Earlier in September I attended MAC’s first Wedding Flower Workshop with florist Carolyn Howells.
My previous experience with flowers was only limited to painting them so I did not know what to expect. After four hours under Carolyn’s tutelage, I now have the utmost respect for florists and their strong fingers! Carolyn’s approach to teaching is to pass on flower arranging techniques of the highest industry standard.
There were people with varying degrees of experience with floristry design, and Carolyn was very welcoming and patient with absolute beginners (myself included).
The workshop focused on roses, and we each had four bunches of beautiful white roses to work with. We were shown how to make leaves shine (with olive oil) and how to wire and tape them to prepare for the bouquet.
After preparing each rose (all thirty of them), the bouquet came together quickly and Carolyn provided ribbon and pins to finish it off.
The class was in awe of the bouquets we made and they are still holding together now, and opening beautifully. We also created a matching corsage with two leaves and a smaller rose; I never realised just how much work is behind such a small piece. Carolyn provided each student with a gift box and demonstrated how to present the bouquet with white tissue paper, which was a lovely finishing touch and very professional. We were all very pleased to take home what we had made!
What surprised me about the class was the amount of wedding bouquet horror stories everybody had to share. People relayed their wedding days when past flower arrangements fell apart, wilted, and even had wiring work showing – and they were all describing professionally arranged bouquets which they had paid for. The wiring and taping technique Carolyn taught us is exactly how we should expect wedding bouquets to be made. I am glad I have not yet needed a wedding bouquet; thanks to Carolyn I now know how to recognise a correctly arranged bouquet!
This workshop really opened my eyes to the art of floristry and I am really looking forward to attending MAC’s upcoming Vintage-themed Wedding Flower Workshop, which will focus on a mixed seasonal flower and herb bouquet, vintage-style table designs, matching corsage and more.
Written by Lauren Ottaway
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