Floral decoration for a marquee wedding
Florals can truly transform a space. If you're planning a garden wedding they are the perfect way to incorporate your colours and bring natural elements into a plain white sailcloth marquee.
Hiring a marquee for your outdoor wedding gives you a blank canvas and allows total creative freedom to design your dream celebration. But where do you start? We've picked a bouquet of floral marquee styling tips from Maria Hardy (Tangle and Wild) who is a floral designer and artisan cut flower grower whose signature style is abundant natural, garden inspired florals, designed and curated to emphasise a considered organic flow with a focus on layered texture and seasonal flowers.
We worked with Tangle and Wild on a wedding at beautiful garden wedding venue The Hyde Estate recently, where her impressive hanging floral installations truly transformed the space. So, who better to provide some expert insights to help you plan your flowers for your marquee wedding.
Over to you Maria!
The perfect blank canvas
Scale is so important to consider. A marquee provides a wonderful blank canvas but it’s a huge space to fill; my top tip is to create fewer, larger scale designs and installations that make maximum impact rather than lots of little bud vases scattered about which have little or no impact.
Creating floral focal points
Consider where you would like to create focal points in and around your marquee. Entrance flowers as a welcome to the marquee, a floral photo backdrop, or would you like a suspended design such as a fabulous flower cloud floating above your guest tables, or abundant foliage or floral halos hanging around the marquee poles which are great for leading the eye around the marquee.
Trees are also popular to use inside marquees to bring the outdoors in.
Hanging Floral Installation
Marquee flowers colour palette
White or ivory walls are the perfect backdrop for adding colour to your wedding flowers, consider a seamless colour palette throughout reflected with coloured napkins, glassware and candles.
A classic white and green colour palette also works well in a marquee wedding by incorporating layered texture and foliages and trees.
Incorporate features of the garden
Bring the outside in by considering the natural aesthetic and ambience of your garden or venue, and reflect this within the floral aesthetic. For example is your garden overlooking a meadow or set within the woodlands of an estate? In which case you might choose a relaxed, organic flowing style of floristry incorporating wild flowers, grasses and seed heads, or if your garden setting is more formal perhaps within the grounds of a grand house you might want to choose an abundant, elegant, English country garden style of floristry, or even a style forward more modern style of floristry.
If the garden setting has flower beds, consider reflecting what is in bloom in the garden in your marquee floral arrangements ensuring that your florals blend seamlessly with the surroundings.
Create ‘garden rooms’ or zones within your marquee
Floral arrangements can be used to zone the marquee and create intimate spaces for lounge areas and around the bar. Consider using a mix of trees and flowering shrubs to give varying heights, inter mixed with cut flowers to create an organic and natural aesthetic.
Lighting and candlelight
Talk to your marquee company about using lighting to highlight floral designs and create a truly magical ambience. Your florist will be able to provide candles and tea lights sympathetic to your colour palette to elevate your table scape.
Planning and design process
If you would like large scale suspended installations such as hanging flower clouds or halos, your florist will discuss mechanics and rigging necessary to facilitate designs with your marquee company...
Some designs will be created in full or in part in the florists studio and others such as large scale installations will be created on site so it’s important for your florist to know when they can have access to the marquee.
Common marquee wedding concerns expressed to florists
- Question: Will my wedding flowers wilt inside a hot marquee? Answer: Flowers are live, perishable products and of course we’re not in control of extreme weather, however if your flowers have been conditioned and handled correctly and consideration has been given as to suitability of varieties of flowers used we can minimise the risk.
- Consideration: Is there running water available to ensure hydration of the flowers? Your florist may need to make arrangements for this if there is no running water available
- Consideration: Structural limitations of a marquee: Your florist and marquee company will discuss structural integrity and rigging for heavy suspended floral installations
- Question: Can my flowers be re-purposed between ceremony and marquee? Answer: Yes! And sometimes no! Most arrangements can be moved including some (but not all) floral arches. My team and I always remain on site to facilitate moving flowers from ceremony to marquee to ensure that once they have been re-positioned they are still looking their best. Bear in mind that whilst we are always discreet and move arrangements as swiftly as possible it does mean that you will have a small team of florists moving amongst your guests whilst you’re having those first drinks and canapés!
- How much should I budget for garden marquee wedding flowers?
I understand this is a difficult topic and there is no reason at all why you should know how much wedding flowers cost - there is probably no other occasion that you will ever buy this volume of flowers and no knowledge at all of what goes on behind behind the scenes and the number of hours and hands that it takes to produce those designs that take your breath away! Firstly let me reassure you, I don’t know a single wedding supplier who uses the W word to inflate their prices.
The best way to go about setting a budget for your wedding flowers is to: Make a wish list of the personal flowers that you would like, bouquets and buttonholes and another list of arrangements that you would love for the ceremony and reception. Have an idea of what you feel comfortable spending on flowers and share this with your florist, they will guide you on how to get the best from your budget.
- Choosing your wedding florist for a garden wedding
If you’re looking for abundant, natural, garden inspired florals, look for a florist whose portfolio is consistent with this aesthetic. Visit websites and Instagram profiles and take time to research your florist carefully, floristry is an art form and there are so many great florists out there all with their own unique style. Ask to see examples of real life weddings and not just marketing or photo shoots, delivering a garden wedding is not without challenges so make sure your florist is experienced.
Thank you so much Maria, what brilliant tips and advice.
If you have any other questions about styling or planning your marquee wedding please don't hesitate to get in touch- we'd love to chat through your ideas and help you with any concerns.
