Donating Your Flowers
[Blooms from the Heart, San Diego, California]
In the wide world of wedding blogging, I feel as though flowers get the rep for being the most disposable, the one part of the day that very easily dies and ends up in the trash bag along with the plastic forks and paper plates used for the cake. For this reason, we’re doing potted plants for centerpieces, with the hope that 1) people will bring them home, or 2) they can be donated. Since the first will unlikely happen since most people are from out of town, I am very excited that our florist, Paula Rae of Rae Florae, introduced me to Blooms from the Heart, a San Diego organization which repurposes your event flowers by bringing them to hospitals, homeless shelters, senior care facilities, and other organizations in which they can be enjoyed and not tossed. This is a 100% volunteer run program, and Paula describes it as a top-notch non-profit with a big heart. They even take pictures of your flowers being delivered so you can see your flowers being given to a new home.
Are you planning to donate your wedding flowers?
I think it’s a wonderful idea to donate the flowers, thank you for the link! I have also heard that if you donate the flowers you can also use it as a tax write off (not sure how much).
We didn’t donate – but we DID make it easy for our guests to take them away by getting some helpers to pack them up at the end of the evening … see here
http://planetmithi.blogspot.com/2009/08/wedding-wednesday-part-3.html
Mithi’s most recent blog post: Wedding Wednesday – hiatus
we donated all of our flowers after the vow renewal to local hospitals and nursing homes – it was so great to brighten people’s days!
I feel so strongly about what a great idea this is! We donated our flowers to a local hospice. Neither my florist, my venue, nor the hospice had ever heard of anyone doing donating flowers, I couldn’t believe it! I’m so glad you posted this, hopefully more people will catch on.
Amy I.’s most recent blog post: Apple Tarte Tatin
love the donation idea!! we had 5 vases filled with various flowers and our guest, who were basically all from out of town, took many home :) i think it’s because carrying one or two vases is easier than a bigger set. of the 110 we had, we only took 24 home :)
honeymyheart’s most recent blog post: Pieces of me 2: Flower Mock-Up
Great cause! RT @pinkargyle: donate your flowers!: http://bit.ly/DGJY4
I feel so guilty about this, I know most of ours ended up in the trash. There just wasn’t a better option, with doing the cleanup the same night and wanting to keep the containers. The bartender salvaged some to take home, though. And my bouquet is just now turning brown on the kitchen counter!
love the idea of potted plants and donations! Its great to hear about vendors and brides being eco-friendly!
Thanks for all the lovely comments! I hope more people research donating in their local communities after reading the post.
@Julia: I know what you mean, a lot of the flowers at my sister’s wedding ended up in the trash, simply because we didn’t even think of what to do with them after and it was craziness beforehand. If it hadn’t been for her wedding, it probably would have never crossed my mind to donate. At least the bartender was able to take some home. :)
mo’s most recent blog post: My Trip to Seattle: Food
