Consider Seasonal, Locally Grown Flowers for Your Wedding
Do locally grown flowers cost less? The short answer is no.
But the long answer is much more detailed as to why. The reason why locally grown flowers don’t cost less is also the reason why we prioritize local flowers in our business. There are many reasons why you should consider using locally grown flowers. So let’s chat about a few of them.
Ethical Practices of Locally Grown Wedding Flowers
When sourcing flowers locally it’s usually a one person show, sometimes more or their kiddos that get roped into helping. Either way, they are providing fair, livable wages for those who work on their farm. It’s our friend, Laura, providing for her family and their children’s future. We see them playing with their kittens as we pull up to their farm on pickup day. Over the years, we’ve watched them grow up and held their baby goats.
Locally Grown Wedding Flowers are Better for the Environment
This is really one we, sadly, never thought of before we entered the world of event flowers. The impact that imported flowers have on the environment is substantial. There’s harm in shipping it by plane, truck, and who knows what else. All imported flowers come wrapped in plastic and in cardboard boxes.
Then there are the growing practices and hardships of chemicals involved. When we grow and source locally, everyone uses restorative practices that build the soil which builds the local ecosystem and helps the environment flourish instead of harming it. There's nothing like it really. If you want to know more about this I would encourage you to watch The Biggest Little Farm.
High End Speciality Designs + Locally Grown Flowers
Lastly, when we grow our own flowers and source from our flower friends, we get specialty blooms that are higher quality. This means that the flowers that will be getting their close up in your flower bouquet were harvested at the perfect stage and usually in our hands within 24-48 hours of harvest.
When flowers are imported their journey is much longer which entails traveling across the world, many days out of water, a higher loss of flowers, as well as no guarantee that the specialty items will even show up.
Sure, sometimes Mother Nature has her own plans, but locally sourced flowers are always high end. We can’t guarantee the dahlias will bloom on your wedding day, but we can promise you that something stunning in your color palette will be and it’ll be absolute perfection.
Since our business idea came from our very own garden, designing with seasonal flowers is our absolute favorite. There is nothing like walking out your back door to grab a handful more of dahlias or some cosmos to finish off a bouquet. It brings us so much joy designing during the growing season!
So that is the long answer for you! No, local flowers don’t cost less. They’re an investment in local families and businesses, they're an investment in the environment and the future, and they’re an investment in your wedding day. Next to your outfit, flowers will be the most photographed item on your wedding day. That’s worth the investment in our opinion.
Do We Use Flowers That Aren’t Locally Grown?
Yes, it’s unavoidable in a state where the growing season is only around five months long. If we work with growers that have structures in place to extend the season we might be able to get flowers for six or seven months at best. So we make choices that help us minimize the use of imported flowers.
When designing for any event, we go to our garden first to harvest our own flowers. Then, we get as much as we can from local growers and lastly we fill in where needed from our amazing wholesaler who can get us the prettiest roses we can’t seem to grow ourselves. Yes, we loooove our wholesaler too. They’re amazing and it’s unavoidable. We have a team that took us a while to find and we wouldn’t trade them for the world!
Remember all those cardboard boxes we were talking about? Our studio looks kind of ridiculous with all the recycling bins we have outside. Every single box is broken down and recycled. We also reuse them as much as possible too.
Another way that we offset needing import goods is that we limit our number of out of season weddings.
Are you ready to work together? If you dream of natural, whimsical designs straight from the garden and like what you see here, then we would love to chat with you!
Sparrow Bloom Co. is a specialized wedding florist that grows their own flowers, as well as featuring flowers from other local flower farms. We design stunning events in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and all around Michigan!
