How Planning My Own Wedding Made Me a Better Wedding Florist

If you’re planning your own wedding right now (or if you plan to be engaged soon!), you probably are feeling something like excitement mixed with overwhelm mixed with YIKES THAT’S WHAT THAT COSTS?? For many of us, this is the first time we’ve planned a huge event, navigating catering and menus and linens and arrival times and transportation and flowers and dress fittings and and and….

Now, maybe you’re an ultra fancy person who plans lots of large-scale events and this is all old hat for you. If that’s the case- go on with your bad self! You’re amazing! 

But for many couples planning a wedding, this is a whole new world. You might have hosted a dinner party for ten people or had a Bat Mitzvah, so you know there are a lot of logistics that go into hosting. Multiply that for however many guests you’re having and you start to understand exponentially how much more challenging it will be to plan and host a wedding.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved a LOT of the wedding planning process! I got engaged right in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we picked a wedding date nearly two years out in 2022 to have plenty of time to plan. One thing that was invaluable to my now-husband and me was sitting down early on to identify the three most important elements of a wedding- this way, whenever things got overwhelming or we faced decision fatigue, we could return to those three core values and decide whether whatever we were stressing about served those goals. 

For us, we actually both separately picked the exact same three elements: good food/drink, alone time together, and a fun dance party. Those were our tethers. This led us to some of our major decisions like investing in a venue that allowed us to custom create a menu with the in-house chef, including signature cocktails that reflected both of our personalities.

Forever Photography

Deciding on what to do about my wedding florals was a journey. Upon first getting engaged, I had the stellar idea to do my own wedding flowers; thank goodness I had several florist friends ask me if I was insane and realized that yes, I’d probably rather be sipping a glass of bubbly on the morning of my wedding and not building a chuppah. Luckily, I was able to still design the concept for all the wedding elements myself ahead of time, and I hired some floral designer friends to do the actual set up and execution. These friends were true rockstars, because they somehow managed to set up an entire wedding and then transform into wedding guests by the evening!

Forever Photography

From a budget perspective and an Earth perspective, sustainability was huge for us in our wedding planning! Here are a couple sustainable ways we designed our wedding:

1. Sourcing rugs from Facebook marketplace & Craigslist for the aisle.

This look was so important to us, so we spent months sourcing these one at a time. On the day of, they became our wedding aisle, then our venue amazingly flipped them into a dance floor. After the wedding, I sold them as a “complete aisle bundle” to another bride on a local wedding group.. Win win!

2. Pressing flowers for escort cards.

I saved flower heads from work and pressed them in books for months! I did end up sourcing some more pressed flowers from the amazing Lacie at Framed Florals, and the look was so special.

Forever Photography

Bonus: I dried my own flowers at home for individual dried flower bundles at each place setting. 

Forever Photography

3. Drying flowers for confetti.

For two years, I meticulously dried petals from flower heads that came off in processing or normal design, focusing on high saturation flowers like marigold, delphinium, and strawflower. When the wedding got closer, I made paper cones and we gave these out to our guests for tossing at the end of our ceremony.

4. Donating our flowers after our event.

Luckily, our venue, Spillian, had a connection to a local organization, so we didn’t have to do much legwork on this. A couple great folks came during our brunch the day after our wedding, seamlessly rescued whatever flowers still looked beautiful, and took them to local nursing homes and hospitals. This was in the Catskills, but there are fabulous organizations like Bloom Again Brooklyn that do this exact kind of work here!
Our wedding flowers got to have a second life, and that made my heart so happy.

Forever Photography

Of course, there were a lot of less exciting elements to wedding planning, but it’s all part of the ride. We had a gorgeous day surrounded by our closest family and friends, and the most important takeaway was that it felt like us. This is what I always stress to the couples I work with: create something that feels like an organic extension of you two and the love you share, and it’ll always be a day you remember with warmth and love.

Happy planning!

Current Color Palette Obsession

Maybe it’s the impending arrival of spring, maybe it’s that Valentine’s Day just passed, maybe it’s that I recently saw the movie Babygirl and the branding was on POINT, but there is one color palette I can’t stop obsessing over:

the coquette palette.

A selection from my time at Stems Brooklyn. Photo by April Massey.

Admittedly, this isn’t a new or particularly groundbreaking palette (cue Meryl Streep asking “florals? For spring? Groundbreaking ”), but when done well, it’s OH so good. Think romance, ribbons, silks, highly decorated retro cakes, and then all of it brought together by flowers.

A selection from my time at Stems Brooklyn. Photo by Christian Oth Studio.

A coquette palette typically features what I like to think of as “elevated pastels”: soft robin’s egg blue, creamy whites, blush pinks, heightened by the occasional more saturated tone (a deeper violet, maybe). A buttery yellow might make an appearance. The key is keeping all the tones in their softest shades and choosing your deeper colors wisely. Adding in these pops of colors keeps this palette from looking too much like a baby shower (unless, of course, you’re throwing a baby shower- then go as soft as you like!).

A selection from my time at Stems Brooklyn. Photo by April Massey.

The shapes of our flowers matter here, too; when we think of this Babygirl-style palette, we’re using mostly round, soft blooms, prioritizing flowers that are fluffy, delicate, and allow for more of a garden-style look. Tropicals and drippy amaranth would change this vibe considerably, so save those for a more minimal, modern aesthetic.

A selection from my time at Stems Brooklyn. Photo by April Massey.

To me, this is a quintessential spring/summer palette. That’s not to say you can’t do it in other seasons, it just means that, if we’re leading with seasonality, the types of flowers that tend to lend themselves well to this style are most often available in the early- to mid-growing season in our region (NY, NJ, Western Massachusetts). You could even do this whole palette with completely local flowers (roses included!). Here are a few of my favorite coquette-esque blooms:

Garden roses- these were grown right in New Jersey!

Pink foxglove (the purple dalmatian variety is also beautiful, but I’m a sucker for the blush pink).

Phlox (this bloom does NOT smell great, but sure is pretty).

Local sweet pea, in all its tendril-y glory

Scabiosa (this comes in so many different hues that you can use it as a cool pop or a buttery warm tone)

These are just a handful of the florals and shades you can use to bring this sweet palette to life; don’t forget some blush stock, Peaches & Cream dahlias, and light blue delphinium. This vibe is perfect for your wedding- or your next garden party, shower, or afternoon soiree.

Hope you loved this deep-dive into my current color palette obsession as much as I did! Wishing you lots of ribbon-filled garden parties in the near future. Xoxo