Photo courtesy of Lynn Michelle Photography
Many of our clients ask us “what do you do with the flowers after the wedding?” and we thought we’d share with you your options and tell you about a new service we’re offering here at Each & Every Detail.
First of all, after each event, your floral is yours! You and anyone you choose can take home the floral that decorated your special day. However, most of the time, the vases and containers are rentals and must return with the florist that evening. Some florists will create the arrangements in a disposable dish or tray that can be pulled out of their containers and sent with you. You can also provide your own buckets that the florist can possibly put the floral in after removing it from their containers for you to take home after the event. Just check with your florist to see if this is an option they can provide, depending on the style of your floral decor.
Photo courtesy of Two Pair Photography
Without containers, if you choose to share the floral, many guests and family members will often just pull the floral from the florist’s containers and when they arrive home, trim the stems and place them in water to create an arrangement they can enjoy in a vase they already have. (In many cases, the flowers will last another 4-5 days if they are treated well.) Another option that a few florists offer is a “wrap station”, where florists will pull from the arrangements and wrap these small bouquets for guests to take home. This is not an option offered by many, but you can certainly check to see if it’s something they’ll try!
After friends and family take their pick, florists typically offer the remaining flowers to staff that is onsite at the event, such as catering staff, planners, entertainment company, etc. These hard-working folks can take these home to enjoy or share with friends and family as well.
Photo courtesy of Miranda Marrs Photography
After all of that, if there is still floral leftover, sometimes the florists will take the floral back to their shop and repurpose it for donation to a local nursing home or hospital. We love this option and fully support florists who already do this as a matter of course. We try our best to keep track of florists who do this and are happy to recommend them to you should this be a service you want to take advantage of. However, this is where our new service comes in. If this is important to you, and your florist of choice does not offer this service, we are happy to say we’ve partnered with a local nursing home to do so ourselves!
Photo courtesy of Katie Cassidy Photography
Each & Every Detail has partnered with Harbor Chase Retirement Home to provide their residents remaining floral from our clients’ events to use not only for enjoyment, but in a way that is also purposeful! Residents are shown how to arrange the flowers themselves, which can be considered part of their physical therapy. We love this idea and can’t wait to start making it happen! To do this, we would like to work closely with our clients, evaluating what they want done with their floral, how much floral will be at the wedding and if it will be usable in this way (for example if stems will be too short to use in a freely shaped arrangement). In doing so, we can develop a plan to get this floral to Harbor Chase in a timely fashion so the flowers can be reused.
Items we take into consideration:
- Would you prefer all floral go to this course or just the remaining after family/friends/staff take home what they want?
- Will there be enough floral to fill more than a bucket or two with flowers to be reused?
- Do we need another vehicle for transportation based on the amount of floral and items already stored in our staffs’ vehicles?
- Does your venue allow us enough time to prepare these buckets or do we need extra staff to make this happen?
After evaluating these points with your lead planner, we can give you a quote on cost to make this happen. The typical rate for this service will start at $200, but will vary based your order and wedding location.
If you are interested in this new service Each & Every Detail offer, please contact your lead planner! (Please know that while we think this is a great service and wish we could make it available to anyone, at this time we can only offer this to clients of Each & Every Detail.)