You have spent so much money on your beautiful wedding flowers and hate to see them tossed in the garbage once the wedding is over.  I hear this all the time and I totally get it.  There are a few things you can do with your wedding flowers once the big day is over.  

Leave Your Ceremony Flowers for Sunday Service

If you are having a church wedding ceremony you could leave your ceremony flowers for Sunday service.  This would need to be arranged with your church to ensure that no one else has that day reserved for flowers.  Most churches will post in the church bulletin something like “the flowers in the sanctuary are from  “x” wedding” or “the flowers in the sanctuary are in honor of the “x” wedding.  

Donate Your Flowers

Some communities have local hospices or nursing homes that will repurpose wedding flowers for patients rooms.  This makes is so easy for the couples family since all you have to do is arrange for the flowers to be picked up.  They would handle the repurposing and distribution of the flowers. 

Repurpose Your Flowers for Nursing Homes, Hospices or Hospitals

If your community does not have a service that repurposes flowers for hospice patients or nursing homes you could appoint a couple of family members to repurpose your flowers the day after the wedding.  This is not an easy task and will require some work on their part.  You would also have to purchase vases to put the flowers.  If you do decide to do this be sure and check with the nursing home, hospital or hospice you are planning to donate the flowers to and find out if the vases need to be plastic or if glass vases are allowed.  A lot of nursing homes will only accept plastic vases for safety reasons. 

Share With Your Guests

You could send flowers home with your guests.  If you do this be sure your guests don’t take the vases the flowers are in unless they are vases you have personally purchased.  Most florists provide vases for the event, but they are the property of the florist and must be returned after the event.  You could also share your flowers with your guests as a wedding favor.  You could set up a really cute “create your own bouquet” station for guests to take before leaving the reception.

Leave Flowers On a Loved Ones Grave

If you have lost a family member or close friend you could honor them by leaving an arrangement on their grave. 

For most of the weddings we plan we always leave the ceremony flowers for church weddings if they are in a vase or an urn for Sunday service.  As far as the reception flowers, we either donate them to a local hospice or we end up tossing them if it doesn’t work out for them to be picked up.  We hate tossing them, but by the end of a long wedding week we are usually too worn out to repurpose them ourselves, unfortunately.  

xo, Terrica