Lucy Vail Floristry is an award-winning luxury brand specialising in weddings, events and installations. Renowned for ‘bringing the outside in’ and their bold use of colour, they can transform even the blankest of canvases into immersive botanical wonderlands. They are THE wedding florist you need to know about.
At what point in the wedding planning process should the flowers be considered by a couple?
Once you have decided on the venue you are having I would start considering what flowers you are wanting. Before going to a florist have an idea on what parts of the wedding is most important you, where are you going to spend the most amount of time and then that is where you focus the budget.
How would you describe your ‘wedding style’ at Lucy Vail?
We transform peoples weddings into another world full of seasonal blooms no matter where you are in the world. Our designs are full of colour, texture and let each flower sing through sculptural designs. We are installation wedding florists that focus on taking your guests through a journey of florals through every part of your wedding. Our designs are natural but full of as many meadow flowers as possible enhancing your surroundings rather than going against it.
What are the biggest floristry wedding trends at present…
Floral archways, sculptural table arrangements and outdoor ceremonies I would say. Now that the summer is getting hotter more and more people are wanting to have their ceremonies outside. People are also starting to use more and more locally sourced flowers that are grown not flown – they have scent, bendy interesting stems and all round splendour.
What would your ‘dream’ wedding look like…
I would use as much colour as possible and create a lost garden in every space we walked into. Each garden would be slightly different and full of splendour and candle light. I would love for the main marquee to be a glass marquee and have man mad citrus trees growing up and around my guests with lots of hanging tea lights. My ceiling would then in the evening turn into harry potters dining room with lots of floating candles that would come down from my trees. The branches of the trees would spiral throughout the roof so that my guests would feel like they were dancing under an orange tree orchard lit up with thousands of little lights that would only turn on when it gets dark.
What are your favourite colour schemes for weddings at the moment?
Spring – blue, white and a touch of soft orange.
Summer- blue, pink, burnt orange and white.
Autumn – dirty pinks, greens and deep coloured dahlias.
What is your biggest no-no when it comes to floral arrangements?
Do not use Oasis as it is unsustainable and the arrangement look like balls with each stem looking like they have been suffocated.
Gypsophilia clouds may look great on Pinterest or Instagram but in reality smells so bad why don’t you try using wax flower instead? Use as many seasonal flowers as possible.
How can you make your wedding bouquet and buttonholes stand out?
I think for a wedding bouquet it is important to use as many delicate flowers as possible. We all spend so long finding the perfect dress and looking the best so I never want our bouquets to over shadow you- you are the most important and its the bouquet that should just add to the elegance so use little heads full of scent. The best bridal flower for us is a sweet pea, Lilley of the valley or sweet little snow drops in the spring. Button holes as well, stay away from the large headed roses as they just snap and are a pain for the boys to wear. Use something that matches your bouquet for the groom and varying colours for the groomsmen- use herbs, sweet peas, mini grasses and wax flowers.
What is your favourite flower?
I love a sweet pea for its delicacy, range of colours and most of all the scent. Then also I absolutely love an English garden roses as they come in so many varying sizes, shapes and give off the most unbelievable scent. Lastly for a large arrangement there is nothing better then Floriston flower farms Foxtails lilies, they are taller then myself and change colours as the weeks go by from orange to light pink, to white and the curve they have at their tips never ceases to bore us.
When it comes to logistics, how do you support couples with the set up? Any tips?
We build a house in less than 24 hours, our team is made up of architects, florists, set designers and illustrators. Flowers are not cheap for a wedding but people forget how much talent there is and time that goes into building a set in less than 24 hours.
The operations have to be so slick, for the V and A for instance you have 45 minutes to completely change a whole space and therefore the calibre of people need to be so skilled to create these events. We use large scale structures, buy flowers from all over the country and transform venues into an other world. For us it is so important to take away any stress for our clients and instead make the experience a lot of fun, we firstly always want to meet you in our studio to present our ideas as well as creating a mock up of your tables and then two weeks before we always send our couples a bouquet of the types of flowers they will be having. We are there with our client every step of the way and work as a team with the planner, caterer and venue to make sure all admin is handled by us and the fun bit is left for our wonderful brides.
And finally, what’s next for Lucy Vail?
I think it is our biggest year yet for weddings with the most unbelievable designs being created for weddings all over Europe this summer and autumn.
This October we will be going to Lake Como for an amazing wedding where we are absolutely determined to use all locally sourced flowers. We want to show that no matter where you are in the world you can always use locally sourced flowers. An amazing grower in Como is going to provide us with 6 other growers in Italy over 18,000 stems which are all being sewn as each design is signed off- it is all pretty amazing and I can not wait. The installations and designs are going to another level and the worlds we will be taking our clients through our out of this world incredible.
We have the most amazing team and I know an incredibly exciting future one that I know I can be very proud of. My team is like my family and one who with continue to inspire, create the extraordinary and have fun no matter where we are!
Discover more here: lucyvailfloristry.com
Related Article: A Guide To Fabulous Wedding Flowers
