A Timeline For DIY Wedding Flowers
Colourful ready-to-wear bouquets and buttonholes for a summer wedding. Photo courtesy of Phoebe Rossi Photography
Thinking about (or already decided you want) DIY wedding flowers for your big day? Fantastic! Here at Big Field Flowers we love helping our DIY wedding couples make the most out of their flower budget, so they can be surrounded by our beautiful British grown flowers on their big day. Based 20 minutes from Brighton & Hove, we can supply wedding flowers if you’re getting married in West Sussex or East Sussex. Whatever your budget and however small or large scale your wedding flower plans are, we can help!
6-12 months(+) before your wedding
Have a good think about whether going the DIY route for your wedding flowers is right for you. Whilst DIY’ing your wedding flowers can be a big help for your budget, it’s not right for every couple. If you’re creative and open-minded about what flowers you have at your wedding, then it could be the right option for you. If you have your heart set on having a specific rose, or peonies in August, this isn’t the right option for you.
Look through Pinterest at wedding flowers you like the style of, bearing in mind what flowers will be seasonal in the UK at the time of your wedding.
Begin to work out what arrangements you would want to DIY and if there are any elements you would want us to make, such as bouquets and buttonholes, and work out your budget for all your wedding flowers.
Request our wedding brochure, by filling out the form here and have a read-through to see what your options are.
Get in touch with us by email to check our availability and get the ball rolling on your flower order.
We advise you to book as far in advance as possible to guarantee availability, this also allows us to tailor our crop plans in terms of quantities and colours! While we are often able to accommodate bookings made more last-minute, these might have to be in a ‘Growers Choice’ colour scheme, depending on availability.
3 months before your wedding
Now would be a great time to have a practice run of any elements of your DIY wedding flowers you’re unsure of. Time how long it takes you to arrange things, so you can put together a timeline for your wedding preparations.
Do a small-scale mockup of your table settings and check you have enough bud vases or arrangements to give the look you’d like.
Order any supplies you’ll need, such as ribbon, floristry tape, pearl headed pins and any vases/vessels
Organise friends and/or family to help with arranging flowers the day before your wedding. If you’ve got lots of arrangements planned, why not divide the list up so different people can focus on different arrangements.
Let us know of any amendments you need to make to your order - this can be done up to 2 months before your collection date, which is also when your final balance is due. For any orders made within 2 months of your collection date, full payment will be required when booking.
1 week before your wedding
Gather all of the supplies you need for arranging your flowers
Wash any vases/vessels you’re going to be using
Ensure you have cardboard boxes, towels, or similar to pack & secure flowers during transport
Make sure the car you’re picking up/transporting flowers in will be relatively empty for flower collection day
If you’re planning on having bud vases, make sure you have a long-spouted watering can or sport-top water bottle - this can really speed up filling them all with water!
Confirm your flower collection time with us, at this point, we’ll give you full directions for getting to the farm and finding the flower stable.
1-2 days before your wedding
Collect your flowers from us at the arranged time & date. Flowers in DIY buckets will be fully conditioned and ready to work with on collection.
Make all your arrangements - ensure flowers are kept in water at all times. If you’re getting married in a heatwave, consider keeping the arrangements somewhere cool & dark for as long as you’re able to so they don’t overheat.
Enjoy yourself and take lots of pictures - make sure you stand back to admire all of your floral creations!
YOUR WEDDING DAY, YAY!
Take buttonholes and bouquets out of water around 15 minutes before you head down the aisle and dab any excess moisture off the stems so you don’t have any water spots on your wedding outfit! To keep bouquets looking their best, pop them in a vase of water when not in use, this also doubles as decor!
Have a fantastic wedding day, surrounded by beautiful Big Field Flower blooms!
In the week after your wedding
Kindly return any unwanted buckets to the farm for us to reuse
Please send through any pictures or put us in touch with your photographer, we’d absolutely love to see our flowers in action!
Please leave a Google review, it helps our small family business so much!
And most importantly - enjoy your honeymoon and newlywed bliss!
If DIY Wedding flowers sound right for you, just complete the form here. You’ll receive our DIY Wedding Brochure, which has all of our DIY & ready-to-wear options, have a read-through of this and it’ll guide you on what the next steps are to get your wedding flowers booked in with us!
We can’t wait to hear from you, Charlie & Tom x