Where are your flowers from, and when are they cut?

Have you ever stopped to think about the timeline that your wedding flowers face before they end up in your manicured hands on your wedding day? It’s really quite an interesting ride!...and it might explain why so many florists do business the way that they do. Care to take a ride?


Whether you choose roses grown in Mexico, tulips out of Amsterdam, daisies from Washington, or lilies from the coast of California, all your flowers follow a certain route. Growers use regular growing seasons as well as greenhouses to harvest flowers at their best. Most growers at this point are so familiar with their flowers that they’ve cheated Mother Nature and can grow their stock in waves that can be had no matter what time of year you want them. Those flowers are the readily available, standard flowers that you see everywhere…as mentioned…roses, lilies, daisies and more. More unique flowers that may not be used as often, such as lily of the valley, peonies, amaryllis, and hyacinth, don’t have the same year-round schedule. If the flowers you want are rare, you’ll be subject to their regular growing seasons as well as higher prices for their rarity.


Once a flower is cut on the farm, it is taken to the processing plant, gets inspected, is bunched, and is packaged for shipping. Shipping can take a few days depending on the buyers who paid the most to get that wave of flowers…prices at the grower varies too depending on how many wholesalers are buying big numbers of product before it dies in the fields. Delivery also depends on schedules, distances, and truck availability.


Once they arrive at their destination city, the flowers are hauled in to wholesale locations. I personally use two wholesalers local to Salt Lake City, but also know of half a dozen more just in the valley. All of these locations have standing orders of regular flowers that are sold to retail locations and florists on a pretty predictable schedule. The flowers are bought in bulk to keep their prices low and margins high. Some wholesalers also sell to the public, and so have to stock extra flowers for walk-in traffic…the generic as well as some more rare varieties. A good percentage of these products wilt while waiting, hiking prices.


Once the flowers are received in bulk bunches at the retail locations, designers create arrangements that will optimize their use of the flowers they’ve received. Creating about three or four arrangements over and over again also cuts down on work time…which is why you see so many repeats on their shelves. Faster, cheaper, and easier…with a good margin? Now you know how retailers stay in business when they have to pay for coolers, store space, and advertising!


Interesting, right? It's quite a road between the place where they sprout and the bouquet you sniff lovingly on your wedding day. Flowers travel the world, and I love being a step in the voyage.

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Time Lapse Flower Wedding?

There are a lot of advantages to having a photographer for a husband...amazing portraits of our family, LOTS of job options in different avenues of photos, as well as the fact that he possesses a great eye for color and design which means that his opinion always brings some weight to what I do too. The down side?...millions of pictures of me in the most inopportune moments. I can't count how many pictures I've seen of myself asleep on the couch or that were just supposed to be test shots for his lighting set-up on a fashion shoot, but that he keeps for his own amusement.

Well...a new option on his camera has created an interesting education for both of our jobs...time lapse. I did a wedding a couple of weeks ago, and Jon set up his camera on a 30-second timer and cranked out a time-lapse look at how I work. As you watch, understand that I work into the wee-small hours of the morning making sure that the flowers will be at their peak for delivery times...which means, yes, I'm in my sweats and my hair is pulled up so that I can tumble into bed once everything is in the cooler. Yes, he also shifted the location of the camera at one point, so I apologize for the shots of my behind, and thank you for assuming that, yes, I'm starting to look pregnant...that explains the belly.



Jessica's cute pink and green daisy, rose, and ranunculus wedding was a treat, and there were a couple of highlights! While waiting for the bride at the Salt Lake LDS Temple, some other patron stood looking at the flowers we had brought and asked how we got them green. My husband knows quite a bit about flowers at this point, and started to answer that there actually are a few varieties of flowers that grow naturally green...when I had to stop him and inform them both that those green ranunculus they were discussing were spray painted. Many compliments about how clean and natural they looked followed the disbelief, and that is always great! Also, the bride in front of Jessica carried a similarly sized bouquet, although the stems on her flowers massed together, and I will refer you back to my previous discussions on 'claw hand'. Her colors were similar, although more pale than bright, and she even had similar flower choices to Jessica's bouquet, so it was a great boost to the ego for both of us when the bride in front looked back a little wistfully at Jessica's bouquet and said that she wished her bouquet looked like THAT one. Excellent fun!

I hope you enjoy a little look, not only into the final product on the day of delivery, but at the process of time it takes to repetitively create a cohesive wedding floral spread like Jessica's. A little more understanding about why you hire pro for this part too, eh?...no bride wants to cut into her beauty sleep if she can help it.

For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!

Sonia and Anthony - Rock on Rockabilly!

Sonia and Anthony moved back to Utah from Washington, and spent months looking for a photographer and florist that they liked. My hubby and I were lucky enough to win the place of honor for this totally unique wedding! Between the antique cars, costume changes, and touches Americana, it was way too much fun. I hear that the band (flown in from California to perform at the reception) even lit their instruments on fire! Yeehaw, baby!

The flowers included gerbera daisies, freesia, hypericum berries, all in bold red and white with a bit of greenery from seeded eucalyptus. The challenge was balancing the iconic Coke bottles in the center of the folded paper classic cars without anything falling over and without getting anything wet. All 30 centerpieces ended up being so fun, and the daisy bouquets and boutonnieres simple and fresh! Thanks again to Sonia and Anthony for the unique fun and style!



For more flower fun visit my Florilista website!