Learning the Art of Floristry
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Posted in Wedding Flowers
Something that I believe is a really important part of my job as a professional wedding planner is to hone my existing abilities and learn new skills that may be of use to my brides on a wedding day. As a planner you never know quite what’s going to happen on the big day – you can plan for most eventualities and have contingencies in place, but occasionally things happen outside of your control and you have to think on your feet and just deal with it.
With this in mind I was really pleased to have the opportunity to attend the UKAWP floral workshop earlier this month, where I had the chance to learn how to make an emergency buttonhole, corsage and wedding bouquet – skills that I’m sure will come in handy at some point in the future! Led by the lovely and incredibly patient Simon and Victoria of Euphoric Flowers , this was a really fun evening and I had a great time learning some basic floristy skills in the company of some of my favourite wedding planner friends.
We started the evening by learning how to make a simple rose buttonhole. Simon made it look easy, but the fiddliness of wiring and binding the stem made me appreciate just how much skill is needed to make a buttonhole look good!
Naturally there was a slight edge of competitiveness between us planners (all in good jest of course!), and consequently I have never seen so much concentration on our faces – I think Erica’s expression in the second photo below sums up just how hard we were trying to make a good impression!
Unfortunately not all of us were as impressed with our first attempts as we were hoping to be!
Once we’d mastered the basic art of making a buttonhole, we were shown how to turn this into a lady’s corsage with the addition of some lisianthus, wax flower and rosemary. Knowing how to make emergency buttonholes and corsages is a really important and valuable skill for a planner. Quite often someone may damage theirs before the ceremony (men putting their jacket on the back of a chair and leaning back on it is a classic example), or if the mother of the bride or groom has changed their outfit at the last minute the colours may no longer go together and a completely new corsage may be required. Again it wasn’t as easy as it looked, but we had great fun trying to out-do each other with the prettiest creation!
The last challenge of the evening was to make a bouquet out of 20 tulips. Again this is a handy skill to have, but as time is limited on a wedding day we were only allowed 5 minutes to come up with our best attempt – as you can see, we were all very proud of our efforts (in case you’re wondering, I’m second from the left)!
Here’s the final version from a professional. I love the addition of the little navy blue bow – such a great contrast with the hot pink and the perfect finishing touch.
If you’re a bride who’s worried about everything going smoothly on the day, please do take a look at my Wedding Day Management option – dealing with floral emergencies is all part of the service! If you’re wedding planner and would like to find out more about the practical skills workshops run by the UKAWP, please do check out the website here .
Photo Credits: Lloyd Dobbie
Sounds like huge fun! Congratulations, too!
Lissa (The Wedding Bistro at Bellenza) / 10:03 am on February 25th, 2011