Planning your destination wedding? One of the most important aspects is surely your budget. There are ways to be smart about budgeting. The best way to save money on your wedding flowers and get the most bang for your buck? Simply repurpose them! A stunning ceremony arch doesn’t need to go to waste. You may be using floral arrangements on the ceremony aisle. These can be used again. Of course please consult your floral designer about the pros and cons on your specific design and flower choices. They are the experts.

There are some advantages of repurposing ceremony flowers for the reception, allowing you to purchase more ‘expensive’ and beautiful flowers.

Ceremony arrangements

Large ceremony arrangements are often created in a plastic designer dish and then placed on top of a large urn or a pillar to provide a visual frame around the couple. Couples quickly learn that these arrangements are expensive as they require lots of flowers and greenery and need to be large enough to be seen from the back of the ceremony rows.

Some ceremony arrangements include flowers that are only the three front-facing sides of the arrangements (with fewer flowers in the back as they cannot be seen from the aisle chairs or pews). If the bulk of flowers are on three sides, the ceremony arrangement’s placement at the reception must be considered.

Couples appreciate hearing that when the ceremony arrangement is created in a designer dish, the florist can easily move and display them in a number of places, such as the reception besides the head table, on a welcome table, at the DJ booth, or next to the band.

However, the couple needs to understand that when the ceremony arrangement is reused as an elevated centerpiece arrangement, it would need to be created so that the flowers are evenly arranged around all sides. Therefore, pricing will be reflected in the additional amount of flowers required. 

Couples may be unaware that floral arrangements for a wedding arch, gazebo, or chuppah are often created in a large floral cage or structure to hold the flowers and greenery and are very large, heavy, and wet with water. This can make for very tricky repurposing!

Reusing the ceremony aisle decor.

This is maybe the most efficient way to repurpose flowers. You can ask your florist to reuse small floral, greenery, and/or ribbon bows that were hung on the chairs or the pews of the ceremony aisle for the backs of chairs on the sweetheart table or the head/bridal party table. They can also be placed beside photos on a memory table.  

This wedding in the Belmond Hotel Caruso, in Ravello is the perfect example for repurposing the aisle flowers.