Sure there are steps to picking your wedding flowers and then there are STEPS. For brides who love things broken down into details, this is our wedding planning micro checklist for wedding flowers, which goes into the nitty-gritty-itty-bitty detail of steps you can take to make sure your wedding flowers are beyond. These steps are just suggestions for how you can not only really understanding wedding planning and organizing your wedding flowers, but those brides who love to work in detail and who’s other interests involved bullet journaling.
Before you start! This is important – read this. You don’t have to do all this to have a great wedding. You don’t have to do all this to have beautiful flowers. We created this checklist for brides who are thoroughly loving their wedding planning process and who wanted a more in-depth series of wedding planning checklists that would really let them sink their teeth into the conceptual, creative and executive delights in planning their wedding. So! If you read this wedding planning checklist and have heart palpitations, don’t worry – you don’t need to complete these steps to plan your wedding flowers!
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase One: Become Colour Obsessed
- Research your wedding colours
- We don’t mean just pick your wedding colorus – we mean, you know you have a few colours you like, nay, LOVE, but what do those colours mean? Do they represent any emotions? Do they have history or importance? Do they have cultural significance? Finding out the meaning and backstory of your colours is perfect for falling in love them with them, just a little bit more.
- Define your wedding colour palette in to hex codes if you can
- What’s a hex code? Colours are all assigned a six digit code so designers can identify accurately when they create things like your wedding stationery. By defining your wedding colour palette hex codes, you can gain deeper understanding in to the layers and undertones of your colours.
- Expand your complimentary wedding colours
- Before you commit, IE say “YES!” to your wedding colour palette, make sure you consider all your options. If you’ve chosen navy as your dominate colour in your wedding colour palette, visually pair it with as many colours as you can so you can really see your breadth of options. This is when Future You will thank you – by doing all this research up front, there is no second guessing your wedding colour palette six to eight months down the road (when all your deposits are paid and there’s no take-backs)
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase Two: Become A Calculator
- Budget, budget, budget!! Your dreams can not come true if you pick flowers outside our budget. While we are totally understanding of overages here and there, if you don’t train your brain to think and dream and Pin within your budget, you’re risking running this dollar bills train right off the tracks. Make sure you set a reasonable budget for your flowers.
- Ok so how to budget for your flowers, great question. If you don’t have a wedding planner who’s helping you plan your wedding, you could do it by percentage, which ranges anywhere from 8% to 15% (as per this in-depth Google Search) of your total wedding planning budget.
- You could also do it per arrangement – maybe $50 for each bridesmaid bouquet, and $75 for each table arrangement, which will allow you to come up with some nice even numbers for you to keep top of mind as you’re planning out your floral arrangements.
- You can also do some recon with brides who have recently been married – this is an ok time to get some casual averages from friends and friends, because all you’re looking for is a ballpark figure.
- The truth is – you won’t know how much your wedding flowers truly cost until you meet with your wedding florist and seal the deal. Let’s ooooohm it out together.
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase Three: Become A Wedding Flower Stalker
- Why start with colour over preferred bloom? Because wedding flowers can break your heart if you’re not careful.
- Some flowers will come in specific colours only at certain times of the year so double check
- While some flowers bloom year round, there are some months where the cost of those wedding flowers sky rockets so add that to the double check list too
- It will open up your imagination to consider other wedding flower options you might not have given the time of day before
- Make a list of all the flowers that come in your wedding colour, via Mother Nature and then make a sub list of all the wedding flowers that can be produced in your wedding colour, via your florist feeding it water with food colour in it or any other type of wedding florist magic and wizardry that we are constantly in awe of!
- Check your wedding flower horoscope, if you haven’t already.
- Here’s another item, but only if you’re that kind of gal – check in with your girlfriends who have already been married and find out what flowers they used. Sometimes, you just want to be different and that’s okay! If you want a wedding flower arrangement that’s totally unique to you, then start with a little research to make sure.
- Now that you have a list of prospect blooms, let’s do a little mix and matching.
- Make three lists, one for large wedding flowers, one for medium wedding flowers and one for accent wedding flowers. You know what happens next! Do a little mix and matching – what would each bloom look like with a new pairing?
- Bonus step, if you’re game for it – make a vision boar with each of your bouquets to really see what they look like together. And by vision board, we don’t mean a Pinterest Board – we mean, break out your craft box, grab your glue stick and have a little old school crafternoon.
- Identify your top three bouquet styles and think about what makes each of them similar and what makes each of them unique. That way, you’ll be better set to articulate what you love and don’t, which will come in SUPER handy when you’re working with your wedding planner and other wedding professionals, in describing your big day.
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase Four: Become A Wedding Flower Detective
- It’s time to start sourcing your ideal wedding florist. Get your notepad out – it’s time for some mega wedding list making.
- Start with word of mouth referrals – those recommendations are super trust-worthy and worth their weight in gold. But be mindful of who you collect your wedding flower referrals from. Your sister’s best friend’s roommate is a little arms length. You want to talk to someone who who directly or almost directly dealth with the florist.
- Next check Wedding Directory Listings. They are wedding professionals who are are confident in their skill set and have a body of work they can present on their listing to give you a good understanding of their style and expertise.
- Now that you have a good list of wedding flower professionals you want to scope out, get your monocle and your detective hat on because it’s time to go sleuthing.
- Check online reviews – Google Reviews and Facebook Reviews are public platforms that allow professionals to collect reviews for you to consider.
- Check them out on Instagram. You’ll want to look for more than just pretty images, and Likes on their photos. Look for their wedding flowers from Real Weddings, and look at the collaboration on wedding styled shoots they’ve worked on. If they’ve worked with a wide range of vendors, you can bet they are a trusted industry expert.
- Read their website and their About page. You can tell a lot about a wedding professional from their About page! Read about their wedding flower education and experience, and look at the language and terminology they use when describing themselves. Is it in line with the way you speak? Does it appeal to you in terms of professionalism?
- Shortlist your options – pair it down to five or fewer professionals you want to meet with.
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase Five: Marrying It All Together
- You have your prospect bouquet, you have your prospect florist – now you have to marry the two together! Start by booking meetings with your prospects.
- Bring your vision board or email them a copy of your vision board prior to the meeting. That will give them an idea of what type of wedding flower arrangements you’d like, and of course, they know your Wedding Flower Plan B and Wedding Flower Plan C.
- Review the language you came up with in Phase Two so you know you can express yourself when they ask you questions.
- Be open to their suggestions! Yes, we’ve done all this work on your wedding flowers, but really – they’re the experts. Who know, maybe one wedding flower is poisonous to the other (is that a thing?) – there’s a reason why hiring a professional for your wedding is a must, it’s because they bring a wealth of knowledge and wedding flower expertise that Google can’t.
- Make a list of questions you want to ask each wedding flower expert:
- What is your work style and communication style? What can I expect in terms of email communication and answering questions?
- How do you handle unexpected issues that arise?
- What is your workflow on day-of for weddings? Are the wedding flowers delivered or do the wedding flowers need to be picked up?
- Each wedding flower professional will have their own costs and expenses. Get a clear run down of what their quoting for each arrangement, and then ask for any additional costs that may arise.
- Ask for testimonials to review, from previous clients and from other wedding professionals. It’s great to hear about more positive experiences.
- Follow up with each vendor with a thank you email and spend at least 48 hours thinking over your decision. No one every regretted waiting to make a decision!
Wedding Planning Micro Checklist Phase Six: Become Wedding Flower Zen
- Ok – your dream wedding florist has created your dream wedding flower arrangements within your dream wedding budget – dreams DO come true!! Now is the time to get zen.
- Make your decision on your flowers – take the time to do this, for sure. Revisit the sample arrangements that have been created and revisit all your lists. You want to be 100% sure about your decision.
- Once you’ve made your choice – set it in stone. Revisiting your wedding flower decisions after you’ve made the decision sometimes makes it harder. You get confused, which can lead to becoming overwhelmed. Too many changes can confused your wedding florist or worst, lead to extra charges. Once you’ve decided on your wedding flowers, oooooohm it out.
