How to decorate an event with flowers

Alice Groom, head of client and design projects at Lavender Green Flowers, shares her tips on how you can use your green fingers to make an event pop.

The trick to any successful event is to work very closely with your client. A lot of clients don’t really know what they want and are more than happy for you to come up with a concept. However, I would always advise to keep them very much in the loop from day one.

Make sure you sit down with the key organiser and gauge their thoughts; what do they want from the event. This is my favourite part of the project. I love to sit down with the client and brainstorm ideas, propose a theme and come up with a concept. I can get quite animated and this is where my creative side really shines through.

We love to set the bench high at Lavender Green Flowers and keep abreast with what’s in Vogue and suggest the latest trends. Corporate events tend to call for a more contemporary feel, so we like to introduce more interior-design led ideas, for example; tall glass vases with thinner bases, cages, frameworks worked around food platters makes the table look stunning.

The trick to any successful event is to work very closely with your client.

We recently worked on a drinks reception at the Serpentine Gallery. The function took place on a summer’s day. The client wanted the ‘wow factor’ and for this particular event we enlisted an architect to create a standalone structure that would serve as the event space.

This meant we had to work very closely with the architect to make sure the floral displays would complement the key features; the meaning behind them and how best to work the flower element into the design, without overcrowding it.

For example, to the back of the structure, a thin layer of water on the ground provided a fantastic platform for a number of contemporary displays. We placed pieces on the water using vases and mirror plinths. The displays gave the illusion that they were coming out of the water and with mirrors on the ceiling and a black and grey backdrop, this gave a reflective and tranquil feel.

Plus, with no spot lights on the arrangements, but just the natural light bouncing off the displays, it worked very well. It was a fabulous event to be part of and is a great example of how suppliers can work well together.