Wedding 101

Here are some helpful tidbits that may assist couples in planning their wedding flowers. There are generally three categories under which your flower needs fall: personal flowers, ceremony, and reception. Your personal flowers include bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres, nosegays, heath wreaths, and baskets. Basically, they are flowers that the wedding party either carries or wears. Your ceremony flowers include aisle decorations and runner, ceremony arrangements, altar arrangements, Chuppahs, and anything else that needs to be adorned with flowers for the ceremony. Lastly, reception flowers include arrangements for cocktail tables, place car table, dinner table centerpieces, restrooms, buffets, and anywhere you think flowers would look nice in your reception.

When should you book your wedding florist? This depends on how long you have to plan your wedding and how busy your florist is. Generally, you should start talking to your florist about 6-8 months before your wedding date and sign a contract with them about 4-6 months before the big day. Depending on the size of the wedding, some florists only book one wedding per date. So, keep this in mind if your date is in the middle of wedding season!

Clients often ask how much of their budget they should expect to allocate to wedding flowers. Typically, clients spend 8-10% of their entire budget on flowers. Clients from Philadelphia and Bucks Counties typically spend $4,000-5,000 on their wedding flowers. Generally, though, the more people in your wedding party and guest list, the more you will spend on flowers. This is important to remember in the early stages of wedding planning when you can somewhat control the number of people you'd like to include in your wedding.

While we highly recommend trusting your flower needs with the professionals, we understand that some clients turn to diy books and magazines for their wedding flower ideas. With the economy being the way it is, we completely understand the decision to do so. In this case, consult your local florists to learn more about what types of flowers are in season during your wedding month and how to handle and care for loose flowers once you purchase them.