les fleurs

Ah, bless the internet! I love how everything is just at the tip of you fingertips really. Even top quality fresh flowers!

So the flower situation was sending me a little cross eyed. There was much to and froing going on. Lucky me has a Mum who has an eye for floral arrangements, in particular Ikebana. We won't be having Ikebana arrangements at our wedding (no room in the reception venue really) but Mum is putting together my bouquet, our buttonholes and corsages, wrist corsages for the girls and 2 vase displays for the reception.

Slightly trickier for me though is that Mum's interstate so she wasn't able to just go out and source and order the flowers herself. So I've been trying to find out what's in season in Melbourne, where's good to get them from, whose got good quality and prices etc etc.. Which would have been fine if it was just a job on it's own but as anyone getting ready for a wedding knows, there's about five billion jobs that need to be done, all at the same time.

We WERE going to get them from a wholesaler in Olinda (The Dandenong Ranges, where we are getting married) BUT the flowers wouldn't be open already and didn't fancy a trip out there 10 days before... to get the flowers... to bring home and get them to open... and then bring them all the way back.

So then we were going to get them from our favourite local florist in West Footscray. We went there with our list of bouquets etc we needed and when we arrived our jaws dropped... the FLORIST IS NO LONGER THERE! They have completely vacated and VANISHED! I was stunned and quietly devastated. I loved those guys! They had nice flowers, were super friendly and helpful, family run and nice Westie prices. Apparently they hadn't paid their rent... damn... I could have kept them in business a couple more weeks. Oh well.

NEXT we searched various other local florists. Some had some nice stuff, some were closed (it was a Sunday). So I did a quick whip around on Tuesday morning and one was closed though I went back twice and they were supposed to be open, one wouldn't really help me coz they said their bridal person was only there on Fridays and I really couldn't leave it that long so that didn't help me. And another florist close to work was really good with fantastic looking and unusual flowers but SO EXPENSIVE!

I was beginning to feel a bit at a loss. So that night at home I had one last google and... just HAPPENED TO stumble across FlowerBunch and Floriculture. Two online businesses run by the same mob. They have flower farm in Silvan (right near where we were originally going to get our flowers anyway, in fact I bet they sell supply the wholesaler we were going to go to).

FLOWERBUNCH is the retail flower delivery site. BUT they also have a wholesaler site FLORICULTURE that sells to the public! They have a fantastic range, and BRILLIANT website with answers to any question you could possibly have, a great video of how their pack their boxes so you can be reassured of what you will be getting, and the helpful blog with so much information. I was really impressed by their videos and website. And I was incredibly happy to see that they are pro Sustainability. They source locally as much as possible, minimise imports (yay! low flower miles!). They have their own greenhouse and use hydroponic organic flower production practices. See? They were ticking all the right boxes for us. They are obviously passionate about what they are doing and providing the best possible flowers to their customers. AND their prices are very competitive.

If we were after more 'cottage style' flower arrangements and bouquets etc I would definitely go for their GROWERS "SURPRISE" BOX:

They come in small, medium and large sizes ranging in price from around $65 to $160 and look like a really great way to get a selection of IN SEASON flowers, locally sourced - a selection of both flowers and foliage and really fantastic value!

I did umm and ahh about possibly going that option, but after a good couple of weeks going cross eyed trying to figure out what it was that we wanted, getting my head around how many bunches of which types of flowers we'd need, when we'd need to get them in order to be open in time etc... decided to just go with what we originally planned for. We've got 14 buttonholes to do for example, and I just didn't know if the surprise box would have flowers suitable for the buttonholes.

So I ordered online... after about 5 phone calls to their florist Sally. Their customer service was excellent, they were super friendly and very helpful and answered all my questions and kept telling me to feel free to call back if I had any more questions. And call back I did! They were very patient with me, not even a hint of getting sick of me calling up with yet ANOTHER question. And it was greatly appreciated.

I ordered 2 packages because some flowers take longer to open than others. For our reception displays we're going for a mixture of white lilies, green and pale yellow gladiolis - both take longer to open, and also cream and cream w/ pale yellow centre chrysanthemums. So I ordered the lilies and gladiolis to arrive today.

Is is how they arrived and how they look. Their website has lots of info for caring for your flowers and what to do once you get them and how to make sure they open and look their best. So that even dummies like me can't get it wrong! Plus I rang them twice once they arrived as well just to check I was doing everything correctly.

We will be having the roses, rose sprays, rose petals, and chrysanthemums arriving next week, closer to the wedding as they don't take long to open at all.

That's right people THE WEDDING IS NEXT WEEK!!!!