When you book us as your Nashville wedding florist, it can be months or longer before the date of your wedding! This leaves plenty of time for you to think of new ideas and for changes to be made. We’ll share a final run-through presentation with you eight weeks before your wedding. It’s an opportunity to make changes to your palette, add or take away floral designs, and confirm that everything looks perfect. Once you approve, we’ll place your flower order!
The Week of Your Nashville Wedding:
Eight weeks after you approve of your floral presentation, the week of your wedding has finally arrived. It’s officially go-time for us as your floral designers! Here’s a look at some of the things we do during the week of your Nashville wedding:
1/ Confirm details with your wedding planner
We’ll be in touch with your wedding planner or another point of contact to confirm the logistics. This further ensures a smooth set-up and strike service (clean-up).
2/ Account for needed materials
We do a triple-check the week of your wedding to see if there are any supplies we need to purchase. We almost always take a trip to Tractor Supply Co. for extra chicken wire!
3/ Prep the floral studio
We’ll prepare our floral design studio before we bring in your unprocessed flowers. This consists of tidying up the space, bringing in an extra table if needed, cleaning buckets, cleaning candle glass, and organizing our supplies. A clean space makes a big difference when it comes time to design your florals.
4/ Fill water buckets
We like to have the buckets filled with water for when we arrive back at our studio after picking up your flower order. This allows us to get right to work processing all of the blooms.
5/ Drive to the flower market or grower
We make the trip to a Nashville-area flower market between one and two days before your wedding depending on how many and the types of designs we’re making for you. This helps them to stay fresh and beautiful while giving them a little time to open up so they’re looking their very best on the day of your wedding.
6/ Check that the flower order is correct
Once we arrive to pick up your flowers, we confirm the order is correct and that all is accounted for before leaving. If for some reason the order is missing anything, we’ll select comparable flowers or greenery.
7/ Pick up extra flowers and greenery if needed
If we see any greenery or flowers we think we may need for your floral designs that weren’t in the original order, we’ll pick a few bunches up to use.
8/ Pack the flowers in the car
This is something that our lead florist, Ella [Frances], excels at! She has incredible spatial awareness and can pack a car like nobody’s business. Once the car is carefully loaded with all of the flowers, we make the drive back to the studio.
9/ Unload flowers into the studio
We unload all of the flowers and greenery out of the car and then place them into their clean buckets.
10/ Organize the flowers
We organize the flowers in their buckets by the design they’re used for and then move on to processing.
11/ Process the flowers
We strip each rose of its thorns, remove any unwanted leaves from the flowers, and trim each stem at an angle. Processing is mandatory before we begin designing, and it also helps them drink water more efficiently.
12/ Clean up before designing
At this point, there are a lot of leaves and stems on the studio floor. We like to have a tidy space before we start designing, so we sweep up all of the green waste for composting.
13/ Create the bouquets and boutonnieres
We create your bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, and boutonnieres in our studio. Once we finish making them, we put each of them in our cooler until the morning of the wedding when it’s time to tie the silk ribbons.
14/ Create the table arrangements and aisle flowers
We also create the table arrangements and aisle flowers in our studio. If a floral design can be transported, we always like to make it ahead of time so we can dedicate more time to your ceremony feature and make touch-ups.
15/ Rest
Once we finish designing your florals, we eat dinner and then get plenty of rest the night before your wedding.
16/ Pack the car and trailer
If the weather is between 33 degrees and 50 degrees, we do this step the night before your wedding. If it’s not cool outside, we carefully pack the car and horse trailer with all of the floral designs, ladders, and supplies the morning of your wedding.
17/ Unload the flowers and arrangements
We unpack everything we need as soon as we arrive at your wedding venue. We find an area out of the way to designate as our workspace and move all of the floral designs to their prospective areas.
18/ Create the statement floral designs on-site
As soon as we are done unloading the flowers, we begin creating statement designs like your ceremony feature, suspended florals, welcome sign florals, ceiling greenery, etc.
19/ Give you your personal flowers
This part is so fun for us! When you’re ready, we’ll give you your bridal bouquet and the rest of the personals! We’ll show you how to hold your bouquet and trim the ribbon if you’d like it to be at a shorter length.
20/ Style candles and the arrangements
If we’re providing your candles, we designate plenty of time to carefully style them on your tables. This involves spacing the candle holders, hurricane glass sleeves, and candles on each table. As we place your candles, we also set each table arrangement design in its correct place and make touch-ups.
21/ Clean up within the allotted time
As we design on-site, we clean up each work area once the floral design is complete. When creating a ceremony feature or another substantial floral design, we use a drop cloth for a more efficient clean-up.
22/ Check-in with your wedding planner
Before we leave, we check in with your wedding planner and let her know we are finished and will return for the flip (repurposing designs at your reception) if applicable. If we are not repurposing any ceremony designs at the reception, we let her know that we’ll be back for the late-night clean-up after your reception.
23/ Drive back to the studio until strike (clean-up)
When we’re done designing and have checked in with your planner, we return to the studio and get a bite to eat/rest before we return for strike service.
24/ Return to your wedding venue for strike service
Your wedding and reception are over; now it’s time for us to return along with your other vendors for clean up! We’ll break down our larger structures, take the greenery off of the ceilings, and pack the table arrangements back into the horse trailer. We carefully dismantle each installation, ensuring that the Nashville wedding venues we work at are left without a trace that we were there. Our commitment to excellence extends to every aspect of our work, including careful post-event clean-up.
25/ Drive back to our studio
As soon as we finish loading the car and trailer, we drive back home and get some much-needed rest. We typically arrive at the wedding venue by 9 a.m., leave the venue by 3 p.m., and return between 10 p.m. and midnight for clean-up. It’s a full day, and it’s well worth all of the work!
26/ Unpack and clean the studio
The morning after your Nashville wedding, we unload everything from the trailer. From there, we re-sweep the studio floor, compost the green waste, clean buckets, remove hundreds of water picks from the chicken wire, clean vessels, and disassemble the chicken wire from its structures.
27/ Debrief
After your wedding is officially complete, Ella and I take time to talk about what went great and what could have been improved. This helps us become more efficient florists, and it’s always fun to celebrate how beautifully your wedding day turned out.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, a lot goes on behind the scenes during the week of your Nashville wedding, and the majority of our time is spent planning, prepping, cleaning, (and driving!) over designing. Your wedding floral designs are a culmination of detailed planning blended with artistry.
As Nashville wedding florists, we love what we do and are so honored to be entrusted with such a significant part of your wedding day. If you’re interested in having us design for your wedding, inquire with us about your date. We’re excited to hear from you!
Check out our other posts to learn more about how we practice sustainability and how much wedding flowers cost on average.
