DIY Australian Flowers for Autumn Weddings

Creating a look for your wedding is a chance to express yourself and make your wedding not only reflect you, but an artistic representation of yourselves. It’s a chance to make your wedding uniquely yours.

Quick disclaimer before I continue: Floristry and wedding styling can be a big task in organising your wedding. I want to caveat this by saying most florists ARE worth it if you have the cash. When planning a wedding, one of your goals should be on making things as easy and simple as possible. (Canberra Events Management and Styling is my favorite provider for this by the way. They make styling so easy for couples who I have worked with.)

Because my wife and I are handy and wanted to keep money for other things in the wedding, we chose to DIY this, as well as signage, table settings etc. Please reach out if you want to hear about these things in future!

Because my wife and I did this, I want share the pros and cons from our own experience of DIY floristry, as well as drawing from experience working with couples who got paid floristry and those who did their own. We’ll talk about amazing native styled options for autumnal flowers, and finally, I’ll give you some tips if you want to get brave and try this for your own wedding. 

My Experience: 

Our wedding was rescheduled from winter to spring - say it with me: Because of lockdowns. While this was very disheartening for us, Spring meant lots of native flowers would be in bloom. An accidental W for us!

Quickly I’d like to thank my own Wedding Photographer, Andrew McNeill (Andy Mac Photography) for the images of my wedding here. He and his wife Ange are from the Blue Mountains like us, and did a wonderful job for us.

In doing our own floristry, we opted for a native Australian flower look. They tied in beautifully with the rustic appearance of our location.

For my wife and I, we scheduled time in the few days before our wedding to go and buy flowers wholesale, as well as family and friends donating from their gardens. This was a nice way to break up our busy schedule with something fun, yet still productive. 

To get everything done, The day before was a hectic whirlwind planned down to every 15 minutes of where we should all be up to. Our family helped hugely. This is my last warning: If you want to do this, you need to be organised, have the day free for floristry and styling, and you need help to pull it all together.  

The Result:

When all the hard work was out of the way, the results were amazing.

We made our own bouquets, boutonnieres and bought cost effective Ikea vases and filled them with flowers and greenery.

Having shot weddings just about every weekend on season for the last couple of years, one thing was distinct with my wedding that’s happened with nobody else’s - the scent. 

The marquee for our reception held a rich scent of flowers for the whole wedding. The sweet, fresh, beautiful smell of our flowers combined with the grassy fields and gardens surrounding the marquee at Lanyon Homestead. 

The colours were vibrant, yet did not clash. The easy thing with natives, is they often carry similar, analogous colours which work well together. (And they’re accessible!)

Now we know it worked so well to create that rustic look, let’s talk about our flower choices:

Native flowers we picked for Spring in Canberra:

• Grevillia

• Geraldton Wax 

• Protea and King Protea (South African, but usually paired with natives)

• Blue gum leaves 

• Waratahs (red and white varieties)

• Callistemon (red bottle brush)

• Eucalyptus leaves

• Banksias

• Wattle

• Kangaroo paw

Spring is always a time of floral abundance, but when using Native and South African Native Style flowers, Autumn can be just as good.
On top of that, Autumn can offer a similar climate with the trees full of red and gold.

If we did it all again, this is what would be in our bouquets for Autumn:

Banksias

• Proteas

• King Proteas (pictured)

• Eucalyptus

• Leucandendrons

• Geraldton Wax

• Waratahs

• Pincushions

You’ll notice that many of these are similar, because many Australian native flowers (and South African like proteas) will flower through multiple times of the year and not just Spring.
If they don’t grow in Canberra, you can often source them from wholesalers or florists. This accessibility, as well as the beautiful colours and tones in native style flowers, is why I’m a big fan of them for weddings.

I hope sharing my own experience and flower choices helps you make your wedding that much more special. Now get out there and make your bouquets and boutonnieres if you’re up to the task!

With Love,