How to Design Your Wedding Flowers Around Your Venue
How to create a floral design that works with your wedding venue.
At The Way to Bloom, the venue is always one of the first things we think about when we start designing a wedding.
We're incredibly lucky to have worked at some of the UK's most beautiful wedding venues, from historic castles and grand English stately homes to country gardens, glass orangery spaces and luxury London hotels. Of course, there are still lots of wedding venues sitting on our dream list! Every wedding venue is completely different, which is exactly what makes our job so much fun. We get to look at a space and ask ourselves… what could we create here?
For our destination wedding couples travelling from America, Canada and beyond, this is particularly important. You may have fallen in love with an English country house, a beautiful Cotswolds estate or an iconic London venue before you've even had the chance to visit in person. That's where we can help. We know the venues, and we understand how the spaces work. Most importantly, we know how to look at them from a floral design perspective.
In this guide, we're sharing some of the things we look at when designing wedding flowers around a venue. From architecture and proportions to existing colours, natural light and the way your guests move through the space. We'll also talk about creating those bigger wow-factor moments, from statement staircases and ceremony installations to floral tablescapes and hanging flowers above the dance floor. Plus, it’s worth considering how we can repurpose your flowers throughout the day to make the most of your floral design.
Start With a Venue Visit
This is always our starting point.
When we visit a wedding venue, we don't just walk into the ceremony room and start thinking about where the flowers should go. We walk around the entire venue. And we mean really walk around it.
We like to walk the route your guests will take on the wedding day. Where will they arrive? What will they see first? Where will they go for the drinks reception? What happens when they enter the wedding breakfast? Where will they naturally gather?
It's amazing what you notice when you look at a venue from a guest's perspective.
Perhaps there's a beautiful staircase that could become a floral moment. Maybe there's an entrance that feels slightly bare and could be transformed with flowers. Or perhaps the venue already has an incredible view and adding more would actually take away from it. This is why we love venue visits so much.
Look at the Architecture
One of the first things we'll look at is the architecture of the venue. These details should influence your floral design.
A huge stately home can handle much larger floral installations than an intimate dining room. A modern London venue might suit something more sculptural, while an English country house could be incredible with abundant and romantic flowers.
We recently worked at a beautiful historic venue where the staircase itself was one of the standout features. Rather than treating it simply as a way of getting from one floor to another, we looked at how flowers could follow the lines of the staircase and make it part of the wedding design.
That's what we mean by designing around your venue.
Think About Proportion
This one sounds obvious, but it's something that can completely change how your flowers look. Your wedding flowers need to be the right scale for the room.
A small arrangement can disappear in a huge ballroom. Equally, something enormous in a smaller room can quickly feel overwhelming. We love creating a few bigger statement moments, and then balancing these with more considered floral details throughout the rest of the space.
Think about where you want your guests to look. You don't need to decorate every inch of a beautiful venue. Sometimes, one really good floral moment is all you need.
Work With the Colours Already Around You
Your wedding flowers don't necessarily need to match your venue, but they should sit comfortably within it. Look at the colours that already exist in the space. The walls, the flooring, curtains, furniture, artwork and even the view outside can all become part of your colour inspiration.
This is something we particularly love doing with colourful weddings. And don't be afraid of contrast.
Sometimes the most beautiful designs come from putting a really unexpected colour palette into a more traditional venue.
Always Look Up!
We know we're always talking about flowers at eye level, but one of our favourite places to create impact is actually above you.
If your wedding venue has a high ceiling, think about whether there's an opportunity for a hanging floral installation.
One of our favourite examples of this was at Kin House in Wiltshire. We created a beautiful hanging tulip installation above the dance floor for this truly iconic wedding. Rather than simply decorating the floor itself, we looked upwards and used the height of the space to create something unexpected.
We love designs like this because they don't just fill a space with flowers. They completely change the way you experience it, creating one of those moments that guests remember and that looks incredible in photographs too.
The ceiling is often an overlooked part of wedding styling, and in the right venue, it can be one of the biggest opportunities you have.
Create a Floral Journey
One of our favourite ways to approach wedding flowers is to think about the entire journey of the day rather than individual rooms. Your flowers should help move guests from one part of the wedding to another.
Perhaps you have floral arrangements at the entrance, a statement ceremony installation, flowers on the bar during cocktail hour and then a completely transformed reception space. There should be a connection between each moment. And this is where repurposing can work really well.
A beautiful ceremony arch doesn't necessarily need to stay at the ceremony. Depending on the venue and logistics, it might be moved behind the top table or sweetheart table for the reception. Aisle flowers can become part of the tablescape. Urns can move from the ceremony to the entrance or bar. Where possible, we will always aim to create floral designs that can be repurposed. It makes sense from a budget perspective, but it also creates a lovely continuity throughout the wedding day.
Consider the Light
This is one we think about a lot when designing wedding flowers. Natural daylight, chandeliers, candlelight and evening lighting can completely change the appearance of your flowers.
A colour palette that feels soft and delicate during the ceremony might look much richer under candlelight during dinner. We always want our floral designs to photograph beautifully, but more importantly, we want them to feel beautiful in the room itself.
Let Your Venue Inspire You
This is probably our biggest piece of advice. If you've fallen in love with a venue because of its incredible architecture, don't cover it up.
If you've chosen an English country house because of the gardens, bring that feeling into your flowers. If you're getting married in London because you love the modern city atmosphere, let that influence the design. And if you're travelling from America or Canada to have your destination wedding in the UK, this is especially important.
You may have been planning your wedding from thousands of miles away, looking at Pinterest boards and saving beautiful floral designs, but your wedding florist should be able to help you understand how those ideas will actually translate into your venue.
That's one of the reasons we love working with destination wedding couples. We can visit the venue, understand the logistics, talk through the guest experience and help turn the ideas you've been collecting into something that works beautifully in the UK.
Let's Talk About Your Wedding Flowers
Already found your luxury wedding venue? We'd love to hear about it.:
Whether you're planning a colourful destination wedding in the UK, an elegant London wedding or a relaxed English countryside celebration, we'll work with your venue to create luxury wedding flowers and floral design that feel timeless, modern and completely personal. Get in touch to tell us about your venue and your wedding plans.
Looking for More Wedding Planning Inspiration?
If you're currently planning your wedding, we've got plenty more on the journal.
Photography Credits
Poppy Carter Portraits with the iconic Mara Marie Bridal at Hedsor House
Photography by Gagan at Somerley House
Charlene Webb Photography at Euridge
Jamie Edward at Somerley House
Rebecca Carpenter Photography at Manor House in Somerset
Zane Butcher Photography at Hyde House
Jo Bradbury Photography at Hyde House
Augusta Sagnelli Photography at St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel
Melissa Megan Photography at Somerley House
Elizabeth Jayne Photography at Kin House
Rebecca Searle Photography at Somerley House
Natalie J Weddings at Kin House