The right flowers on your wedding day

How to choose the right flowers on your wedding day?

Top Tips

Research the look you are after
Choose a budget for your wedding
Choose a florist who you like and that has experience with weddings

Brendan: Hi Annie. How are you?

Annie: I’m really well. How are you Brendan?

Brendan: I’m great today thanks. Your business is Francis Floristry. Tell us a little bit about what you do.

Annie: I’m a wedding and event florist. I don’t have a retail store because I only concentrate my business on providing specifically for weddings and events and weddings are the majority of my business.

Brendan: How many weddings a year would you do now?

Annie: It’s my fifth year of business and every year I had a different outlook on what I want to do for my business last year. Last year we did 120 weddings in a year. At the beginning of this year I decided that I didn’t want to do that many going forward. I would rather focus on quality over quantity. I pulled it right back to almost half that now. One wedding a week or maybe one wedding a fortnight during the off season and then two weddings in my peak season.

Brendan: I discovered you Annie through Instagram. You were working at Seacliff and you have done this amazing, I don’t know what you call it but amazing flowers in the barn on the fireplace. That might have been four or five months ago. I was like oh my God, that is so incredible.

Annie: I really love working in the barn. That is probably my favorite location over the clear marquee. I definitely the barn is a more versatile options for couples. You’ve got this gorgeous option for couples. Then you’ve got this gorgeous option of having your ceremony in front of the mantle five foot fireplace and then just continuing on the wedding inside the barn to have your reception there as well which I think is great to utilize both the spaces inside so you don’t have to worry about weather. The other thing is you’ve got beautiful natural light coming through that clear glass wall on one whole side of the barn. I really love barn weddings at Seacliff and any option to do a wedding installation or a mantelpiece you’ve got me.

Brendan: Have you actually used the rigging that is inside the Barn?

Annie: For that wedding that I did the massive mantelpiece I used the rigging and we actually had two large, I call them swings. It’s like a large plank of wood and the arrangement drapes down over each edge. It was actually like a hanging floral to the aisle. That was in between right in the middle of the barn going down the length of the barn and we had tall arrangements and short arrangements on the table for the wedding that I did the massive mantelpiece. I did use the riggings for that one as well.

Credit: photography @theevokecompany + Bride and Groom Kim and Tim

Brendan: Where do you get your inspiration from? Is it the clients that brief you or do they give you like keywords and then you come up with the concept? I’m really curious to see how that actually evolves.

Annie: I’m actually quite a bit different to the usual florist. I’m a creative control freak. I love things that are different from the norm. I love dreaming up ideas that I haven’t seen before. Obviously I understand that it’s the client’s day and I want to create what they’re looking for but I want to go above and beyond their expectations and really make something to emulate who they are as people not just replicating Pinterest weddings. A little inspiration is great too from the client. I pulled back on who I actually accept as clients. I really want to work with people who have a creative vision that was aligned with mine and do things that are out of the ordinary.

Brendan: In other words it’s got to be fun and it’s got to be creatively rewarding I guess.

Annie: I love doing weddings that are unique color schemes or unique things where the couple is a bit more creative than just your average wedding floristry. I don’t do balls of roses in fish bowls. I do more sculptural focused. I love hanging installations. I love hanging installations. I love making arrangements for a space in a space rather than just plunking something on a table or something on the end of an aisle.

Brendan: That makes sense. I think it was last weekend’s wedding I saw some of your work which is again really unusual. It was an arbor made out of flowers. Tell me a little bit about that concept.

Credit: photography @theevokecompany + Bride and Groom Kim and Tim

Annie: That was an outdoor ceremony looking over those gorgeous rolling green hills. We were very lucky we had a beautiful sunny day. They get married on a lawn. For the backdrop we actually had two pillar arrangements. It wasn’t an arch in so that is was connecting at the top. It was still a backdrop. I know that they use it as a photo booth backdrop for the rest of the wedding because it was in quite cross proximity to the reception. That was a clear marquee. That was just a floral pillars and they were beautiful using seasonal blooms. They were covered in peonies, lilacs and delphians that was very gorgeous.

Brendan: Peonies are my favorite. My wife and I when we got married it was in November and they only come out for a few weeks every year. It’s luck to get to use them.

Annie: November is a great time to get married especially if you want those gorgeous choral champagne. They’re amazing.

Brendan: Walk me through what is involved. Like say I come to you and we have picked a date that we want to get married. You’re available. You think it’s a good fit as a client. Just walk me through the process on what actually happens. Do we meet?

Annie: Usually people contact me via phone or Instagram or email. Email is probably the best one because then I have everything written down right from our first point of contact. I do about 50 couples a year I like to have everything written down because sometimes I do have the memory of a fish. If I can go back and look through everything. It will just refresh me before I go in to do my buy at the market. Contact via email. I like to work closely with couples in regards to what their expectations are and what their budget are. I work with all kinds of budget. I do weddings at $4500 all the way up to, probably the biggest one I’ve done is $35,000 worth of flowers. It depends on what a couple wants to do invest in florals as to what is going to be available. Obviously I want to give them the most of their money but I need to know what budget market I’m working with. That is one of the first things that I’m looking for is what are your expectations and what is your investment in regards to dollars towards floristry. Then the next thing from there is do you have any visual inspiration that you like the look of and then everything that has already been organized for the day is a different piece of the puzzle for me, what the venue is, what the dress is, what the color of the suits are, what color they want their bridal party to be wearing, who they are as a couple also speaks very strongly to me. If I can see that they’re very casual and laid back that is going to inform the kind of day that they’re looking for as opposed to somebody who is very clean cut and looking for something a bit more modern and contemporary.

From there that paints a picture for me. We have a face to face consultation. That gets me all of the details of everything that they’re looking for and I can show them things in the flesh, weddings that I’ve done before that kind of thing and then I provide an itemized quote that has everything that was spoken of, all of the elements and each price what they thought they want and then from there we either work up or work down in regards to their budget. If they want to spend more on an archway then we’ll look at getting rid of little things like pew ends or whatever. I always recommend to my couples that it’s worth putting your money into statement pieces rather than flashing little bits of flowers everywhere so flowers in the bathroom, flowers on your second mother’s cousin’s uncle and pew ends. It’s better to do a massive archway that is going to have people gob smack and be the center point of the ceremony rather than flashing flowers everywhere.

Credit: photography @theevokecompany + Bride and Groom Kim and Tim

Brendan: If you have a limited budget and I guess we all have budgets. Focus on in something that is going to give people that wow factor.

Annie: The wedding that I just recently did at Seacliff in the weekend, they had a medium sized budget but they didn’t waste money on pew ends or decorations for aisles or seating charts or even button holes. She only had a small bridal party. It’s just one bridesmaid, one groomsman. She just had a small bridal bouquet, sorry. Her bridal bouquet was enormous. That was a feature. The ceremony was a feature. Then you had reception tables. That was it. There wasn’t a photo booth backdrop or hanging flowers or flower wreath setting or anything on aisle. She really concentrated her budget just to the showstoppers.

Brendan: That sounds like a pretty smart way to go.

Annie: Yes and the other thing is that I understand that planning a wedding is incredibly stressful and you have to find vendors that you feel extremely comfortable with and in the end you have to trust them. If you’re not going to trust them then you should probably be looking for somebody that you can trust because you want to take that pressure off yourself and just enjoy the day and know that you put your trust and your money in people that are going to blow your mind with what they create. If I get the feeling that a couple isn’t trusting me I’ll guide them to find somebody that they trust or I invest more time in them so that they do come around to the ideas that I’m suggesting because I have been doing it for five years.

Brendan: You do it every weekend.

Annie: It’s not my first rodeo. I do have a lot of clients. I know what works well and what doesn’t work well. When I find couples that trust the advice that I’ve got to give I only ever had great experiences with them, letting go of the reins a little and trusting me to just blow their minds on the day.

Brendan: That is the thing. If you’re planning a wedding and you find a supplier that you trust it’s one less thing that you have to think about. If you want a good job have a look at my Instagram page and you’ll see the work that I’ve previously created.

Annie: I say to brides and grooms that their responsibility on the morning of the wedding should be to sit down, have a glass of tequila or champagne whatever it is. That is your only responsibility. You don’t have responsibility to the styling or running around worrying about guests. That day you’ve just need to concentrate on you having a great morning of doing nothing.

Brendan: Just on that do you bump in on the morning of the wedding or do you typically go in the day before to start setting up installations or it depends on the size?

Annie: It depends on the size and it depends on the venue. With Seacliff I’ve done a day before install in the barn because our clients had paid for that access. Then basically because the weather was going to be quite hot and clear marques tend to just attract the sunlight. They just absorb it. I didn’t want the flowers’ quality to be compromised. I put installations all on the morning of and actually quite close to the ceremony even though I arrived about six hours before the ceremony. I had the flowers ready to go but we just did it at the earliest, latest, possible point if that makes sense?

Brendan: This year we had an open day at Seacliff on one of the biggest flower arrangements in the Barn. It was amazing. It was one of my favorite parts is getting to take some of the flowers home. Is that what people typically do after the weddings?

Credit: photography @theevokecompany + Bride and Groom Kim and Tim

Annie: I would re-use flowers for an event after. Each thing that you get on your wedding day has been bought typically for you because I don’t have a retail store. It’s not like it’s been sitting on a shop and I needed to use it before the day. Everything is specifically bought fresh for your wedding. In regards to the flowers you purchase them and on my quote part of it is I come back half an hour before the wedding ends? I call it my wrapping service. Dismantle the centerpieces, any hanging arrangements, anything that I can get to without disrupting the wedding too much and wrap up all the flowers to the guests to take home. This is so beautiful and fresh and I want them to be able to enjoy them for the whole week. I don’t want to re-use somebody else’s wedding flowers. I would never take them home myself. Anything that doesn’t get bundled up for the guests to take home or the family to take home the next day I actually recycle or I compost with my green waste so I don’t have that waste going to the tip as well.

Brendan: Are you based on the south coast or you work all down to the south coast?

Annie: I’m based in inner west in Sydney but I do weddings everywhere. The majority of my weddings are usually New South Wales but I do south coast, Southern Highlands, Hunter Valley, Newcastle, all of Sydney. Last year I did a wedding in Paris which was incredible.

Brendan: That is amazing.

Annie: Next year I actually have a wedding booked in Amsterdam. Two years ago I did three weddings in Tasmania as well. I’ll go anywhere that people want flowers basically.

Brendan: I guess that adds another logistical thing to what you need to do. You have to stuff out where the flower markets are and see what is in season.

Annie: When it’s international there is definitely more logistics involved but in regards to Australian weddings I’m well acquainted with the Victorian Flower Markets. My supplier and growers in Queensland and also in Tasmania and then obviously in New South Wales.

Brendan: Why do you think that there has been this trend towards venues like Seacliff and other DIY venues? They’re popping up everywhere. Do you think it’s just a trend? What is the feedback that you get from your clients because obviously services work really well in a venue that uses creativity for couples to express their personalities?

Annie: You’re dead on in saying that. I think it’s more personable. When you have wedding venues that it sounds so bad that it literally just pump out weddings. Some venues in Sydney have a lunch time wedding and a dinner wedding for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They’re doing eight weddings in one weekend. I just feel like maybe sometimes people don’t feel like they’re going to feel that special at a venue where they’re just another client getting pushed in and then pushed out. You’re also restricted by venues who already have potentially tedious carpet, ugly chairs, disgusting crockery and you can’t do much about it in those situations. Because of Pinterest and Instagram and social media, people feel that they have the option of being a little bit more creative and styling the day that is going to emulate who they are. I think it’s just more personable to have a venue where it’s almost a blank slate for you to create the wedding and not have to worry about compromising because the chairs are orange or the floor has a crazy gold paisley pattern. I think people love the idea of their wedding being then right down to the chairs, the cutlery, the flowers, the styling.

Brendan: That makes sense. What are some of the other wedding venues you worked down at the South Coast?

Annie: I have done a lot in the Kangaroo Valley area. Then I’ve also done a wedding down at Ulladulla. I probably wouldn’t sign up to weddings all the way down there because that ends up being an 11 hour round trip. I do a lot in the Southern Highlands. All down in the south coast more and more everyday venues are popping up on WedShed. You have the ability to see private properties that have opened up for a barn and that kind of thing but yes, I love working at new venues. I love exploring the south coast. I grew up in Sydney but my grandma lives down in the South Coast. I’ve done a lot of my childhood there. I’ve got a lot of fond memories of the South Coast. It’s just so beautiful. I think regardless of the weather you can make it work. It is so much more laid back than Sydney. You can see the season. In autumn it’s beautiful and brown and orange. In spring it’s green and lush. I love the South Coast. I love the Southern Highlands. I just feel like it’s a very chill, laid back vibe as opposed to Sydney’s hustle and bustle.

Brendan: That is exactly the reason why we love it as well. If people want to find out a little bit more about Francis Floristry do you have a website or Instagram, just give those details.

Annie: It’s FrancisFloristry.com for my website. Then my Instagram is FrancisFloristry and my Facebook is Francis Floristry.

Brendan: Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us a little bit about what you do.

Annie: My pleasure, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.