of flowers, I did my own wedding flowers (bouquet and lapel flowers) my made the bridal bouquets for my sister's wedding and a friend's wedding.

Another friend has asked me to do their wedding floristry comprising:
1 x bridal bouquet
4 x bridesmaid bouquets.
8 x floral table displays
6 x lapel flowers

This feels like a BIG undertaking for a non-professional, in high summer (so potentially really warm), and a fairly formal wedding.

When I made previous bouquets, I had some choice over the flowers we used (so I could use fairly hardy flowers like roses and peonies) vs. this friend who wants more whimsy, soft, tumbling, flowers - which I wouldn't trust to hold-up on a hot day (especially if prepared the night before).

This isn't a 'should I say "no"' thread, more a "is this even possible?" thread.

YABU: It's possible, 13+ bouquets in a day is a piece of pish!
YANBU: It's impossible, don't even try.

More info:
I'd do a test run a week in advance - using the exact same flowers (but one of each of the table decorations, bridesmaids flowers, and lapel flowers). This is too late to hire a florist - but gives us the opportunity to tweak the flower choices.

I'd do the actual flowers the day before the wedding.

I would buy the flowers wholesale - though do not have an airconditioned place to keep them over night.

I would say no. Friendship would be ruined if anything went wrong. Also, what if you were ill and couldn’t do it. There is no backup for this.

You're right about the illness, also have two under-5s... so the likelihood of disease is high at any time!

It's a no from me too. I do my own table decs etc so I understand how long it takes, you've listed the pitfalls. Plus she's been quite specific so has a good idea of what she wants. I have a friend who just wanted flowers, really not fussed, this is a whole new ballgame.

I would say no unless you have a team of people to help you

I did my own wedding flowers. I had 2 bouquets, 3 flower girl wands, mother of the bride gift bouquet, 6 button holes, two oblong cake table decorations, and I think 8 table centre decorations, which were two layer things with a round oasis at the bottom, and a vase display with fairy lights in as well as more flowers at the top. It took me, my sister, 2 x SIL, and a family friend most of a day to put them together, we did it the day before the wedding. My amazing SIL was also finishing the cake that day too. It was a mission. We massively took on too much. But they were stunning.

The things that took the time were things like wiring the stems of the more fragile flowers, removing thorns, cutting things to size, removing the guard petals on roses etc. And we needed a lot of space and there was a lot of clean up, buckets everywhere, wires, ribbons, cutters, etc etc, total chaos. We shifted all the furniture out of the living room, tarpaulin on the floor, and took over the dining table and a pasting table to do it.

We used roses, proteas, gerbera, tulips, and eucalyptus, as well as a load or other greenery. All fairly robust flowers, which helped. The proteas still looked perfect a week after the big day.

£800 worth of wholesale flowers in a tiny bathroom is amazing, it smelled phenomenal. I'd do it again, but it was hard work!

You're already doubting you could do it well given the circumstances. If the bouquets and table arrangements can be hand ties and put in water they'll probably be fine. I wouldn't want to do buttonholes and corsages the day before without somewhere cool to keep them. But that's after you've conditioned everything once you've got it from the wholesalers.

This is exactly what I found with previous arrangements - the hardest work was prep; wiring, de-thorning, removal of guard petals etc. For the previous weddings I lived in my old house so could take over the whole kitchen for 'doing' and had the bath filled with jugs and jugs of flowers, and we had a super cool basement to keep everything cool over night.

This time around, I live an hour out of the city the wedding is being held in - so I either do it at home (space is fine, but this is not a cool house, and transporting the flowers in the boot of my car would be terrifying) or at my friends apartment the day before her wedding, when she, her bridesmaids, and her fiancé are doing all day-before-wedding-things, and her apartment isn't big enough to fully spread out.

This is the thing, I believe I have the skills for it, but I think logistically, it'd be, practically impossible.

I have made wedding flowers . I think it’s the logistics looking at what you have written and the stress of getting the good quality blooms and then storing and transporting them with them remaining picture perfect.

I made one bouquet last year and 2 buttonholes, the flowers were £50 and I picked the greenery from my garden and already had the wire and ribbon. If you’re doing a practice run as well it won’t be cheap. She should get a quote and then work out the costs compared to DIY. I know it will be cheaper but maybe not as much as she thinks.

If you could do the table decorations which are much easier than the bouquets and buttonholes. It would still help her out a lot. That’s what I would offer.

I think you'll be so stressed about it that you could make yourself ill. You have two very young children and your friend is asking too much of you. I've done wedding flowers and the workload is huge (as you already know). In high summer you'd have to time everything perfectly: the prep and conditioning, the storage, the transport etc. Tell her you'd love to help but you just can't due to lack of time, your children, lack of space etc. It's impossible.