What happens to all of your beautiful wedding flowers at the end of your ceremony and reception? I want to share some different ideas with you on what you can do with those flowers at the end of your wedding.
When you hire a professional florist for your wedding the vases, urns and containers they place the flowers in are quoted as rentals and belong to the florist. You do own the flowers, but the vases and containers the flowers are in will need to be returned to your florist or most florists will pick them up at the end of the event. If you do want to keep the flowers or pass them out to friends and family just be sure you remove them from the vases so you are not charged for the cost of the vase as well. If you would rather keep the vases at the end of the event you would need to inform your florist about this before the wedding day so they could charge you appropriately for them. A lot of my brides or mothers of the bride decide to keep just a couple or few arrangements since they usually don’t have room for all of them. We always remove the flowers from the vases if they are in water, but most of the time they are on a disposable dish making it easy for them to transport.
A lot of brides ask me if the flowers can be donated to nursing homes or hospitals. If you do decide to donate to a nursing home the flowers would have to be placed in plastic vases and distributed by you or your family the day after the wedding. Nursing homes can’t accept flowers in glass vases. You could donate a large arrangement to a nursing home for them to display in their dining room or entryway.
We do have a local hospice in Meridian, MS, that will accept flowers after weddings; Southern Care Hospice. They distribute them to their in house patients rooms and they actually will place them in their own vases so all you have to do is drop the flowers off or arrange for them to pick the flowers up from you or your venue the Monday following your wedding.
If you are having a church wedding you may want to leave one of your arrangements for Sunday service the following day. Most churches require you to sign up to place an arrangement on the altar table, but be sure to do this well in advance. If the date was already booked by another church member they may allow you to leave an arrangement in the entryway instead.
You will want to keep your bridal bouquet if nothing else. A lot of brides simply dry the bouquet out themselves by hanging the bouquet upside down in a dark, cool room or closet for a few months. There are several companies that will preserve your bouquet like Freezeframe, but this needs to be arranged before the wedding day since you have to ship the bouquet to them the day after your wedding.
If you have any questions about this feel free to email me at info@southernproductions.net.
xo,
Terrica
