Several months ago I met with a bride who was getting married in the evening on April 9, 2011 at Woodend. She was interested in lush flowers with with lots of textures in white, ivory, green and touches of soft pink. A couple weeks after we met I got an email from a bride who was getting married the same day at Woodend in the morning. She explained that she had talked to the evening bride, they seemed to have similar taste, and wanted to know if I would be willing to meet with them together and figure out if they could share the majority of the flowers for their weddings. I loved the idea! I am always concerned about waste with wedding flowers. Often I provide parchment paper and twine for guests to take flowers home in, I always offer to lend vases free of cost so they can be reused for another event and regularly I facilitate flower donations after weddings.

The idea of two weddings on the same day at the same venue with the same flowers makes sense. Since they were sharing the costs we were able to do slightly larger centerpieces to achieve the very lush look both brides were looking for without excessive expense. We figured out that ceremony pieces, guest book flowers and centerpieces would all be shared. Each wedding party had their own personal flowers and their own flowers tied to chairs going down the aisle. One bride added an arrangement for the place cards the other added small arrangements for cocktail tables. Yesterday the weather was cool and damp and the flowers looked just as fresh in the evening as they did in the morning. I arrived at Woodend ready to refresh the centerpieces between the two weddings but they needed nothing except to be placed on fresh tablecloths.

After the second wedding we delivered all of the flowers to a senior home in my neighborhood so they could get one more use!