Seasonal Design Highlight: Classic San Francisco Wedding with Greenery Backdrop Wall
In this Team Flower Seasonal Design Highlight, we're featuring a floral wall design by Busy Bees Floral, a wedding and event designer who prioritizes the desires of their clients. Busy Bees Floral can be found online at www.busybeesfloraldesign.com or on social media @busybeesfloral.
Inspired by organic design, Jennifer and her team incorporated gorgeous greens into a fern-heavy backdrop wall. Take a look at this fresh, relaxed wedding and read about how this creative couple made it their own with unique florals.
This wall was created with live greenery, completely foam-free.
Ingredients:
2 large boxes of flat green moss
40 stems Israeli ruscus
30 stems sword fern
30 Chilean feather fern
100 stems flat fern nephrolepsis cordifolia
20 stems English Ivy (Hedera helix)
20 stems ming fern
10 stems variegated pittosporum
10 Echeveria small succulents
10 Large Xerographica Air Plants
Process
From the outset, the bride and groom both knew they wanted this backdrop wall to be the main focus of their wedding day. They wanted it to stand out from anything anyone had seen in the past. The idea was a green, organic look like they had in their own garden, so we used ferns and succulents throughout the wall. In the center of the wall was a neon sign the couple had made that said, “This must be the place,” which is the name of a Talking Heads song that was their first dance! So cute, right?
Since we had never created a wall like this, we immediately reached out to other local florists for tips. Our focus was foam-free and ensuring that this structure could be reused for future events. Our first stop was Home Depot to get supplies.
The core of the structure was built with large pieces of plywood and beams on the side. We used a fence lattice on top of the plywood with the addition of chicken wire to ensure the various greens could be held in place, and the moss helped cover our mechanics. All the greenery was placed on site once the structure was put together. The final touch on the wall was the ferns, succulents, and air plants to add contrast to the green tones. The neon sign was the last and most impactful element of this wall.
Quick Tips
Make sure to stay on budget! Build a detailed plan for the structure, so you account for each element. Home Depot is a great choice for low-cost building supplies. You can also find recycled wood in your neighborhood.
Build it yourself if you can! Assembling is simple and is pretty easy if you have a power drill and screws. If this is intimidating, YouTube has many videos on the basics.
Hire an experienced freelance team to help on the day of creation.
Ensure that the venue will allow for early arrival so the setup of the structure can begin early. Timing is key!
Make sure you use products that will be ok out of water for an extended period of time. You do not want any greenery elements of the wall to die once placed. What’s great is that we were able to disassemble this structure and use most of the greenery elements and moss for future projects.
Photography: Melanie Duer Kopp
