Maree Floral | Utah Wedding Florist

Utah Wedding Florist | Maree Floral

Styled Shoots

Styled Shoots from a florists perspective

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What florists want photographers and planners to know about styled shoots. Most of us florists love styled shoots but there are some things we would like those planning styled shoots to know from a florists perspective.

We LOVE styled shoots

Most of the florists I know (myself included) love doing styled shoots. It is a way for us to ‘let our hair down’ and do something creative that we don’t usually get to do. If your inspiration is something unique, colorful, and beautiful we are in!

Be prepared to cover flower costs

If you really want to work with a florist for your styled shoot, reach out to them and ask for a quote on the designs you want.

Many vendors planning styled shoots want florists to pay for the flowers themselves. This is not something that is feasible for floral businesses as the cost of flowers per event is anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. If I said yes to every planner or photographer that asked for free flowers I would be in serious debt haha.

At the very least offer to cover the florists costs for the shoot.

Unless you yourself are a photographer, don’t promise images in exchange for labor.

I have been part of several styled shoots that were not planned by a photographer and the planner promised me images of my work in exchange for labor. Then the planner does not hire a photographer to specifically take pictures for the participating vendors. They plan on the attending photographers (who have often paid for tickets to be at the shoot) to provide pictures to the other vendors. This is something that has been a pain point for both attending photographers and vendors alike. We both end up feeling taken advantage of. Vendors because they often donate hours of labor for a shoot and sometimes do not receive pictures back. Photographers feel frustrated because they have paid to attend a shoot and find out they are expected to provide a free gallery to other vendors.

Siempre Wedding flowers

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We had the opportunity to be a florist at Siempre Utah. Take an inside look at all the details behind this shoot at Siempre summer shoot where we did wedding flowers in Draper, Utah.

The details

Escort table

Siempre has a beautify corner that is the perfect spot for an outdoor photo moment, cake table, or escort table. We decided to use it for our escort table. I loved this unique idea for an escort table that the planner shared with me when she sent me the inspiration for the shoot. It fit right in with the garden style look we were going for.

The Cake

No wedding scene is complete without a wedding cake. This three tier floral encased cake was a collaboration between us and Marcia of Sweet Cravings. Marcia placed the flowers on the cake, while our team created the arrangement or “flower meadow” (also known as “cake meadow”) surrounding the cake. The views at Siempre are like no other. The outdoor secret garden space is the perfect place to have a wedding luncheon. We decided to setup our cake table in a corner of the garden.

Floral tablescape at Siempre Utah

Tablescape

The tablescape was my very favorite aspect of the day. We created large table arrangements to line the center of the table. A stunning ground end piece was placed at the end of the table to tie it together.

I love how the end piece looks like it is reaching up to the table, almost like it is growing out of the ground. I feel that this leans into the organic overgrown feel that we were trying to embody in this shoot.

Ceremony arch

Nothing says wedding ceremony like the classic full floral arch. This was the perfect statement piece for our shoot and we love the lush arch we were able to create.

The mechanics

  • Metal garden arbor
  • Chicken wire
  • Agra wool
  • Sand bags
Bride and groom standing in front of purple floral arch

Alpacas

The most fun and unique feature of this shoot by far was our two honored guests: Macaroni and Cheese from Peppergrass Ranch.

The alpacas were the very calm and seemed to enjoy exploring the venue grounds. They were closing monitored by their owners, Megan and Tyler, who made sure they were well taken care of and comfortable during the shoot.

The Ingredients

  • Amnesia roses
  • Cool water roses
  • Ocean roses
  • Sahara sensation spray roses
  • White Mondial roses
  • Dark brown lisianthus
  • Light brown lisianthus
  • Orlaya
  • Brown dyed tulips
  • Cottage yarrow
  • Black scabiosa
  • Scabiosa pods
  • Fruiting raspberry branches
  • Queen anne’s lace
  • Smoke bush
  • Huckleberry green

Vendors

Southern Utah Elopement

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Earlier this year in September we traveled from Salt Lake Utah where we are based to St George Utah for a Southern Utah Elopement styled shoot as part of a photography retreat put on by Kennedy and Reggie from Kennedy Kiara Photography and Reggie Ann Photo and Film. We where traveling down there to to provide a colorful broken floral arch, bridal bouquet, and small tablescape. We love traveling and were thrilled with opportunity to travel and work with some amazing local vendors.

The details

Close up of colorful bridal bouquet

The flowers

  • White cosmos
  • Blue delphiniumn
  • Moab roses
  • Peach ranunculus (a personal favorite!)
  • Feverfew
  • Antique caramel pink carnations
  • Pink stock
  • Orange tulips
  • Yellow butterfly ranunculus
  • Tiffany roses
  • Lady Eva roses
  • Tree fern green
  • Huckleberry green
Bride and groom in front of partial floral arch
Bridal bouquet in Southern Utah

The mechanics

  • Chicken wire
  • Arga Wool from New Age Floral
  • A PVC pipe arch structure (created by Will)
  • Fishing line

Our experience

The day started early for us as we had to load our truck with buckets of flowers and all of our tools and arches before starting the four hour drive to St. George Utah. We had a grand time on the way enjoying the beautiful Utah landscape and all of the thousands of sunflowers lining the freeway.

There are pros and cons of every season in regards to being a florist and the difficulty with the warmer months is keeping the flowers from wilting. We knew this would be an issue designing outdoors in the heat, so we prepared by picking up all of our flowers the day before the event so they would be fresh and ready to last. The only thing that we premade before leaving was the bridal bouquet which we kept in a vase on the way down.

When we got to our location we quickly got to work soaking our Agra Wool and wrapping it in chicken wire. We put together our PVC pipe structure that Will had made the week before and attached the Agra Wool to the structure with zip ties. We immediately noticed that the PVC structure was wobbling under the weight of the Agra Wool, so we leaned it against an obliging fence in the parking lot and got to work adding our Huckleberry green to the wool. It was so hot that we opted to leave our truck AC on to keep the flowers in the car cool, as they definitely would have wilted had they not.

It was so unbelievably hot that our speed was definitely affected by the heat, and we were going a lot slower than usual. I was so nervous that the flowers would not hold up because of the heat. It ended up taking us about four hours to complete the broken arch, and we anchored it use fishing line to hold it in place. The flowers amazed me by holding up beautifully, although I made have a few premature gray hairs over them haha.

The Final Product

Couple at outdoor table in Southern Utah elopement

Vendors

  • Planning: kennedykiaraphotography.com and reggieannfilm.com
  • Featured images: reggieannfilm.com
  • Floral: mareelforal.com (me haha)
  • Hair and Makeup: instagram.com/karlalbeauty