How To: Host a Floral Arranging Brunch

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Using a flower frog, I created a centerpiece around pastries like cinnamon rolls, morning buns and croissants. It’s important to make sure that your guests don’t eat the centerpiece, however — especially around daffodils, pictured above. Make sure you do your research pairing florals with food.

Spring and summer are the perfect time to enjoy nature’s abundance of flowers with friends.

I love the idea of throwing a brunch, but I recently decided to make it a little extra special for my guests by organizing a flower arranging activity for us to all do after we ate. Flowers make everything more beautiful, but nothing beats the smiles and creativity that flowed while everyone worked on their craft. If you want to throw a similar type of party, I’m breaking down exactly what I did to host this intimate little gathering!

This is my take on a blueberry lemon vinaigrette salad.

Tip: Prep as much as you can the day before. I intentionally planned overnight French toast and a simple salad the night before to allow time for other priorities the day of my brunch.

Invites and Concept

To ring in the upcoming season, I invited four of my girlfriends to brunch to discuss our garden plans (we all love gardening and we wanted to plan out our springtime garden strategy!). As a nice little surprise, I decided to host a “bloom bar” in addition to having a simple, yet satisfying brunch menu. You can see the full menu to the right, but it really was a simple lineup of food! The “bloom bar” surprise was going to be the focus. Using my dining room credenza as the home for all of my flowers, I would set up a bunch of fresh-cut flowers, scissors, tape, and of course, take-home vases for all of my friends. The idea is that they each selected flowers they liked to create a mini-bouquet arrangement to bring home.

Floral Shopping and Prep

There’s only so much time to “prep” your flowers. My biggest advice would be to try to take care of your flower-related purchase the day before your event. Using buds from the grocery store, I shopped for about 6-7 different varieties, including filler like greenery. Some stems, like the ranunculus, were pricier than others, but the entire cost for flowers was somewhere under $75. Depending on your local sources, you can probably do even better! It’s always great so support local growers when you can. I recommend sourcing a variety of different flowers and and just have fun — don’t overthink it.

I purchased the flowers and put them in vases and jars from around the house a full 24 hrs. before my guests came. There, they awaited us in the dining room so we could all see our flowers and enjoy them throughout our meal before we got our hands in them! The house smelled so good and it was nice to enjoy the flowers a full day before.

When you get your flowers, immediately cut (on an angle) and submerge in water for freshness. Depending on the flower, some like certain special treatments (like a full dip in water if you have hydrangeas).

Other Materials to Consider

It’s important to note that you’ll need more than just flowers to make your DIY Bloom Bar a success. At the minimum, you’ll need some sort of vase or vessel for each guest. For this, I went to a thrift store about a month before my brunch and found some old milkshake glasses. In addition, I put out a few pairs of scissors so my fiends could snip and adjust their stems to their liking. Last, we used scotch tape to make a grid on our vases for easy arranging (this is totally optional).

A Personal Touch

For a hint of extra sophistication, I made sure that some attention was kept on the little details. I arranged a floral centerpiece around some pastries, made floral ice, and hand-lettered some deckled edge name tags on each guest’s vase. All of these small details made a cute impact and I think my friends appreciated and felt the love in these little gestures.

Shop The Look

Want to host your own Bloom Bar? Steal these beautiful staples from my tabletop. From your edible flowers to a butter bell, these are a few beautiful pieces that will last you years. Enjoy!

Ciao, xo