Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

June 13, 2016 | By Naomi |

DIY Wedding Flowers: The Arrangements

Now that you’ve been ~~lectured~~ sufficiently informed about where your innocent-looking flowers actually come from, I thought we’d move onto the fun part: pretty pictures!

For those of you who missed my last post, my Mom and I had the opportunity to DIY the flowers for a family friend’s wedding a couple of weeks ago and it was super fun and very interesting! My Mom planned and handled the whole thing, so my role was to go along for the ride, be my opinionated self, and play with flowers 🙂 I’ve already shared the story of where we got our flowers and why we chose to go with a local and organic source, and in future posts I’ll talk about the bouquets and all of the logistics and tips to think about when taking on DIY wedding flowers. But to make sure things get really pretty right away, today I’m going to share all about the arrangements that we made – the table centerpieces, aisle markers, big statement pieces, and sweet accents.

We definitely had a lot to make – this was a good sized wedding! I’m not positive how many people attended, but there were 18 tables and a big tent to fill with blooms. Fortunately, the venue (Curtis Farm in NH) didn’t need much help from us.

It was really a beautiful place to spend a few days, with grassy fields and a farm feel (and even some real farm animals which we had fun visiting with). It also has a great view over fields, forest, and hills, which is particularly amazing as the sun sets.

However, just because the place was pretty already, didn’t mean that we were going to slack off with the flowers! We planned enough for some great arrangements, and I’m thrilled with how they turned out.

DIY Wedding Flowers: The Large Arrangements

We wanted the flowers to feel opulent and plentiful, so we planned for a pair of large arrangements that we would get double use out of – flanking the arbor where the ceremony was held and decorating the tent on the buffet tables. (It was super easy to move them after the ceremony – more on this tip in my next post.) My Mom took the lead on making these and they came out great!

We used tall tins to go with the farm/rustic look of the wedding. My Mom got little paint buckets to put in the bottom of them to hold water because they were pretty leaky.

Making large arrangements work is not easy, but we did our research and followed a few key tips. Most importantly, we used chicken wire in the bottom of the vases to help the arrangements hold their shape. I picked up a roll for like $12 at the local hardware store.

We just used wire cutters to cut out a section of the chicken wire about twice as large in diameter as the vase. It is highly recommended that you wear heavy gloves while doing this (the wire is quite sharp) but totally optional to take awkward photos to share on the internet.

Once you have the piece cut, just bend it into a half-sphere and wedge it down into the bottom of the vase.

This gives you a lot more control over the shape of the arrangement as you build it and helps the branches stay in place, so you can build it out like a sculpture.

My mom started by placing the greens to define the shape of the arrangement. From there she started adding in the main/statement flowers.

Then she added in the accents and contrasting colors.

Its important to keep adding until things feel really opulent and overflowing. The last thing you want is for the arrangements to look skimpy.

I love how these came out!

The two are slightly different, and feature white and yellow lilies, dark and light blue delphinium, light blue hydrangea, and white snap dragons. The greens and pretty little white flowers are cut from a neighbor’s viburnum bushes and another bush in my Mom’s yard. In all, we used about 28 stems for each arrangement (I’ll get more into the budgeting/allocating of flowers in my next post).

They really popped in the white tent! We had them on the buffet tables where everyone could see them.

We also used them to flank the arbor for the ceremony.

We put them on top of some crates I had bought a while ago to add more height and add to the farm vibe.

They really added a lot of brightness and life!

DIY Wedding Flowers: Aisle Markers

A last minute addition to our plan was to make aisle markers (those arrangements that hang on hooks along the aisle). My Mom took the lead on these, as well, and these arrangements were my favorites out of the whole day!

We drew on Pinterest for inspiration, of course. From our group board we knew that we liked these to feature a few large blooms and some greens.

Flower inspiration from Style Me Pretty - Plaster & Disaster

Both inspiration images via Style Me Pretty (1 // 2)

We were very lucky that Curtis Farm had supplies that we could use, and these included the metal hooks and mason jars already tied with twine. We planned for eight aisle markers (four for each side) with about eight stems each, pretty heavy on the greens. Here is what we set aside:

We used white peonies, allium, and cuts of viburnum bushes for greens and the little white flowers. (I’m not sure what the little pink flowers are – does anyone know? Updated: they’re Wax Flowers – thanks, Jude!)

Much like with the large arrangements, my mom started by building out the greens and adding the “wow” flowers (the peonies).

She then added in the accents and pops of color to complete the look. Again, the goal was for them to look overflowing and plentiful, so we aired on the side of more stems of flowers for each container, rather than less.

I don’t know exactly what it is about these arrangements, but I love them so much! The colors are simple and great for a wedding, and the high proportion of green and use of little/casual looking flowers keeps them feeling easy-going. They’re definitely loose, rather than packed with dense/space-filling blooms.

We also picked up some lavender ribbon (purple was one of the wedding colors) to decorate the hooks. To keep with the simple vibe we just tied a long strand on with simple knot, rather than some complex bow concoction.

From there, it was a simple matter of hanging the flowers (and securing them upright with a bit of green floral wire).

I love the colors against the sea of white chairs.

They really added a lot to the ceremony area. And I made sure to grab a couple of these bunches when I left so I could enjoy them for a couple more weeks!

DIY Wedding Flowers: Table Centerpieces

Of course, a lot of our planning was focused on the table centerpieces! Abby and Ian through-hiked the Appalachian Trail together, and he proposed to her at the end, so this was a big feature of the wedding decor. All of the tables were named for different states that the AT passes through, and the seating chart was a big map. To carry that theme through to the centerpieces, they decided to spray paint hiking boots gold, fit them with a glass jar, and use those to hold the flowers. It came out really nice!

We wanted the centerpieces to be colorful and striking, and so we used a lot of the bright and more showy flowers on these. Each took about eight stems (same as the aisle markers) but because we used more of the bigger flowers like hydrangeas, they came out a little larger. I think that vibrancy holds up well against the boots!

The main tip that we learned was to cut the stems on these really low. It looked best for the flowers to begin right at the top of the boot/jar to really give the impression that the boot was the container.

In addition to the boot, each table featured a chalkboard sign with the state/table name, a map of the state, a photo of Abby and Ian on the trail in that state, and some tea lights.

It seems like a lot, but against the white tablecloths it was a really nice look!

I also love that each arrangement is different. Buying from a local, small farm we knew that we would get more variety and have less control over the types that we got, and I think this helped with the casual atmosphere that Abby wanted.

All sorts of flowers appear throughout these, including hydrangeas, snapdragons, sunflowers, queen anne’s lace, peonies, viburnum, lilies, delphinium, etc.

DIY Wedding Flowers: Accents

Finally, we made a bunch more small arrangements to go around the space and decorate the bar, dessert table, etc. We put these in small mason jars, and added ribbon around the rim for an extra sweet touch.

For a wedding feel, we picked a lacy pattern for the ribbon and just secured these around the jars with a little bit of double-sided fabric tape.

We also used the ribbon-lined jars upside down throughout the space holding little electric tea lights.

These are where most of our leftover flowers ended up, so we focused less on keeping them consistent and more on making sure each was pretty in its own right. This is also where we used flowers that got broken through the process (and so had stems too short for other arrangements).

I hope that you enjoyed seeing how these arrangements turned out! Working with a local farm, they were definitely more varied than if we had just bulk ordered a few types from the florist, but I think this really added to the charm and casual feel. And we had a blast making them and seeing how the different combinations came together!

Stay tuned for my Friday post to hear more of the “behind the scenes” of how this all came together (and tips for how to be successful when DIYing flowers for a wedding) and my post next week where I can show off the bouquets that we made!

Sharing at the Creative Gallery

June 10, 2016 | By Naomi |

Sourcing DIY Wedding Flowers: Why Local, Why Organic

My family has a friend-family. My parents have been friends with them for at least 35 years (!!), and us kids grew up together and went on vacations together and have stayed in touch. The younger daughter, Abby, just got married a couple of weekends ago, and this was a big deal! She is totally awesome (as in, hiked the Appalachian Trail awesome) so when my mom offered to provide and DIY the flowers for the wedding, of course I signed on to help!

I’m really looking forward to sharing a series of posts on DIY Wedding Flowers in the coming week or so about what goes into doing flowers for a good sized wedding. I’ll be talking about how many you actually need, how you plan for it, supplies, tips for big arrangements, and how you make a bridal and bridesmaid bouquets. My Mom was the true master-mind behind all of this, but I get to share it here because it is interesting stuff and also a great excuse to post a whole lot of pretty flower pictures! (And because this is Plaster & Disaster, some real/less attractive process shots, too). Look out for those posts coming very soon!

But before getting to the how-to, I wanted to share some things I learned about flowers and buying flowers in this process. My mom is a champion for the environment and environmental health, and so she found a place to get beautiful, local, organic flowers for the wedding.

While local and organic food is getting pretty mainstream, applying those same ideas to flowers is still more of a fringe idea. But it shouldn’t be. True, we are less intimate with flowers than we are with food – i.e., we don’t eat them. (Could I have thought of a less creepy way to say that? Yes.) However, that doesn’t mean that the impact on the environment and the health of others are not severe. So let’s get into it a bit. We’re really talking about two different things – local and organic – and both are important.

Why Local

Flowers are so fragile and temporary, that it really seems like a product that should be grown close to where it is consumed. I guess I always just assumed that this was the case even though I had no evidence to support it! So I was really surprised to learn that imported flowers account for about 64% of flower sales in the U.S. These are mostly (78%) from Colombia, but a good amount come from Ecuador, as well.

The issue is the environmental impact of all of this. On average, a bouquet will travel 1500 miles to come to a consumer in the U.S. – in refrigeration on trucks, sea containers, airplanes, etc. In fact, the Scientific American reported that sending the roses for a typical Valentine’s Day produces approximately 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions… and a quick calculation puts that one day in context as the amount emitted by 1,500 cars over the course of a year.

And don’t think that the trade statistics mean that the remaining 36% are from the flower farm down the street… unless you live in California, where over 3/4 of our domestic flowers are grown. These are generally grown in industrial greenhouses and then shipped all over the country.

All of this combines to mean that the bunch of flowers you buy in the grocery store or the arrangement delivered from the area florist – that ethereal, temporary thing that dies and is tossed within a couple weeks – comes with a really big carbon footprint.

Also, the result of all of this needed travel, is that flowers (much like fruits and vegetables) are being bred for their ability to hold up to long storage an voyages. Just as this makes fruits and vegetables less flavorful and nutritious, the flowers we buy these days are less fragrant and less varied. Bummer all around.

An Aside: The Global Flower Market

Feel free to totally skip this part. I wasn’t planning on talking a lot the economics and economic history of flowers, but I found myself fascinated and going deeper and deeper as I did research for this, so I thought I’d share a few things here. If you’re not interested, just skip on down to the next section!

I had no idea but floriculture (the name for the business of cut flowers, but also cut greenery, potted plants, and bulbs) is an immense business. U.S. spending on flowers for Mothers Day alone is about $2.2 billion! Historically, this was absolutely dominated by the Netherlands, and was the sector where we experienced the first economic bubble in the 1930s – hilariously called Tulip Mania.

The Netherlands are still very important, and about half of the worlds supply goes through there and the Dutch auction system which sets world prices. Many of these very-short-lifespan products are shipped there to be inspected and bid on in person, before being shipped out again and sold elsewhere! However, newer “flower powers” are Colombia, Ecuador, and Kenya, due to climates that are well suited for massive flower farming, and the low price of labor. (Interestingly, even though these countries are exporting flowers, most of the plants the flowers come from are actually originally grown in the Netherlands and then are shipped as seedlings or cuttings.) Most bouquets that you buy have done some serious international travel!

Because of distance, the U.S. doesn’t buy many Dutch (or Kenyan) flowers, and instead we get our flowers from Colombia and Ecuador – which are actually closer to the East Coast than California is, anyway. The industry really took off there in the 1970s, but got a major boost in in 1991 when the U.S. agreed to not charge import taxes on flowers from South America as a way to encourage farmers to grow flowers rather than cocaine.

A whole infrastructure of cold-infusing equipment, cold containers, and cold rooms has been built out to transport flowers at 34 degrees to U.S. stores. Transport by sea has become a big trend, because it is more affordable, sustainable, and technology has improved to do it with better climate control, which is making it easier for flowers to be traded not just internationally, but across the ocean. (Fun fact: you can fit about 150,000 chrysanthemum stems into a 40 foot container.)

Why Organic

But the carbon footprint is only half the story. The other half is that the flowers we buy are usually drenched in pesticides.

While in some ways working on a flower farm can be a job with decent wages where jobs are sorely needed, it also carries some significant health risks. Setting aside the issues of sexual harassment, long hours, and repetitive stress injuries, workers are exposed to a lot of pesticides and chemicals in growing and packaging flowers to be sold internationally. Workers have vision and breathing problems, dizziness, and illness. Women who work in flower farms can see reduced fertility or development challenges for their children.

And it is not just the workers. The pesticides and fertilizer can leak into the water supply and contaminate whole areas.

The flowers that come here – and that we love to have in our homes, to smell, and be around – are totally covered. The amount of pesticide on imported flowers is not regulated since they are not eaten or grown here. At the border, they are not tested for chemicals, just for bugs or fungus, and even one can cause big problems for the shipment. Therefore, growers have a big incentive to make absolutely sure that there isn’t a single insect on their flowers and very little incentive not to cover them in with pesticides. And this is what some literally do: dunking flowers head-first into pesticide/fungicide.

So while flowers seem like a carefree, natural, happy treat to buy, they really carry a whole hidden price-tag of environmental and health issues. I’m NOT saying don’t buy flowers. But perhaps we should be as conscious of the choices we are making when we buy flowers as we are when we buy food.

So what did we do when we needed a whole lot of flowers for the wedding?

Where we got our flowers: Stow Greenhouses

Despite the prevalence of imported flowers, local growers can be found! And supporting them when you want flowers for a special occasion will only help them succeed and encourage more to grow locally. (Check out SlowFlowers.com to start with some sources.) My mom found Stow Greenhouses, a small farm in our area which follows sustainable practices and doesn’t use pesticides.

Buying flowers for an event from a local farm is a little different than working with a big florist. You don’t get to specify exactly what you want, as it is totally dependent on what is in bloom at that time. Because we’re “planners,” we stopped by the farm the week before to help get an idea of what to expect.

It was really cool to visit! Even thought it is a “small farm,” it is a big operation (from my perspective). The owner, Barb, grows flowers in three acres of fields and a full acre greenhouse. They employ 5 people year round, and a whole lot more in the summer, including sales staff for farmers markets and drivers for flower deliveries.

When you visit a flower farm, there are virtually no flowers to see. If you look out a field and see colors other than green and brown, that means that they are doing something wrong! Flowers are picked and used as soon as (or before) they bloom so that they will get to the buyer with the longest life on the table as possible.

Stow Greenhouses grows all sorts of flowers, but they specialize in lilies. It was really cool to see rows and rows of lily plants, but not a single one in bloom.

They sell flowers through a lot of different channels – online, by subscription, CSA, at farmers markets, and in a cooler where people can drop by and buy bouquets any day. However, the big business is in weddings. They typically do full flowers for a wedding – as in make each arrangement, bouquet, and boutonniere by hand – each weekend day! (I can tell you first hand, that is a whole lot of work.)

Barb was working on flowers for the next day while we were there, and her arrangements are beautiful! I love the use of dogwood in the bouquet she put together.

They also sell for DIY wedding flowers, and will help you figure out how much you need so long as you’re willing to do all of the “putting together” yourself. But more on that in a coming post!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’re as excited to see the arrangements and bouquets that we made as I am to share them! I’d love to hear – did you already know all this about where our flowers come from? Do you to go any local sources near you, or just pick from your own garden?