At Bring Joy we aim to become more sustainable after every wedding we do. We understand that people spend hard earned money on weddings and fresh flowers are a beautiful addition. The process it takes to get flowers to the wedding starts well before the ceremony. They start at farms, travel either directly to the florists or to wholesalers that sell them. Oftentimes the mechanics and materials used are created new and bought new to be disposed of at the end of the wedding. We lighten the disposability of our work in every way we can. Here are some ways we create more sustainable products.
This is an example when we moved everything from the couples ceremony to their reception.
- We thrift 90-95% of our vases used. We search for vases at resale shops and buy off of Facebook marketplace.
- We use floral foam alternatives for the majority of our weddings. We use moss, agra wool, and vessels filled with water. All of these products are compostable. We do use floral foam during the summer when we cannot offer an alternative that will last in the Houston heat. But it is a small fraction of our year and helps us to keep our floral quality.
- We reuse our materials when our clients do not want to keep them. We rent our vases unless asked by our clients to leave them. We take apart our vessels and save the chicken wire. We dry out the moss and reuse it over and over. We dry agra wool to use as a moss alternative.
- We compost all the cut flower stems, leaves, dying and leftover flowers. Turning the flowers back into soil is a great way to recycle them.
- We encourage reusing flowers from the ceremony to the reception. From the altar arrangements to aisle arrangements we can transition the flowers during the cocktail hour. This not only cuts back on the amount of material we use. It also cuts back on the amount of flowers that you pay for.
- We rent silk arrangements. We can customize your arrangements with silk flowers. These flowers are used by us over and over, elongating their life. This is also a bonus for clients as it helps keep the cost down as the rental cost is lower than the cost of fresh flowers.
- We cut our own tree greenery to use for our weddings when possible. This helps cut down the air pollution due to delivering the product from the farms to the florists.
- We work with regenerative farmers when able. Floral farms can cause damage to the soil it grows in. Organic farming does not hurt the soil but it does not give back to the soil. Regenerative farming does not hurt the soil. It helps restore the soil, water and biodiversity of the farm. This allows the land to become more resilient to climate change.
- We dry out leftover flowers and use them for clients that have dried aspects in their arrangements.
When you book a wedding with us you can expect we will do everything to provide you the best product for your wedding. Even if we do use something that is not 100% sustainable such as floral foam, or if you wish to keep the flowers and vases from the wedding, you can be assured that there are parts of the wedding that we have reused or recycled. You can also be assured that you are booking a florist that does strive for sustainability and we produce less waste than average florists.
-Lauren and Rebecca
