Behind the Scenes of the Big Day

A big day requires big flowers and The Botanist is here to help with that. Planning a wedding can be a mammoth task, ensuring every single detail is accounted for. The floral arrangements are no doubt a huge part of this, setting the vibe for what is a very important day.

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to the amazing floral arrangements seen at weddings. The Botanist has had the privilege of being a part of many beautiful weddings, right up from an email brief to the onsite placements on the big day. Head Florist Eden Kersten gives us some behind-the-scenes insight into the exciting process of designing floral arrangements for weddings.

The Briefing

The process usually starts with an email brief outlining what the bride and groom are after. You can contact The Botanist florists here if you have an upcoming wedding and would like to enquire!

Eden explains, “It usually begins with an email with a brief of what they are after, we then check to see if we are available for the big day, then we arrange a time to meet over bubbles or coffee and start the planning process.”

The florists are great at taking a vision for the wedding day and floral arrangements can complement it. Bookings may come in as far as a couple of years in advance, but last minute arrangements may also be possible.

“Because the seasons and flowers are forever changing, we don’t usually plan the actual blooms and design until a few months prior to the date. We give them a rough cost and some ideas to take home and think over.”

The Design

From the flowers greeting guests at the entrance to the ceremony, the bride’s elegant bouquet, or table centrepieces, there is a lot of design and planning that goes into each floral arrangement.

Eden likes to combine the original vision for the wedding with her own creativity. “It all begins with the vibe of the wedding and what the bride has envisioned, they usually have a few images of aesthetics they were thinking of. We then put our flair and ideas to them to see if they approve. Samples are sometimes requested which we do to make sure we are on the same page.”

“We strive to make every wedding different, but we take the venue and its surroundings into consideration when planning. My favourite weddings use foliages and textures en masse. It’s every florists dream to have full reign on the design! Usually what the florist suggests will work best turns out best.”

The Lead Up

The lead up to the wedding is when all the pieces come together. The largest part of the process, this is not only putting together the floral arrangements, but all the logistics of getting it done. With an army of a team, all the resources to construct beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces, the team can travel to locations to get everything set up.

“There’s lots of preparation leading up to weddings, we firstly have to book accommodation, Scissor lifts, extra staff and speciality blooms. We usually have at least 3 meetings with the bride, then on the week of the wedding we send images of the blooms we plan to use.”

Flowers need to be in tip-top shape for the big day. This means that their health needs to be looked after too on the lead up, before being arranged on the day of the wedding. Eden explains, “The flowers are sometimes brought a couple of weeks to the lead up of the big day to make sure they are at their best. They are in the chiller one day then in the sun the next - we are always keeping a close eye on them! We do all of the bridal work the day of but depending of the scale of the wedding we can be preparing days prior.”

Reach out to The Botanist here to start planning your wedding flowers. Visit our flower shop Auckland or order online. We offer online flower delivery.