Day in the Life of a Wedding Florist
This past Friday we were flowering a beautiful wedding at The Carnegie Museum. The ceremony was in the Hall of Sculpture while the reception took place in the Music Hall Foyer. It’s a stunning venue that we’re lucky to work at many times throughout the year! Come along as we take you through the timeline of a wedding day:
9:30am - The Event lead arrives at Uhaul to pickup our truck. We rent our trucks for every wedding anywhere from a 10’-26’ depending on the size of the event!
10:00am - Designers arrive at The Flower Cottage (our studio) to finish personal flowers. We typically make the personal flowers like the boutonnieres and corsages the morning of so they’re as fresh as possible.
11:00am - Crew arrives to load up the truck and cars for deliveries. We begin by loading up the hard goods like carts, ladders, candlelight, rentals, etc. in the truck first. While this is happening our other crew members begin unloading the cooler and boxing up any arrangements that need to prepare for transport.
11:30am- One crew member leaves to deliver bridal and styling flowers to the bride’s house where she is getting ready. This allows the photographer to get photos of the bouquet and styled detail shots of the invitations, shoes, accessories, etc.
12:30pm- We finish loading all of the carts, ladders, arch, stands, hard goods and flowers on the truck and we head to the venue!
1:00pm- We back the truck into the loading dock and start to unload!
1:30pm- We have everything out of the truck and we’re ready to start the setup. Quick team meeting to duel out responsibilities!
2 designers starting the arch. Since we cannot get into the ceremony room until 3pm, we’re designing the arch in the reception space and wheeling it over the ceremony space to give us more time to design and not rush.
1 designer fills in the highs with draping greenery and flowers to cover all the mechanics and create a beautiful design. These then get placed on the guest table.
1 crew member starts placing candles and low centerpieces at the guest tables and places the flowers and candles near the escort chart and welcome sign.
3:00pm- We start condensing our empty boxes that we transported the flowers in, throw away any garbage from on-site designing and pile everything back on our carts so we can quickly wheel it out to the truck once we’re done setting up.
3:15pm- Move the arch into the ceremony space along with 4 high centerpieces that we’ll be using on pedestals at the end of the aisle. Place the wedding party flowers in The Founder’s Room for them to receive upon arrival to the venue. We also placed some of the low centerpieces on the mantel in there for added ambiance and a beautiful backdrop to their getting ready photos and portraits.
3:45pm- The ceremony doesn’t start until 6pm, so we take a break until we can return after the ceremony to repurpose the arch and highs back in the reception room.
6:30pm- Return to the venue and begin moving the low centerpieces out of The Founder’s Room and placing on the guest tables. Make sure the battery operated candles are turned on a ready to greet guests.
7:00pm- All of the guests have left the ceremony room and the wedding party photos in front of the arch are complete so it’s time to move! We start by removing the flowers from the arch to be placed on the head table while other crew members move the highs to their stands on the guest tables.
7:45pm- We put the pedestals and arch structure from the ceremony back in our truck and head out!
11:00pm- Our teardown manager and crew arrives to load the truck with all of our candlelight, vases, and any flowers that the couple and family/friends left behind.
12:00am- Teardown is complete and our crew heads back to the cottage to unload!
1:15 am- The teardown manager returns the truck to Uhaul and heads home.
Phew! It is a long day but with lots of talented people on our team we make it happen. Now, every single wedding day is different! Sometimes there is a lot of site design work that requires an earlier start. Sometimes the ceremony and reception are in 2 different locations so we have multiple deliveries. Sometimes the event requires a multiple day setup! Every wedding day brings a different location, timeline, and crew together to make the magic happen! If you’d like to know more, feel free to drop any questions in the comments below!
