Wedding Flowers Guide

Transcript Hi, my name is Sarah Brysk Cohen and I’m the owner of Blossom and Branch floral design. How I got started doing flowers is kind of a funny story. I was in high school and my good friend’s big sister bought a floral shop. None of us had ever been around flowers or knew …

Transcript I want to talk to you a little bit about safety before we get started. In order to cut flowers properly you can use two different tools. You can use clippers or a knife. If you’re feeling really, really expert, you can use a knife. Either way, the tools should be extremely sharp. The …

Transcript A very common request that I get is people wanting to do, either entirely their own wedding flowers or do some combination of professional florists doing the wedding flowers, and then friends and family, perhaps like a crafty friend is going to do the centerpieces, and they just want you to do the bouquets. …

Transcript Purple is such a gorgeous color, and it’s universally flattering. With flowers, in every season you have purple flowers available. So purple is a really good choice when thinking about wedding flowers, either for centerpieces or for bouquets. A look I really love is to do purple in a whole, wide ombre spectrum, to …

Transcript There are so many factors to consider when thinking about planning for the flowers for your wedding. A really important place to start is, what is the wedding venue? Are the flowers going to be an element that are outside? Are they inside? Some combination? Is perhaps your ceremony outside and your reception inside? …

Transcript Communication with your florist is an absolute priority, when you’re talking about wedding flowers, and certainly designing an entire look for your big day. So I always think that planning for wedding flowers the most important word to think about is collaboration. That it is an interaction between you and your design style and …

Transcript So the question I get, possibly more than any other, from people is what are the best wedding flowers or how do I get the very best wedding flowers? And, of course, the answer to that question is very broad. The best wedding flowers to you might mean the most expensive wedding flowers or …

Transcript White wedding flowers. There is such a wide array of white that’s available really all year round that certainly you can count on white in any season. The trick is to open your mind a little bit and to consider also ivory shades and to consider white in all its various hues. Sometimes I …

Transcript Blue is a really interesting color for flowers. It’s a question I get all the time. I have a lot of brides who want maybe their something blue incorporated into their wedding flowers, particularly into their bouquet. A request I get quite often actually is for flowers that are blue. As it turns out, …

Transcript Vintage is very hot these days and you’ll see vintage wedding ideas all over the blogs. People love this look and I really love this look, too. I think it’s very romantic, I think it’s a way to have a kind of a timeless or classic look to your flowers. It’s certainly something that, …

Transcript So the winter is uh secretly a florist’s dream for a wedding, because even though the flower choices and options are a little bit more limited, you never ever have to worry about the flowers melting or the condition of the flowers like you do in the summer, for example. So what a winter …

Transcript I think it’s a really lovely thing to do a floral headpiece for your wedding. I think the best setting for a floral headpiece is definitely a garden wedding. Something romantic, angelic. Particularly, if your dress is something that’s maybe flow-y, or A-line or unstructured, I do really love that look. Something to think …

Transcript So, summer is obviously a very popular season in which to have a wedding. And the biggest consideration when selecting flowers for the summer tends to be temperature and weather. So, there certainly are a number of flowers that are gorgeous that are available in the summer that are seasonal. But in addition to …

Transcript There are really two ways to go when thinking about bridesmaid bouquets. You can do bridesmaid bouquets that are really just sort of a miniature version of the bridal bouquet. That’s always a sweet idea, very traditional. You have a larger, more elaborate bridal bouquet and then you have bridesmaids that are just that …

Transcript Well, this a really fun question to answer. What’s the best wedding centerpiece? I do get this question a lot from people, what do you think is the most amazing thing that you can possibly do for your wedding, or if you had your wedding and you had a limitless budget, what would you …

Transcript Spring is a really fantastic time of year to have a wedding, because you really have the greatest abundance of flowers in terms of the colors and in terms of the variety of blooms that you could use. So spring is just absolutely a cinch. If you come to your florist and you say, …

Transcript A modern way to make a wrist corsage is to axe that old style where you see in somebody’s prom or somebody’s grandmother used to wear a metal structure that kind of clamped around flowers and had maybe an elastic wristband to it. We don’t do those anymore. A modern way to wear a …

Transcript Fall is really one of my favorite seasons for wedding flowers. I love fall because you have a lot of greens and other organic elements that provide a lot of texture for arrangements that are available. You can always use things that are seasonal like gourds, pumpkins, you know pods, and berries. Fall is …

Transcript So a wedding arch is a really important centerpiece of any ceremony. Some factors to consider are, obviously the setting. If you have a wedding arch, you’re typically going to be outside in some kind of a garden setting. Doing the flowers and the organic elements on the arch, you’re going to want them …

Transcript So there are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a wedding centerpiece. I always encourage people to think about the venue where they’re getting married, and the style of wedding that they want to have, before they start making some of these smaller decisions, like about flowers. So if you’re getting married …

Transcript Well, walking down the aisle is obviously your big entree moment. And it’s the first time your guests are seeing you. And it’s really the introduction to your whole affair. So, it’s really important to think about what kinds of elements you want there at the ceremony. And specifically on the aisle. A lot …

Transcript When thinking about choosing a bridal bouquet, I think it’s really important to think about the overall style of your wedding and the overall feel that you want to have. Is your wedding more old-fashioned and romantic, something vintage, or are you going for a look that’s sleek and modern and clean? You can …

Transcript So when we talk about pricing for wedding flowers I think the most important place to spend your money really is with the centerpiece, and I advise all my clients to spend as much money as they possibly can, within their budget, on the centerpiece. If you think about it, your guests are spending …

Transcript So something to consider with hydrangea in a wedding centerpiece is that they are a beautiful flower, and they are a temperamental flower. They are very affected by weather conditions and by heat. They can be absolutely gorgeous in a wedding centerpiece, but it’s important to think about whether or not your wedding, for …

Transcript I love hydrangeas. Everybody loves hydrangeas. They are a gorgeous bloom, and they are really at the height of their season in the late spring and throughout the summer, which means that they are really abundant at that time of year and people love to use them for weddings because that’s when the height …

Transcript Crystal bead bridal bouquets can be a really interesting way to give some sparkle and shine to your wedding flowers. You can really choose a range. You could decide to do a bridal bouquet that’s entirely made from, let’s say brooches or beads, that’s not flowered at all. That’s not organic at all. That’s …

Transcript Selecting a good bouquet from the bodega is not hard if you do a little bit of due diligence. So it’s really, really important to pick up the bouquet out of whatever container it’s in at the bodega. So don’t just go judging by the way the flowers look on top. You’ve got to …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to arrange inexpensive flowers. Two things to consider when you’re working with flowers and cost. You want to think about the cost of the container that you’re going to use and also the cost of the actual blooms that you’re going to use. Today I’ve pulled a …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to shop at your local bodega and pick flowers. As you can see I have a bunch of flowers here that I have just picked up at our local bodega. And typically what you’ll find there are inexpensive flowers like carnations, you might have some berries like …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to tie a ribbon onto a bridal bouquet. I’m going to show you a very simple ribbon wrap. But first I want to talk about what kind of ribbon to select. So, here I’ve made this bouquet with some beautiful blush colors and a little bit of …

Transcript So now I am going to show you how to arrange flowers from a bodega. We talked about selecting flowers from the bodega and trying to get as fresh as possible. What I have done here is I have selected flowers that are all kind of in the same color family. That is a …

Transcript As you can see I’ve been really filling out this arrangement with some inexpensive elements. We’ve got a lot of different kinds of greens, some berries. We’ve got Queen Anne’s lace, a lot of what we call filler, and we have a little bit of lysianthus as well another sort of more wild and …

Transcript So I continue to add clusters and individual flowers, and it’s gotten so big that I actually use two hands to spin the bouquet to make sure that I don’t have any spaces where I need a flower. When I feel like it’s big enough and thick enough, and everything from my hand down …

Transcript Now, I’m going to show you how to make a bridal bouquet. We’re going to make a bridal bouquet in the hand-tied style, which means that it’s a bouquet that’s simply flowers gathered together in your hand and cut with the stems exposed. As with any floral arrangement, you want to be thinking about …

Transcript So as you can see I’ve been adding lots of flowers to this floral foam vessel. An important technique tip is that when you’re adding flowers to floral foam you always want to add the flower in one spot and once you place it in that foam you never pull it out and move …

Transcript Now, this feels pretty sturdy and pretty secure in here. But if you’re going to be adding a lot of flowers, you have to note that things can pull this foam as they go in. And so, you want to make sure that you’ve secured the foam with some tape. This is your basic …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to add greenery to floral arrangements. Greenery is the base of any kind of floral arrangement you do, whether that’s a wedding floral centerpiece or a bouquet or anything else. I like to use greens that have a lot of texture. I like to mix different kinds …

Transcript So here we go. Now we have our stems. We can cluster them together and take our trusty floral tape. Very stretchy, very easy to use. Pull out a few inches of the tape and begin wrapping at the base of your cluster. Cinch everything together. Pull tight and start to wrap. And you’re …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to work with floral foam. Floral foam comes in these bricks. And they’re dry and very light and they need to be soaked in order to be ready for flowers in an arrangement. So there are always two sides to a brick of floral foam. There’s the …

Transcript Now that I’ve soaked my floral foam, I can take it out. And it’s important to note that when you’re working with floral foam it can be a really messy proposition, very wet. So have a lot of paper towels or towels on hand. I’m going to take it out of here and just …

Transcript Now that I’ve properly soaked my Oasis Floral Foam and, placed it in the container, measured it to size, cut it and taped it securely, I wanna start adding some of my florals to the floral foam. So, I like to use the greens and the other elements first to give myself a structure. …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to make a corsage. I’m going to show you today how to make a pin on corsage. So what’s really fun about corsages and boutonniere’s is that you can truly use anything you want to use. A factor that’s really important is to try and use flowers …

Transcript I like to use the orchid to demonstrate this because the orchid is nice and hearty. It doesn’t really need water in a floral arrangement. It can survive even for a few days without water. If you get at all concerned about the survival of the bloom, using wire, you can take (ta-da!) a …

Transcript Now, I’m gonna show you how to get roses to open quickly in a floral arrangement. This is a beautiful rose that’s already started to open. So first, I’ll talk to you about the water. Water can help you get any flower to open quickly. If you have a flower that you feel is …

Transcript And truly, all you need, in this case, is a little bit of this trusty floral tape. So everything can wrap together with the floral tape. Start with the tape at the base of the blooms as you’ve gathered them. And just stretch and pull around, stretch and pull around. And you continue wrapping, …

Transcript Now, I’m going to show you how to make cut hydrangeas last longer. Hydrangea can be a very finicky flower. So an important thing to remember about the hydrangea is that its stem is very tough and woody. We have to get access for the water to the bloom. So the first thing we …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to make a boutonniere. What’s great about boutonnieres is you can really use anything that you want to use. You want to look for a flower that’s pretty sturdy, but it’s only going to be out of water for a few hours, so you don’t have to …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to use wire in floral arrangements. I wanted to use an orchid, this gorgeous cymbidium orchid to show you how to use wire in floral arrangements. This is a really fun one because orchids are very sturdy, so you can really play with the wire. So the …

Transcript Sarah Cohen: Now I’m going to show you how to make cut roses last longer. It’s all in the preparation. So here I have some roses, just fresh from the bodega. And when you take them out of the package, they may have a lot of foliage on the stem. I’m lucky here because …

Transcript Now I’m going to show you how to prepare flowers for a floral arrangements. As with anything else, your trusty tools are the most important parts. So, you can use either a floral clippers or a floral knife. Obviously it’s really important to be very careful with a floral knife, and if you don’t …