The origin of this offering:
Knowing that our full-service wedding flowers can feel daunting and inaccessible for some — and unnecessary for more intimate gatherings — we wanted to create an option that involved less decision-making for our clients, a simplified ordering process, more accessible pricing, and the opportunity to source more sustainably. The A La Carte offering springs directly from these needs.
We have built a menu of floral offerings within four curated color palettes. The color palettes have been designed to be broad, so that we can use the most beautiful botanical specimens the season has to offer, from our garden, local farmers, and high-quality wholesalers. With more creative freedom to work within a color family rather than with a highly specific list of requested materials and colors, our work can spring more organically from what is available from a sustainable source.
How it works:
It’s simple: choose your color palette, and then choose the floral pieces you will need to fulfill your needs and fit your budget. There is no need to schedule a consultation with us to discuss the order, and there is no minimum, and no added design fee, unlike our Full Service offering. We require three weeks’ lead time for every order, and your purchase is non-refundable. Once you place your order, we will contact you to set a specific pickup time on your event day, or the day before. We will package your order so that it is safely transportable, and coach you through any other instructions upon pickup.
Please store flowers out of direct sunlight and in an air-conditioned space from pickup until setup time. Dark, cool places like garages with A/C are great for arrangements, and refrigerators are ideal for personals like boutonnieres and corsages. For outdoor receptions during summer, wait as long as possible to set flowers on the table, as the hot sun will result in wilting flowers. Bouquets will be packaged in glass vases with water; make sure to keep the bouquets in water as much as possible so they stay fresh (for example, between photo sessions and ceremony time).
If an unforeseen circumstance arises and your event is rescheduled (say, due to a pandemic), we are able to honor your order on your new event date as long as we are notified at least three weeks in advance of your original date, and as long as your new date is no more than one year after the original order date. Please contact us as soon as possible if such a situation arises so that we can meet a solution that suits your needs and fits our policies and availability: info@wylde.co.
Our Four Color Palettes:
We designed these four color palettes to satisfy our own creative cravings as well as the common requests of clients. Rather than remaining perennially consistent with the images shown, these color palettes are intended to be fairly open ended, with room to evolve alongside local, seasonal availability. While the mood and general color family will be a connecting thread, there will be plenty of variability from wedding to wedding with the exact mix of color, texture and specimens chosen to capture each color palette.
The Romantic palette is our take on a “moody” color scheme. A mix of blush, white and burgundy has been exceedingly popular in recent seasons, and we went a step further with this palette by incorporating more analogous shades of pink, red and purple alongside whites and neutrals. The end result, we feel, has more depth, artistry, and passionate personality than what you’d find on a Pinterest board for “moody” bouquets. When we think of this palette, we think of candlelit dinners and great wine.
The Nuanced Neutrals palette lends tonal depth and textural interest to classic wedding whites. By layering neutral tones and incorporating contrasting dark and textural elements against cloudlike blooms, this palette captures the elegance of traditional whites with a heightened spirit of sophistication and character. The genius of this palette is its timeless ability to suit any venue and style.
The Sunny + Bright palette indulges our somewhat secret wish that everyone have yellows, peaches, and oranges at their wedding. Although underutilized in the wedding world, we think the thoughtful and artful use of these colors — blending the brightest pops with softer neutral and transitional hues — creates a feeling of joy like no other color family can. The character of this palette will change through the seasons, with more citrusy elements in winter, to softer pastels in spring, to sundrenched hues in summer, to more rusted tones in fall. We love the idea of this palette for an outdoor, informal reception, or to brighten up an industrial venue or a mid-winter ceremony when color brings life.
The Florists’ Choice palette is perfect for those who are totally over the wedding decision-making, or who are open-minded to plenty of color and want to prioritize sustainability and trust our artistry. This “surprise” palette option allows us to use our creativity with color and sourcing to pull together the most beautiful mix of flowers, foliage, and botanical elements available locally and regionally at the moment of your wedding (although outside of the growing season and during challenging weather, we’ll source nationally and internationally as needed). We think the idea of being surprised by your flowers on your big day is a lot of fun, but it’s not for everyone! If you’re interested in this option, we recommend scrolling our wedding galleries and blog to get a better feel for our style. With this option, you’re putting a lot of trust in our creative direction and expertise. We don’t take that lightly, and assure you we’ll be intentional and have fun with creating something really unique for you. For those who choose this option, enjoy $5 off each bouquet and centerpiece as a thank you for granting us this artistic freedom.
Seasonality, sourcing, and sustainability:
These packages give us greater creative freedom in selecting seasonal flowers. Therefore, we are better able to prioritize using flowers from our own garden and from local farms, rather than relying on the international flower market. Buying from larger wholesalers may open up an enormous range of year-round flower availability, but it means contributing to a head-spinning carbon footprint and supporting farming systems that are detrimental to ecosystems and the health of farmworkers. When we think about our love for nature and our desire to work in harmony with and celebration of its ingenuity, we have to interrogate our sourcing, and acknowledge that when we rely heavily on things like year-round South American roses and Dutch ranunculus, we are complicit in farming systems that require heavy use of chemical inputs and look much more like factories than like farms.
When we instead choose to purchase from our vetted network of local flower farmers, we are supporting farming systems that are biodiverse, use organic and regenerative methods to support soil and ecosystem health, and support the health of their workers. As florists, it is our responsibility to see our role in the evolving climate crisis, and to use our artistry to guide and inform more responsible choices that, we argue, are even more beautiful than what the boxed, standardized blooms from a wholesaler could offer. That said, there are certain seasonal constraints that will require ordering flowers from national/international sources, but our expertise allows us to make balanced and informed decisions with the guideposts of sustainability ever-present and evolving.
Choosing your bouquets and personals:
These items are fairly straightforward to select, based on the size of your wedding party and other important guests who are involved in your ceremony or seated in a place of importance. It is traditional for each bridesmaid to hold a bouquet, to complement the one carried by the Bride. It is customary for the Groom and Groomsmen to wear boutonnieres. It is also typical for the fathers to wear boutonnieres, along with other suit-wearing participants in the ceremony you’d like to dignify with flowers, like the officiant or ring bearer. We always design the Groom’s boutonniere to be a little different from the rest. Corsages are typically worn by mothers, grandmothers, or other special ladies you’d like to honor at your ceremony.
Choosing your centerpieces:
Deciding on the size and quantities of centerpieces and other arrangements you need is a little less straightforward. We recommend printing out your wedding layout or drawing a little map so you can better visualize where the arrangements will go and how many you need, rather than guessing on quantities. We’ve created the products to be versatile and easy to plug in to most any layout, but if you are uncomfortable deciding, this is a great task for a wedding planner.
For our centerpieces, we’ve designed two shape options: a bowl for round tables, and a trough for long tables. If you are piecing together a series of rectangular tables to make a very long table, you can space the long arrangements out however you see fit, based on your budget and desired fullness — they can be centered on each table, or situated on the seams that join each table. You can easily pair these centerpieces with the candles of your choice, or mix them with our bud vases. The long centerpiece really only works on long tables, but you could use the round arrangement on long tables in addition to round tables if you prefer that shape. These centerpieces could also be used as focal points on large open surfaces like bars, coffee tables, and buffet tables.
The small arrangements are a great floral accent for additional surfaces like dessert, gift, and welcome tables, as well as bars and powder rooms. You can also repurpose maids’ bouquets in their vases on these kinds of surfaces– just keep in mind that the flowers might be a little droopy after a long afternoon of photos and ceremony.
The midi arrangements are an adaptable medium size that can be displayed most anywhere you’d use our full centerpiece or our small arrangement. They are more contained in size and shape than the centerpiece and, therefore, friendlier to smaller budgets or larger table counts. They’re also a nice, substantial touch for bars, welcome tables, cake tables and the like, at about double the size of the small arrangements.
Decorating with bud vases:
The most common way we use bud vases is to adorn cocktail tables. A singular or pair of bud vases adds the perfect light touch, creating continuity between spaces without adding too much to the cost.
Bud vases can also be used in groups of 3 (in a mix of materials & heights) on the kinds of surfaces listed above for the small arrangements.
Finally, if you want a more minimalist approach to your table decor, or don’t feel your budget can accommodate a larger centerpiece on every dining table, think about mixing arrangements, bud vases, and repurposed bouquets or small arrangements. A group of 3 buds, or a staggered line of 5 or 6 buds mixed with candles, is a great way to incorporate budget-friendly flowers on your long tables. For round tables, we recommend a group of 5 or 6 buds mixed with a few floating or pillar candles at varied heights for a nice tablescape that will feel plenty full once the tables are set. Feel free to get creative with mixing and matching the elements we provide to suit your budget and style!
DIY Flower Bucket:
We know many people love the idea of creating DIY arrangements to help decorate their wedding for a lower cost, and our flower bucket option is designed with those people in mind. We encourage you to plan on ordering your more complicated florals from a florist (bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages and the link require real precision and craft). The flower bucket is a great resource for having a group of family members or friends fill simple vessels like bud vases to place around your venue. We encourage you to think realistically about the time and skill available for DIY florals on the day of your wedding. It’s best to air on the side of simplicity.
Be careful about the vases you choose when planning to make your own arrangements; vessels with mouths wider than a couple of inches can require more materials than you might think. If you plan to make arrangements more complicated than a simple bud vase with one or two stems, we recommend doing a test-run; pick up a few bunches of greenery and flowers from the farmers market, Whole Foods or Trader Joes, and get a feel for how much material you will need. Write down how many stems you’ve used, and calculate a total based on how many arrangements you want to make.
When planning for your bucket, we will order a little extra of a few different materials so that you have a balanced mix of materials that will be consistent with what we are creating for you. You can expect around 50 stems (5 bunches), with about 30 stems of flowers and 20 stems of foliage. If you’re just doing a mix of bud vases, one bucket should be plenty. If you’re building larger arrangements, you may need several.
Custom Length Garlands:
These versatile pre-made garlands are a great way to add a pop of lush greenery to your ceremony or reception. They can be used to decorate your ceremony site, be it an arbor, chuppah, or altar. They can also be used to line banquet tables, wire to a banister, or set atop a mantle. We will select a type of greenery that complements the rest of your florals. Make sure to precisely measure whatever surface you plan to use it on so that you order the correct length; they’re available in increments of five feet.
If you’re planning to hang the garland, we recommend doing so with either green zip ties or Oasis Floral Bind Wire.
Styling your wedding to suit your flowers:
When choosing linens and place settings, keep your chosen floral palette in mind to create a cohesive and intentional look (and vice versa):
- The Romantic palette embraces rich color, so in planning your tablescape we’d recommend sticking to neutrals or analogous shades (meaning in the same family, like blush or a deep wine) for linens. There are plenty of possibilities for lovely table setting pairings, from black to white, or rose gold to brass.
- We love dressing up the Nuanced Neutrals palette with classic white and gold table settings, but you could also embrace dark elements like black flatware for a more modern or industrial look. A dark hued table cloth like the blue-green velvet pictured is a nice way to make your lighter-toned flowers pop on the table, but neutrals (including navy or black) are a safe bet too.
- For table settings with the Sunny + Bright palette, we like clean whites or a subtle contrast through grey or silver — even a grey-blue — to really let the citrusy blooms shine. If you’re into a bold look, black flatware or plates would also be fun.
- If you’ve chosen our Florists’ Choice package, we recommend styling a fairly neutral, minimalist tablescape to leave space for the flowers to make a vibrant statement.
Vase return program:
For ease of ordering, we’ve chosen to build the cost of the vases into the package prices. This way, if you want to gift your flowers to guests after the ceremony or use the vessels for years to come, you can freely do so, rather than having to round them up and return them to us after your wedding. However, we realize many of you may prefer not to clutter your cabinets with redundant vases, and we will happily reuse them. If you live locally and are able to return your vases within one month of your wedding date, we will issue you a Wylde gift card for the total cost of the undamaged vases returned, which may be used to purchase our flowers or a seat in one of our workshops.
