DIY: Baby Shower Floral Arrangements
I was so excited for the opportunity to arrange the flowers for my sister-in-law’s Baby Shower.
I’d already done the invitations, and it was so fun to continue wearing the “event planner“ hat and help our family’s vision for the party come to life.
I’d heard of brides doing their own flowers through wholesale floral companies, and had always been interested in what that was like. This was a perfect reason to try it myself and I ended up having a really positive experience.
One very important element of everything coming together so nicely was the fact that my Mother-in-law chose the perfect venue for the shower, Ivory Orange, in the historical Carondelet neighborhood in Saint Louis. The Ivory Orange sits right on the Ivory Square, which has a rich history and is currently being redeveloped and revitalized beautifully. The preserved fountain and theatre, also in the square, set a classic background for guests as they arrived.
The interior of the venue was even more gorgeous, with industrial lighting, vintage wood and stone accents, and a full catering, bar, and design team. The owner of the venue really streamlined the process of choosing a menu and was super flexible and made tons for great suggestions and recommendations for a causal luncheon style buffet. The best parts was that the venue had a huge closet of props available for use, including about one hundred vintage bud vases in varying sizes. I was so grateful to take advantage of those supplies, not only to keep costs down, but also to lessen the amount of hauling and set up I’d have to do the morning of the event.
Check out this link to explore the amazing venue more! I can’t recommend it enough! http://ivoryorange.com
I really leaned into the versatility of small, scattered arrangements. I knew that would suit the venue, and I was able to et out the vases and eyeball estimate how many stems I’d need to order.
After lots of research, I decided to go with the company Blooms by the Box for the flowers. Their website was easy to browse, order, and schedule delivery. They also had no minimum order amount, which was great because we were hosting about 50 people and didn’t want to overdo the floral decor, especially since the space was already so lovely. I appreciated that Blooms by the Box would reach out for approval before making substitutions and that they provided a ton of DIY resources on their website. I ordered mostly white flowers, which a handful of blue flowers in tribute to the baby boy we were all eagerly awaiting.
Here is the list of what I ordered:
I felt the prices were reasonable, especially compared to other wholesale websites and what it would cost to hire a florist. I think my only regret is that I didn’t order more blue flowers initially, since company did reach out to let me know that the blue hydrangeas were out of stock. I approved the switch to white, but ended up with fewer blue accents than I’d planned. Of course, I could’ve nixed the hydrangeas from the order completely (an option I was offered by customer service), and picked up some more blue stems locally if it had been a deal-breaker.
In the end, it wasn’t big deal, I didn’t spend any extra money, and I ended up with 35 extra stems. Somehow my box arrived with one extra bunch of carnations, one bunch of spray roses, and one bunch of ranunculus that I hadn’t even ordered. Can’t complain!
When I received the flowers I immediately organized then into vases (I picked up some mini wastebaskets and transferred them into those to make it a bit easier to load it all into the car ) and kept the water fresh. I got the stems two days before the event, and they did seem a little droopy, so I started them first with lukewarm water. Once they started perking up or opening I made sure the fresh water was cool.
The day of the shower my mother-in-law helped me bring the flowers into the space, where I set up the bud vases and walked around filling each with various stems.
I put some hydrangeas next to the welcome sign and flanked the cake table with the seeded eucalyptus in the clear wastebaskets I’d used to transport the stems from home. The overall design was simple enough to execute in about 30 minutes and left enough space on the long tables fro guests to still have room to eat and socialize. When the guests of honor were ready to cut the cake and open gifts we moved all the bud vases to the cake table, and it made for a beautiful backdrop for pictures. We had such great day celebrating as a big family!
Not only were the flowers perfect for the baby shower, they lasted forever! We all ended up having beautiful arrangement in our homes for the next week and it was a wonderful reminder of the party and happy feels from the day.
