Vancouver Brides often ask me what is the right way to hold a bridal bouquet. I know some ladies think it's going to be hard but truthfully, by following these simple tips even a cascade is very easy to carry. 

Most bouquet flowers are arranged with a front angle in mind.  Make sure you ask your florist ahead of time how to identify the front from the back.  At Postmark our bouquets are hand-tied and designed with a front angle. The ribbon is pinned on the backside of the bouquet.

Tips for carrying your Bridal Bouquet correctly:

Identify the front from the back  and then feel it in your hands and try to determine where it feels most comfortable and balanced when you hold it.

For hand tied bouquets (sometimes called “nose gays”) hold it in front of you comfortably at waist level, angled slightly forward so that the prettiest, most focal part of the arrangement faces outward towards your groom and guests. The mechanics of this bouquet are simple and have a fresh picked quality. They are designed with the natural stems of the flowers showing and are usually round, not elongated with a pave of tightly grouped flowers.

For cascading bouquets, (elongated or crescent shaped) the cascade usually dictates the direction and the angle it should be held. These bouquets can be a bit more tricky to handle as their size and weight aren’t as care-free and casual as the hand-tied variety.

Carrying a specialty-designed bouquet should definitely come with a few pointers from your florist. With all the possibilities for wonderfully creative styles of bouquets, there can be anything from presentation style (carried casually in your arms like a beauty queen) or a side clutch (meant to be carried at your side or hip area much like a clutch purse).

Always remember….shoulders back, stand up straight, keep your chin up, and don’t look at the floor. You are heading on a path toward the man of your dreams and you should look like it!

Holding it correctly for pictures is just as important, if not more important, as your walk down the aisle. Family and friends are forgiving…pictures not so much.

A bride should always pick up her bouquet and get used to how it feels and looks best as she is carrying it. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself (or your bridesmaids) if you look comfortable or feel awkward when your handling it. Have your bridesmaids practice with you, the same rules apply for a bridesmaids’ bouquet too! A few minutes of practice will go a long way before heading down the aisle with it.

We have been getting a lot of questions about why we only source local flowers.  To our knowledge at the time of this post we are the only flower shop in Vancouver to use 100% local flowers.  We are very proud of that!  Here are the top 10 reasons why we only source local flowers.

1. Less Travel. Flowers bought from a local growers have a much shorter ride to your doorstep or market place. Over 59% of the flowers sold in the Canada are imported. 55% are from Colombia which is 6,760 Km away from Vancouver.  Those flowers you just picked up at the grocery store, where bred and grown to withstand being in the undercarriage of an airplane with little or no water. With less travel, the flowers we use can be more delicate varieties that were picked at a more desirable time and will be in your hands in a prettier state.

2. Longer Lasting. The market for fresh cut flowers can be a difficult one. Consumers know the product is not going to last more than two weeks in a vase. As a consumer you can place more trust in local farms knowing that you are receiving a clean product that was picked at the perfect time to last the longest in your vase!

3. Fragrance, Fragrance, Fragrance. Buying locally usually means you are buying from a small production farm. Large producers are breeding flowers with thick stems and other characteristics that will ship well. With no pressure to ship flowers across the world, a smaller grower is able to plant seed that produce flowers with scent! There is nothing worse than knowing that someone spent $80 on roses and they don’t even smell like roses.

4. Support Local Families. Buying local means supporting the hard-working farm staff that puts many hours a day into watering, pulling weeds, and harvesting flowers. Growing local flowers means cutting out the shipping costs and middleman and selling them at a fair price that people can afford. Getting the full retail price means that local farms are able to keep producing. While local producers do their best to make the product affordable, it doesn’t always mean the product is cheaper. However, knowing you are receiving a healthy product should make buying local a no-brainer.

5. Care and Maintenance. Small production can mean less disease and pest problems. Not that they don’t have those problems, but there are different ways of managing them when you have less product to care for. They are able to use pest and disease techniques that allow for a healthier product that will last longer. Weeds, on the other hand, are troublemakers and grow quickly. It’s important to control them so they don’t crowd out your flowers. Preventive measures include laying black plastic before planting and tilling the soil.

6. Feel Great! Who doesn’t love receiving a fresh bouquet of flowers? The colour and fragrance have a way of brightening and adding the perfect touch of happiness to any day. A study by Rutgers University shows that people are truly happy when they receive fresh cut flowers over other gifts. Check out more here!

7. Soil Conservation. Don’t be fooled. Flower production is just as difficult as any other vegetable or forage crop production. Growing flowers is great for the soil in many ways. While polyculture (using multiple crops in the same area in a type of agricultural practice) is thought to be more labor intense, it has its advantages to the soil. Multiple cropping allows growers to reuse the same space in the one growing season. This helps to keep the soil from eroding after an early season annual flower finishes. Flower roots help aerate the soil and the plant remains left after harvest add organic matter to the soil.

8. Bee Benefits. Bees love the flowers at a farm and they are an important part of production. The flowers help the local insect populations by providing homes to honey bees, praying mantis, and other beneficial insects. This local production may even be helpful to your local garden by providing you with pollinators.

9. Inspiring the Future of Agriculture. Going green is so last year, but buying local is so this year! When you buy local products you are not only receiving something gorgeous that will make you feel amazing, but also you are helping to insure that the farm will be there tomorrow. Agriculture is the nation’s number one employer, amounting to more then 23 million jobs that involve agriculture in some facet.

10. Enjoy the Seasons! With the change in seasons comes a change in local flower production. Don’t miss out on your chance at a spring peony, summer zinnia, and fall sunflower. Each flower is beautiful and with local producers you don’t need to try to grow them all in your backyard.

In fact it’s a lot closer to black – carbon black that is. And formaldehyde and barium sulphates…

You’ve probably guessed that Postmark Flowers is floral foam free – meaning that you will never find that ‘green’ floral foam in any of our designs. I get a few curious looks when I tell my clients this,  so I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain my reasons, and hopefully educate my clients and fellow florists alike. After all, knowledge is power…

Why I refuse to use floral foam

1. Floral foam is comprised of a formidable line-up of toxic ingredients including carbon black,formaldehyde and barium sulphates just to name a few. Without going into specifics, the first two ingredients are known carcinogens. That is, they cause cancer.

Formaldehyde poses serious health risks whether the foam is wet or dry. When the foam is dry (including dust particles), it can irritate the eyes and skin, as well as cause headaches and breathing difficulties, not to mention triggering asthma symptoms. It can also affect the end user – the recipient of your flowers. It’s been found that if formaldehyde is kept in warm or stagnant conditions it may actually release harmful gases after leaching into the water. Hardly what I’d want next to my loved one’s hospital bedside.

As the Postmark studio is currently home-based, I’m certainly not interested in compromising the health of my family by allowing this product into the house. It’s just not worth it to me. 

2. For such a toxic product there is very little safety advice. Florists are rarely taught about the safe handling of foam. Next time you open your box of floral foam, look out for the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) which should be included with the contents. Can’t find it? Funny that. I made several requests for a copy of this document, but the manufacturer seemed to conveniently lose my email address, time and again. You would expect that a company manufacturing such a product has a duty of care to their customers? If you’re interested in seeing the MSDS – you can view it here.  You might also find the comments very interesting.

3. This product is not biodegradable. After all those boxed arrangements have perished, massive quantities of foam end up in landfill, FOREVER; once again with serious risk of off-gassing.

4. Flowers are happier in plain old water. Did you realise that foam arrangements still require regular water top ups? Research has shown that people are more likely to refresh the water if their flowers are in a vase – rewarding them with longer lasting flowers.

Want the good news?

There are so many alternatives out there! Many of these tried and true methods have been around long before floral foam and continue to provide excellent results. In fact, after you’ve seen all the options – foam kinda feels like cheating in comparison. Yes, it can certainly offer some impressive, gravity-defying designs – but whatever happened to art imitating life?

Having been foam free from the beginning,  I now have quite the repertoire of alternative techniques (hint hint, blog image) to turn to depending on my style of creation, and I look forward to sharing some with you in future blogs. 

My flower passion started with a small work project almost a year ago. Before I knew it,  I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the North American floral industry. I couldn't believe that 80% of US cut flowers and 60% of Canadian cut flowers sold were imported from South America so I started looking for sustainable local flower options in the US and Canada and found that there were very few.  I read Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart  and was appalled at the working conditions and distance traveled by South America Flowers.  I read  50 Mile Bouquet by Debra Prinzing and was relieved to learn that that there was a local flower movement in the USA that was getting some traction. Unfortunately, there was almost no sign of it in Canada.

I challenged myself and a friend to create a blog featuring local flowers. I then signed up for a floral design course and found I was staying up late researching, arranging, planting, clipping, creating and blogging about flowers—my hobby had turned into an obsession. I was exhausted, but for the first time in a long time I felt excited about flowers in a way I didn't feel about profit margins and key performance indicators. I had found something that I loved doing, that I was good at doing, and that I could find more sustainable way of doing. Before long the entrepreneur in me started a business plan and sourcing sustainable local flowers. This all took place over about 6 months and then from there I took a huge leap of faith. With the support of my husband, I said goodbye to a job that I loved, a company that I was proud to work for and people that challenged and mentored me, so I could start my own sustainable local flower business. 

So here I am. I guess I can say I have been an entrepreneur for 2 months now. I have spent this time with my wonderful children preparing for the launch of my new company and website. It is my contribution to the Canadian slow flower movement and will fill a void in the Vancouver market place by offering locally grow designer bouquets.

Check out my website  Postmark Flowers and like the Postmark Flowers Facebook Page  to follow my business and the local flower movement.

This is our brand new Postmark Flowers Blog, where we’re dedicated to localizing the flower industry. Our goal is to help Canadians understand the importance of the local flower movement. We have a saying at Postmark Flowers that goes, “show local flowers some love” and that’s exactly what we want you to feel when you visit this blog. We’re dedicated to supporting florists, growers, wholesalers, sustainable floral product manufactures and individuals that believe in “grown not flown” flowers as much as we do!

Why Local Flowers Matters

We created this blog, because of our dedication to the local flower movement. The mission of the Postmark Flowers Blog is to provide you with lovely floral content and floral industry statistics that will help you to understand the importance of buying local flowers and to question where the flowers you buy come from. We will include community events, book reviews, best practices, community spotlights and, of course, success stories on individual and group contributions to localizing the flower industry. We want to be your go-to source for sharing information on the local flower movement in your community.

What Matters to You… …

also matters to us! How your consumers, local business, the environment and social values all work together to create a localized floral community is extremely important. This blog will identify ways that we all do or will contribute to the local flower movement.

Who We Are

We eat, sleep and breathe the local flower movement, and are excited to share our passion with you! In the meantime, let’s get the conversation going – what does the local flower movement mean to you? Feel free to leave a comment on our message board…we also invite you to visit our Postmark Flowers Website to learn more about what we do!