What to do with florals after your event?
So, you’re planning a wedding or event… and you’ve got all the vendors lined up for deliveries, set-up, and execution of the day. But who’s cleaning up? Is this a job you want placed on the shoulders of family and friends, your guests? There’s a long list of considerations that some people don’t realize until the lights come on at the end of the night.
What are you doing with the floral arrangements after?
Does your venue have additional fees for any floral items left behind or for disposal/garbage services?
Do you have rental containers/vessels or candleholders that must be returned within a certain time-frame to the florist or another vendor? If these aren’t returned you incur fees for missing pieces.
Who’s going to clean these? Additional cleaning fees could be added based on items being returned in the same condition they were delivered- have you ever scraped candle wax off of glass?!
What boxes/bins are going to used to transport items so nothing breaks?
If you have a coordinator, is this something that is part of their services to assist with?
In the floral industry, clean-up or take-down of an event is also referred to as “strike”, and it should be a key component of your floral consultation to discuss not only the set-up but also the strike of floral decor for your event!
Strike/Takedown Services
Different florists/designers have different business models and levels of service packages based on their own structure and pricing. Some full-service or all inclusive vendors will have the cost and services for strike included upfront in the cost of each piece, or they automatically have it added to their dollar amounts for install/strike fees. Others will have strike as an a la carte option that is added for clients that require that service only, depending on the floral elements of their event.
Here at The Copper Dahlia, my proposals are all a la carte and I line item the dollar amounts for floral components separate from my delivery, set-up, repurposing mid-event, and strike- it’s completely customizable based on my clients’ needs! For a deeper dive into pricing and what that entails, read this blog post (click here) on the cost of wedding flowers and set-up/strike details.
The sad reality of strike, is that most of the flowers used for an event will be thrown away. As a lover of flowers, this absolutely guts me and I try and salvage as many flowers as I can for someone to enjoy.
Some points to consider:
Not all flower designs are long lasting after they’ve partied all day long at an event and have to head for the trash or compost bin.
There are many things to consider in the initial design of pieces and flower selection that can help lessen the environmental impact of an event, and if that’s something that is very important to you make sure you let your designer know!
Keep reading for more ideas on what to do with your wedding flowers after your event to keep them out of the trash!
Sending your florals home with guests
One of my favorite options for continuing the life of your event florals is to send arrangements home with guests at the event. In order for this to happen, the pieces must be in a vessel or container that isn’t a rental. You cannot count on knowing who took home what and recoup the containers to return at a later date. This is why your designer needs to know ahead of time so they can help guide the style and container selections appropriately.
It can sometimes be surprisingly difficult to gift all of the flowers at the end of the night, especially if your guests are not local or your crowd of guests are not party animals and trickle out during the dance portion of the evening. Here are some tips and tricks to pull this off:
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Ask the DJ/MC to announce that centerpieces, etc, are free to take home for guests.
Arrange for your coordinator to pull the arrangements into one central location on the way out the door prior to guests departing so they are easy to grab.
Consider adding a sign for the above tip!
Plan ahead and tell specific guests to expect to take pieces home at the end of the evening as part of the clean-up: This can be family, close friends, wedding party, etc.
Showcase a bouquet bar! Keep reading for more info on this…
Bouquet Bar
You can also highlight the experience of gifting flowers to guests by making it part of the experience with a bouquet bar! You’re not going to have a guest take home larger installation pieces like arches, stairway installs, accent decor on fireplaces, etc. However, it is sometimes possible to have a designer start the strike process mid-way through the event with those same florals, then repurpose the stems as market style bouquets for guests to take home. Since this is an additional service and requires additional supplies and time, it’s usually an add-on price to the original cost of the original floral piece and standard set-up/strike. However, when it is presented as an interactive experience for guests to come pick which bouquet they’d want to take home with them, it’s a memorable experience that makes guests feel like a part of the day. You’ll also see people more receptive and aware of the ability to take the flowers home when there’s a designated space staffed by someone constructing and handing out bouquets.
Check out the bouquet bar in action at a recent wedding by viewing my Reel (click here). For Riya and Matt’s wedding I took most of the stems out of their altar piece shortly before their event ended and constructed 12 handtied arrangements for guests to take home.
Donation
Some clients may choose to donate their flowers/arrangements personally, or you are also able to ask your florist if that is a service they provide. If I am working with a client that is interested in donating their flowers after their event I’ve usually asked ahead of time what they want to do with their florals so I can help coach them through this process.
Again, the key component to this process is going to depend on the vessel/container in which the flowers are arranged. Even if the container isn’t a rental, the actual construction of it plays a big part of this option as well. For example, a simple plop of lifting the arrangement out of one container and into another isn’t a big deal. When you start getting into territory where you’re deconstructing budvases to make a larger arrangement, or taking apart an arch to use the loose blooms to make a new arrangement worthy of donation you may find that the service of “donation” is a lot of extra labor and effort. You can do this yourself, or your floral designer could decide to charge this as a service.
Also to note- altar “swags” may be in their own vessel designed to be out of a water source for the day, but to retain the water will need to be rehydrated. Let’s not confuse donating an arrangement with life left in it for others to enjoy, with just dumping wilted and worn-out blooms that sit in an aluminum turkey roasting pan at an odd angle. Have I seen this happen? Yes, I have.
I personally choose to donate to facilities that support memory care, hospital rehabilitation, and public school administrators, just based on my own interests and experiences. Other great options are nurses in a specialty care department, your local food bank, and community organizations. Plan ahead to be sure they can accept the donations before dropping off! If you decide to gift to an organization or individual that may use the florals for another event, make sure you check your floral contract for any conflicting clauses, as it is fairly industry standard for re-use to be limited to personal enjoyment, and not for another event without the designer’s approval.
Check out this Reel (click here) for the table florals for Riya and Matt turning into donation pieces for a local memory care facility. Since their tall arrangements were rental containers, I arranged them in a way that the top just popped off for transport and were able to be transferred into different containers for donation. The budvase flowers, as well as a few additional blooms that I had extra of in my studio, were constructed into new arrangements in basic containers.
For Kelsey and Zach’s September 2025 wedding, they were able to take the table centerpieces and keep for distribution to the administrative staff and the local elementary school. We also transferred some of their ceremony/aisle decor into different containers and added more loose blooms from other arrangements.
Kelsey and Anthony’s welcome mirror sign came home with me and went my local assisted living and memory care lobby.
