Repurposing Your Wedding Flowers With Purpose

You’re planning your beautiful wedding, and so much thought, time, and money has gone into making it perfect. But have you thought about how to get the most out of your wedding florals?

Flowers are a premium product, and expertly designed arrangements can be a significant investment. Let’s explore some creative and completely achievable ways to make the most of those gorgeous blooms.

Repurposing wedding flowers is not only a sustainable choice but also a wonderful way to keep the joy and beauty of your special day alive. In this post, we’ll share some fabulous ideas to reuse your wedding flowers, so they continue to bring happiness throughout the day and long after your DJ packs up her decks.

CEREMONY FLOWERS

Arbours

Repurposing arbours is a common request and to be honest, most of the time the answer is “maybe”.

To repurpose an arbour we need to consider the structure it has been build on. For example an arbour structure that is one piece is very unlikely to be moveable, and quite often the person power needed will add more $$$ to your quote. It’s also likely to get damaged in the process. So for us, this is a no. However, if you have a structure that is 2 or more pieces put together to “appear” as one piece then this can be possible. The structure in the image to the right is a good example of 2 towers that were moved to frame a bar area following the ceremony. Easily moved on a trolley.

Some helpful advice when requesting your arbour is repurposed:

Be open to the florists suggestion of multiple structures “jig sawed” together.
Florists will construct an arbour differently if they we intending to move it after the ceremony, and this is crucial to plan well in advance.
Expect some degree of damage, it’s inevitable and will depend on the travel distance from ceremony to reception.
Arbours cannot be deconstructed to re-use stems in reception table centres. This is very time consuming, and removing the stems will cause some damage, these flowers are not going to be happy and your table centres will not be very sad looking.

Plinths

To the left is a great example of vase arrangements on plinths that can very easily be repurposed. This wedding ceremony backdrop consisted of 2 plinths and 4 vase arrangement.

Following the ceremony, one side was repurposed to stand next to the doorway greeting the guests to the dining room area. The remaining 2 vases from the opposite side were placed on the bar and wishing well table.

This is a very common and clever use of ceremony flower repurposing. Easy and quick!

This can also be done with large urns, but may take more than one florist to move and will require some freshening up.

OTHER CEREMONY FLORAL REPURPOSING OPTIONS

Aside from the ceremony feature, you should also consider what other arrangements could be repurposed. Again, you’ll need to chat through the options with your florist and understand that there are limitations. Here are some common designs you can consider:

Welcome sign arrangement – if designed in a vase or low vessel which can be easily picked up and moved
Aisle florals- if in vessels.
Signing table arrangements
Bouquets- can be added to a low vase of water and nestled into your King table designs, or sit clustered together on your wishing well table.

WHAT ABOUT AFTER THE WEDDING IS OVER?

Okay, so you’ve successfully repurposed some of your florals from your ceremony into your reception space styling, but what happens next?

You have paid money for beautiful flowers to add style, joy, glamour, fun, memories to your wedding day. These flowers have spent time, and energy growing into their best selves, growers have spent time, expertise, and resources tending to them, and your florist has spent days looking after them to ensure they are absolutely perfect. Now, it’s heart breaking for them to be thrown straight into green waste at the end of the evening!

We always encourage our couples to consider what happens to their flowers after that last dance. Here are some suggestions we love to offer our couples:

Donate to Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Womens shelters: Offer an opportunity for someone else to enjoy them. Flowers are powerful, they make people smile, they evoke happy memories. They can have such a powerfully positive effect. We offer this as an additional service to our couples. We will pack them carefully after the wedding, and then wrap them into bouquets and deliver the following day. It’s one of our favourite things to do, it brings so much joy!
Distribute to Guests: Encourage guests to take home centre pieces or bouquets. If this is something you’re keen to do, then ensure you discuss this and ask your florist to include an affordable vase or vessel in your quote.
Wrapping service: An alternative to the option above is a wrapping service. We also offer this to guests at the end of their evening. Stems are removed from designs and wrapped into posies that guests can pick up and take home as they leave.

Compost: We compost our green waste, but if you have a garden and would like to compost your own flowers then ask your florist to bag them into biodegradable sacks and organise to pick them after. A great way to feed your garden and contribute the growth circle.
Pressing your bouquet: It’s becoming more popular for couples to request that their bouquet is pressed or preserved and framed. This is a gorgeous way maintain a keepsake. We offer a service to press and frame bouquets, we do not preserve flowers though.

Some final points to remember:

Repurposing increases the sustainability of the flowers and service you have paid for.
Depending on the design being repurposed, it may require more than one florist, this will form part of your labour costs, however it’s often less than paying for additional arrangements and saves floral resources which is key!
Not everything can be repurposed, so make sure you chat through your wish list with your florist to understand what is possible.

Hopefully this information has given you some inspiration on how to best repurpose flowers across your wedding day.

If you’re ready to chat about your wedding floral dreams, including exploring repurposing, then click the button below and lets chat!

“Kris was recommended to me by a close friend for wedding flowers and she did not disappoint. The wedding process was a bit daunting for me and Kris took the time to have a chat about styles, flower sustainability and budget. Kris was amazing to deal with throughout the whole engagement, is sustainable and super understanding and smiley to boot. Love what Kris did for us on the day and would recommend Kris to anyone looking for wedding flowers.”