What did you do with your flowers after your wedding? - UPDATE

drglitter · June 2016

At our planning meeting a couple of weeks ago, the coordinator asked if someone was going to take the flowers (centerpieces, and little bouquets that will hang on the aisle) home. I hadn't really thought about it. It seems like a shame to just leave them there to die/be thrown away.

Did anybody do anything with their flowers? I wonder if a hospital or nursing home would take them for the patients.

labro · June 2016

I'm nowhere near that generous.

I bought a bunch of that silica gel sand or something from Jo-Ann's and Michael's and following the instructions to dry flowers from my bouquet and centerpieces. Then I saved some of the flowers in various shadowboxes and hurricane vases as part of the decor in my home and I used the rest and fit them into those clear plastic ornaments you can buy along with pieces from our wedding invitation to give as a gift to my MIL and my mom (and kept one for myself). I definitely had an obsessive love over my flowers and I couldn't just let them go after the wedding.

floridabride44 · June 2016

I took my bouquet home. Meant to pull out the succulents from it and plant them (florist told me I could do this and they would grow!) but in the exhaustion and chaos of the few days after the wedding I forgot. I kept it in a vase for a few days and tossed it when it died. Tossing it was kind of sad, but at least I have lots of great photos of it!

Altar flowers we left at the church so they could be up there for Sunday church.

We told local people they could take their table's centerpiece if they wanted to (we had really small arrangements) & my mom brought home our sweetheart table arrangement.

southernbelle0915 · June 2016

We planned to have ours taken to a nursing home, but didn't coordinate it in time. It'd be so nice if you were able to make that happen!

We ended up just having the DJ make an announcement that people could take centerpieces. Only a few people did, so I'm sure most got thrown away... I wish I would have coordinated delivery to a hospital or nursing home.

drglitter · June 2016

Thanks everybody.

@labro that all sounds so pretty but I'm not crafty in the slightest. I do want to figure out drying/pressing my bouquet, but beyond that the thought of doing crafty things is overwhelming.

CMGragain · June 2016

Daughter's MIL took her centerpieces to a nursing home. The church decorations stayed in the church for the following day's Sunday services.

ahoywedding · June 2016

I LOVE the idea of calling a local nursing home or hospice center! They might even have someone willing to pick them up (depending, of course, on when & where your wedding is). What a lovely surprise for the residents!

Jen4948 · June 2016

ahoywedding said:

I LOVE the idea of calling a local nursing home or hospice center! They might even have someone willing to pick them up (depending, of course, on when & where your wedding is). What a lovely surprise for the residents!

Cosigned. That would be a truly beautiful gesture.

Another thing you can do is place them on the grave of a loved one (if you're not Jewish, as it's not a Jewish tradition).

bleve0821 · June 2016

I didn't do anything specifically with the flowers, because they didn't travel very well, but I LOVE the idea of placing them on the grave of a loved one.

A little O/T, and won't really answer your question, but I plan to create a small garden this fall and plant the same kinds of flowers that were in my bouquet. Fortunately, I had mostly hydrangeas and tulips and lilies, so I'll really only have to do work to establish once, then it's just maintenance. But I had no idea what I'd do with dried flowers and prefer live ones anyway.

drglitter · June 2016

Thanks everybody. We'll probably try to figure out the nursing home route. I think the venue will keep them for us and let us pick them up and deliver them the next day.

cgss11 · July 2016

I know this thread is a bit old, but I just stuck my bouquet in a shadow box from Target with an invitation, and my wedding earrings. I didn't do any prep on it. I don't know if it will last forever, but it's a year old now and still looks nice.

Sorry the angle is weird, I didn't want my personal info on the invite showing.

I think the nursing home idea is lovely too. I didn't have floral centerpieces, but that would be such a nice use for them.

OurWildKingdom · July 2016

That looks really cool, @cgss11!

drglitter · July 2016

cgss11 said:

I know this thread is a bit old, but I just stuck my bouquet in a shadow box from Target with an invitation, and my wedding earrings. I didn't do any prep on it. I don't know if it will last forever, but it's a year old now and still looks nice.

Sorry the angle is weird, I didn't want my personal info on the invite showing.

I think the nursing home idea is lovely too. I didn't have floral centerpieces, but that would be such a nice use for them.

That looks great! I will probably do something similar.

We did find a nursing home near the venue to donate our centerpieces to. Our venue even offered to deliver them, but we want to do it ourselves (the next day).

Knottie1463423268 · July 2016

Not sure yet what I'll do with the reception flowers, but both the altar guild at church and my florist have offered to take the flowers from the church to my grandmother's retirement home after Sunday services.

Knottie1467182279 · July 2016

You can get your wedding car decorated with some flowers, take the bouquets home to create the romantic environment and can use some for confetti. These are some general advice's, but there are many more things to do with your wedding flowers, don't just throw them as they were the most important part of your special day. Let them be with you till they are alive:)

Ghostie625 · July 2016

The only flowers we did were bouquets, bouts, and corsages so everyone just took their own. My mom and sister brought my bouquet to the cemetery where my grandmother is buried. I probably would never have thought to do that but I think it was the perfect thing to do with it.

drglitter · October 2016

Updated --

We got married Saturday.

Sunday, we brought all of the flowers we had left (about 15 centerpieces after a few family members took some home) to a local nursing home.

We had a great time dropping them off, and got to hear lots of stories from the guests who were up and about (it was a nice day and a lot of them were sitting outside when we walked in).

If you're contemplating donating your flowers, I'd highly recommend it. It was the best/easiest wedding decision we made.

What did you do with your flowers after your wedding? - UPDATE

Re: What did you do with your flowers after your wedding? - UPDATE

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