Day in the life: Florist edition

What does 'playing with flowers' actually look like?

It’s wedding season. For many florists this is their busiest time of the year. I tend to attract lots of spring and autumn weddings, which I prefer. But I’ve still got some summer weddings, so I thought I’d share what a typical week looks like for a wedding florist.

Sunday
I start by reminding myself of all the notes I’ve taken during meetings with the couple. There’s usually inspo photos or a Pinterest board the couple have sent me, so I’ll look over these. Then I create a list of ‘must have’ flowers.

I usually use HOEK, which is a Dutch wholesaler who bring the flowers right to your front door. They have a handy little feature where you can favourite all the flowers, foliage and plants you want to order. Yes, I always get carried away and add wayyyy too much.

Monday
An early start to order the flowers. I usually put on my headphones and mute all notifications - once you add something to your basket you have 15 minutes before it’s permanently added and you can no longer delete it. I feel the pressure. Things are priced by stem, so I frequently add stuff to my basket to see how much it will cost for the bunch, then go back and delete. Maths isn’t my strong point. There’s always a tab open with a VAT calculator, too. The first time I ordered flowers I forgot about VAT - a mistake you’ll never repeat! I keep reference photos handy, so I stay true to the colour palette and theme.

If I’ve worked over the weekend, I’ll take the afternoon off. If not, I’ll catch up on admin, which seems to be endless!

Tuesday
This is my prep day. Clean the buckets, clean my tools, sharpen any dulled blades. All the very unglamourous but essential jobs!

My studio is my spare room, so I have a flower stand that can be taken apart. This gets assembled and I fill the buckets with fresh water. I start prepping any containers I’ll be using. This might be filling jam jars with water and filling troughs with chicken wire if I’m going to be building floral archways.

Every Rook Botanics bouquet is delivered in a bouquet box. It sounds daft but this step is genuinely time consuming. I order flat packed kraft bouquet boxes, which I assemble and then stamp my logo on the front and back with black ink. The final touch is adding black tissue paper inside them.

I also make sure I have lots of snacks in the house for the coming days. My current favourite is chocolate rice cakes smeared with peanut butter and sliced up strawberries.

Wednesday
Flower delivery! I usually get impatient waiting for them to arrive. Especially today, they were much, much later than normal. (They also forgot two trays on plants that I’m trying to not panic about!)

I really enjoy conditioning flowers. This means stripping off any leaves from the bottom of the stems, cutting away any broken bits, snipping the stems at an angle. Some flowers, like hellebores, need specialist conditioning, but I usually stick to straightforward flowers for weddings.

To really make the most of the calm before the storm I light some candles, put on a podcast or audiobook and just appreciate working with my hands.

The flowers have a good drink. I try to not arrange them the day they arrive so they can fully rehydrate. Depending on the time of year I’ll switch off the radiators or open the windows. If you don’t like being cold and wet, don’t be a florist.

Sometimes I skip this step, but I should clean up the studio.

Thursday
I put aside any flowers that are for the bouquets, or any flowers that are needed for a specific arrangement. Then I usually crack on with the table flowers. I get a bit overwhelmed seeing all the flowers and having a huge to do list, so I like to make a dent in both.

Then I make the bouquets. I usually start with the bridal bouquet / wedding bouquet and then make any other bouquets. I faff a lot at this stage. The wedding bouquet is just so important. It’s most likely the first flowers the couple see and it’s in all their wedding photos.

Friday
Working on site can get stressful, so I try and do as much as possible in my studio. Urns and the bases of archways can sometimes be prepped. Thank you bouquets are usually made with any of the flowers that I seem to have a lot of left.

Sometimes I’m able to set up at the venue the day before. I love driving, so I would pick driving to the venue both days, over doing it all in a oner on the morning of the wedding.

I try to make the buttonholes last. You only need really short stems, so any flower heads that break off get put into a wee jam jar and they can be used in buttonholes. They’re one of my favourite things to make.

The van or car will get loaded with as much stuff as possible.

Saturday
An early start!

Right before I leave I’ll check over the bouquets, add ribbons and put them in their kraft bouquet boxes.

Setting up at the venue is full on but fun. You have to work fast. I bring a soft kneeling pad because you spend a lot of time on the floor - my Grandad was a gardener and he always told me to take care of my knees because he didn’t.

The ceremony flowers are the first thing to make. This is a focal piece like an arch way or large scale urns. I set lots of reminders on my phone so I take the bouquets to wedding party at the right time and make sure everyone gets their buttonholes before the photographer arrives.

Once the ceremony is done I move onto the tables and the reception. Depending on how big the wedding is, everything will be done and dusted before the ceremony, but if it’s a lot of work, I’ll carry on setting up the reception whilst the ceremony is taking place. This makes me nervous though!

There’s a final check and a final sweep up. I’m meant to take photos and videos but I always forget.

I’ve had a lot of weddings over near Perthshire and Stirlingshire, if this is the case it’s pretty much guaranteed I stop for a plant based Burger King, whilst charging the car, at Stirling services.

Sunday
Sleep, sleep, sleep. I’m usually pretty shattered. The studio is also a dump. I know I should empty buckets and sweep up, but it rarely happens.

Weddings cost a lot, and there’s this idea that a ‘wedding tax’ exists. Maybe it does, but I get pretty irate when I hear people say this about flowers. I don’t think people realise the full extent of the work behind the scenes. Not included in this diary is the multiple zoom calls, writing the quote, creating the Pinterest board, creating invoices and just the multitude of emails.

Sometimes I even forget how much work weddings take and get lackadaisical - Wednesday and Thursday get wasted and I have to pull an all-nighter on Friday. I’d be lying if I said it had only happened once. I’m very clear on wanting to create a sustainable business for myself, and I know that’s a recipe for burnout. So with each wedding I do get more disciplined and get as much prep done as possible.

Was it interesting to see behind the scenes? This week’s wedding flowers are currently rehydrating as I type this, ready to be arranged tomorrow.

With love,

P.S. The latest episode of my podcast Flowers & Folklore will be out in the next week. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts and lots of other places.